Red noodle cups

The road connecting Yushu to Xining (Qinghai) 

All over Tibet stuff gets thrown out of cars, busses, restaurants, garbage is often even emptied in the rivers.

I hate it, and as littering is so rare in Europe, it always takes me by surprise when someone just throws garbage out of a window. I will make however an exception for the red cups in which the instant noodles are sold. They look so happy in the landscape (if you do not look to closely).

West Tibet (TAR)

Reflect on Yushu

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It is only two days ago that two men self immolated in Dzatoe (Zaduo) in Yushu prefecture and it is only 2 hours since I saw the grueling videos of that on YouTube. I was writing a new Tibet travel log, but now I feel it is completely inappropriate to post that as these self immolations (in last couple of months almost 40 Tibetans self immolated) should overtake any other posts about Tibet in importance.

But since I do not know what to say  about the self immolations, apart from the blatantly obvious, I decided to just post some pictures of Yushu. But I will come back to the subject at some point.

I visited Yushu and Yushu prefecture in 2011 almost exactly one year after the devastating earth quake in 2010 which completely destroyed the city (please see one of my earlier blogs King Gesar).  This year I wanted to go back to see how the rebuilding was progressing but the area has been closed to foreigners by the authorities as there have been large demonstrations and self immolations earlier in the year as well.
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Bed time story 2, King Gesar

Not so very long ago, actually part of this story might still be unfolding, King Gesar was sitting on his huge horse and looked out over the main square in a very remote and high place. He was wearing his full ceremonial dress and that morning he saw how the people were waking up and started to leave their houses to take care of their daily business. The traffic was still slow, but soon all the streets would be filled with cars, motorcycles and people.

All of a sudden the ground began to tremble and to shake and the people started to run. The first cracks appeared in the mud brick houses, the windows broke and even the concrete buildings started to move heavily. Then the first buildings collapsed, not much more than some wooden beams and a pile of mud and sand remained, then the floors of concrete buildings came down, some chortens at the monasteries fell, a prayer hall collapsed. When it stopped there was just silence.

King Gesar was still standing and looked at the ruins of the city.

The people started to move again, started digging, finding man, women, children, some alive but sadly most were dead. The monks and all the lay people were helping, while it was very cold and heavy snowstorms blocked the road into the city.

Close to the city was a mani wall, a wall built of stones with holy inscriptions. It used to be the largest mani wall in the world, but even this sacred place was severely damaged, still impressive but more a large pile of mani rubble then a wall now.

Later on many of the people who had lived in the destroyed houses moved away and other people arrived. For a couple of years everybody lived in tents. In the summer the city was very dusty and when it rained the mud stood knee-high in the streets, the winters were very, very cold. A large road was built to connect this very remote place with the outside world. The road brought building materials, large machines and more people to the city.

King Gesar oversaw all the work that happened.

The new people removed the rubble, the street plan was changed and new buildings were erected. The city was build once more, but it looked quite different, and there were different people living now. They say the city even changed its name.

And King Gesar, the indestructible, still stands in the center of the square, one of the few survivors of the old city.

The main square in Yushu (Tibet)