A Different Kind of Freedom - Kreisel Ray - Страница 16

By afternoon I would be beat, I often surrendered to a nap just a couple yards off the side of the road. It was not as if noisy traffic flowed by to wake me up. I often woke up disoriented for a moment or two, having forgotten exactly where I had fallen asleep. By the end of the day I would have put in eight to ten hours of riding, my butt ached from the constant pounding against the leather bicycle saddle, and my blood sugar levels most certainly resided in the “empty” range. Dismounting my bike I would try to set up camp. Camping near drinking water always made life easier, but if that were not possible, I rationed out what water I had left for cooking and drinking the next morning. Walking without tripping over rocks became a difficult task. I struggled against the hypoglycemic stupor just about every afternoon and evening. I struggled to pull things together enough to cook up a big cup of gelatinous noodles that would never really cook properly because of the extreme altitude. The high altitude lowers the boiling point of water enough that a pressure cooker is required to cook rice or noodles properly. With the extra weight of a pressure cooker being too much of a burden, my noodles always turned to mush. I chopped up pieces of pork fat to throw in with the boiling noodles because I knew that I needed whatever calories I could get. By the time that I had eaten the first half of this mixture, I could not stand the taste of the remaining portion. The problem was that I did not have a whole lot of choices when it came to what I had to eat, selection was limited and what I could carry was even more limited. While the water started to warm up for the noodles, I would set up my tent and roll out my sleeping bag. After I cleaned up a bit, I would slide into my warm sleeping bag. If I was lucky I would have a small piece of chocolate to eat, then listen to my Walkman-size short-wave radio for a bit. I had learned on a previous trip that “Happy Chocolates” were the premier chocolates of China. They came in small bars that I bought by the case, when I could, and rationed out during all the times in between. The Voice of America or the BBC often offered the only English language that I would hear during the day. I listened to World News, British News and cricket scores on the BBC. One night I listened to stories of how President Clinton wanted to renew Most Favored Nation trading status with China. The President talked about how MFN should not be linked to the human rights problems in China and Tibet. This was difficult for me to listen to after I had heard so many stories firsthand of how the Chinese police had beaten and imprisoned an extraordinary number of Tibetans. This type of news took on a whole new perspective when I lived in the area that was being debated.

I always tried to position my sleeping bag so that the tent door opened to the sky above my head. In this way I could fall asleep while gazing at the nighttime sky, ablaze with stars. Most nights while enjoying the coziness of my warm sleeping bag I looked above for the familiar constellations I knew from home, The Big Dipper, Pleiades, Virgo and Orion the Hunter. These figures linked me back to the land I had left behind so many weeks before.

Encounters with Dogs, Truck Drivers and a Cowboy

Just after dusk I set up my camp a couple hundred yards from the edge of town, behind some sand dunes. I could hear the diesel generator from town running in the distance. I set my watch alarm for 3 A.M. and went to sleep. I had gone to sleep to the sound of dogs barking in the distance. I woke up in the darkness to the same sounds. Every Tibetan town has its group of wild and stray dogs that roam the streets at night. I packed my sleeping bag up and got my shoes back on. The town of Drongba sat in a saddle between a high ridge and a sandy marsh land just as Jay had drawn it on the map he made for me back in Shigatse. I knew of only three possible ways past the police in Drongba. I could carry my bike a couple thousand feet [300 meters] up a 17,000-foot [5182 meter] ridge. This did not sound like much fun. The other route involved carrying my bike through the sand and marsh land, a seemingly painful detour. The last option was to just try to go straight through the center of town under the cover of darkness. One way or another I had no interest in repeating what had happened to Jay after the police caught him.

At three in the morning I figured that almost everyone would be sleeping, including the police. I started to push my bike in the darkness toward the town. As I approached the buildings on the edge of town, the barking dogs got closer and closer to me. The moon had not risen, so I could just barely make out the shape of these angry beasts. I slowly inched my way forward but the pack of dogs got closer and closer. I picked up a handful of rocks and threw them as hard as I could toward the barking. I kept trying to move forward, but the dogs blocked me. The dogs painfully made me aware that there was no way to get through town. I turned around and started to head back out of town before one of these dogs took a bite out of my leg. After a couple dozen yards, all the dogs gave up and went back into town, except for one persistent dog. I returned to where I had slept earlier in the evening. The damn persistent dog kept barking, 15 minutes, 25 minutes, I just tried to go to sleep and ignore it. The barking picked up, a couple other dogs came out to see what trouble their comrade had spotted. The next thing I knew a group of ten or fifteen dogs encircled me. Looking up the hill, I could barely make out the leader of this wild pack. I reached down and felt through the sand to find some rocks to heave into the darkness. It became apparent that the dogs had no intention of leaving. I put my shoes on, and put my sleeping bag around my neck. I only had a small three-inch knife with me, if they tried to attack me that was the only weapon that I possessed. I threw more rocks and slowly moved in a direction away from town. Fortunately the pack of dogs broke up. The same persistent one pursued me for another 15 minutes, before finally retreating to town. I climbed into my sleeping bag in a ditch off the side of the road. It looked like my trip may be over. I had no direct way through town. I could not deal with it then. I cried for a while and went to sleep. I would do something in the morning.

Without a tent to protect me the cold crept into my sleeping bag. Through the small hole in the hood of my bag, I could see the first light of day. I woke up an hour before sunrise. I knew that time was running out rapidly. Once the sun came up, the people in town would start to get up, and someone would see me. I left my bike for a little while and spent some time scouting out what other possibilities existed. The marsh looked difficult, there was no way to make it around the town before everyone woke up. I climbed part way up the ridge. It seemed steep but at least once I reached the top, it looked like I could just travel on the ridgeline and stay out of sight. I hiked back down to my bike and started the climb. I tried to traverse as much as I could to make it less steep. With my bike weighting almost 75 pounds, I was only able to climb about five feet [1.8 meters] at a time before I would be totally exhausted. I would haul my bike up the hill inch by inch, out of breath and out of energy. I raced against the rising sun. I had to climb high enough so as not to be spotted from town.

I collapsed at the top of the ridge. Clouds filled the morning sky. The sun shown from behind the clouds creating a brilliant orange glow across the sky. I moved along the far side of the ridge, out of sight of everyone in town. The path had a good surface, nothing that difficult, it was just that I walking at 17,000 feet [5182 meters] and I had only slept a couple hours. Fortunately adrenaline pumped through my body to make up for the lack of sleep. After another hour I had moved past the west side of town. I came to the end of the ridge. It dropped into another valley that went to the south. In my disorientation I could not locate the town or the road. I knew that I had to go down and west, so I traversed down the slope, sliding in the loose sand and rocks. Halfway down I saw the edge of the town and the road. A short distance separated me from the road. I cut cross-country as fast as I could, rolling my bike wherever I possible and lifting it over all of the rocks and ruts. My body and mind were quickly being worn down by the enormous amounts of energy that I had already been required to expend. As I got onto the road, I could see a couple of people who must have woken up early for a morning walk. I mounted my bike and rode as fast as I could manage. If they wanted to come after me they would have to chase me. I made it around the next corner to find yet another army building. It did not look like anyone inhabited the building, but a thin stream of gray smoke rose out of the chimney. I rode harder, to get past the military compound. With all the struggle to get my bike over the ridge I did not want to be caught down on the road. After another ten minutes, I had cycled past the last building. Just when I thought I was safe, I heard the low rumble of a vehicle coming from behind me. I ran with my bike off to the side of the track, behind a few of the larger sand dunes. The green Beijing jeep flew passed me. They never even suspected my presence. I rested for a while on the side of the road. I had some Chinese flour-coated peanuts to munch on. I needed something to keep me going. It had been the most demanding morning I had ever had in my life.