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October 2003 - August 2004

Tibet, part III

Brett Voegele
2005-11-19 14:02:35

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It was only when she started yelling at people, throwing rocks at them, pushing them down in the mud, crying, and breaking beer bottles that we realized she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. We believe she was 'protecting' us from anyone that approached or looked at us, but we could do without that kind of protection, and so lost her as quickly as possible.

The morning of the opening ceremony I bought a ticket - which, suffice it to say, was not nearly as easy as it sounds. There were many people in town, and many dressed in traditional outfits. I joined the throng of people trying to enter the stadium, itself a disappointment. I thought everything would simply take place on the grasslands as in the past. Anyway, there were a lot of police and military - some in riot gear, but they didn't know the first thing about crowd control. I was in a packed mass, kids were screaming as they got crushed, and you had little control over where you went - you were simply pushed along. I finally got to the stadium entrance, only to be told by an armed soldier in riot gear that I wasn't allowed and that I should go back. There's no way I could have gone against the crush of people, so I simply gave him a dirty look and walked past him into the arena. The opening ceremony had various groups parading around the track, including PSB and military with guns, dance troupes, monks, people dressed in yak costumes, motorcyclists, and horsemen. There were some speeches, brief demonstrations by the horsemen, and a performance by dancers in the extra-long sleeved traditional shirts. The latter seemed to bring on the rain, so most people took the opportunity to leave the stadium.

The following day there weren't nearly as many people trying to cram into the stadium, so I assume most opt to attend the opening ceremony and then show up again towards the end of the week-long festival. With the lack of people, we moved out of ...