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March - October 2005

Intrepid Season 2005 - China, Tibet, & Nepal (part III)

Brett Voegele
2005-11-19 14:41:04

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for about 4 hours - taking pictures and soaking up the moment. The riders performed various feats during that time. First, they rode along and hung off their horses as low to the ground as they could. Next it was the archery competition...they'd ride at a gallop and try to gain control over their horse, and their bow and arrow, in time to shoot a small target. Last, it was time to see them ride at a gallop, hang off their horse with their hand on the ground and pick up as many white ceremonial silk scarves (katas) as they could in one run. It was a great stop, very genuine, and the kind of thing that one always hopes to encounter while traveling.

When we finally arrived in Sakya it was too late to see the monastery, but my group set out to explore anyway. There had been a festival in town that day, and so most of them ended up sitting around in tents with the locals drinking and singing until late in the evening. As it turns out that caused me a bit of a headache, but only because they were drinking with many of the doctors and nurses in town. Why was that a problem? Because at midnight I had a passenger approach me with the early symptoms of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE). Those of you who know my sordid history will recognize that acronym. I took him to the hospital, finally tracked down a doctor, and he was examined, put on oxygen, and sent back to his room. I simply sat awake for the next few hours listening to him sleep fitfully. Then, at 4 AM he seemed to get worse. I wasn't overly concerned at midnight, as his health didn't seem too bad, but at 4 AM he was coughing up a lot more blood, and it was time to get the doctors to make a hotel visit. They gave him a shot of dexamethasone, and put him on an antibiotic drip. While all that was going on I was once again jumping through hoops trying to get a vehicle to get him down to Lhasa. Finally, around 9 AM he was on his way to Lhasa and lower altitudes, and the rest of us were ...