The Best of Wanderlust (A GeoEx eBook)

The Best of Wanderlust

Tibetan Bargain with a Twist

head, and in front a few strands threaded through four small turquoise beads. A rough black sash with pockets hung over her pink-striped blouse and gray skirt, and a small pouch secured with string peeked out above it. Her son, who was about nine, stood silently at her side, a threadbare brown jacket over his red shirt and an unsure look on his face peering below the brim of his gray cap. Again I said, “No,” to beads—but I pointed to the bracelets on her wrist. She removed one: a strip of twisted brass, twisted again with copper and silver, and shaped into a rustic cuff. “One yuan,” I said, holding up my index finger. It was a ridiculously small sum. About 50 U.S. cents. “Oh!” She was shocked. Or she feigned shock. I saw that twinkle in her eye. She held up 10 fingers, no, 10 again—20. “Twenty yuan?!” I stepped back. That was 10 bucks—a fortune in backpacker-travel-money. “Oh, no, no!” I said. “Two yuan,” two fingers. She pretended to be horrified. Then she indicated “18 yuan.” This dance continued, each of us alternately pretending to be offended at the other’s offer and tendering a new price. We grinned, laughed, and settled on six yuan. That was fun, and I loved the bracelet. I pointed to another and off came the twisted brass, copper, and silver design, smoothed into one solid piece. We repeated our game, faster this time and with fewer dramatics and even more smiles, our eyes meeting with laughter, but we got to the same place, six yuan. Next I bought a silver ring. Our opening offers were not so far apart this time, and we completed our transaction quickly. ~~ Behind us, Lhasa’s denizens, nomads, and worshipers from across Tibet ambled around the “Old Town” section of Lhasa— the Barkhor, the maze of dirt alleys twisting among 700-year-

old stone buildings encircling the most important Buddhist temple in Tibet, the Jokhang. Many Tibetans twirled brass prayer wheels, small cylinders revolving on a shaft, each spin offering a prayer for compassion. For more than 13 centuries Tibetan pilgrims have reverently circled the Jokhang Temple, always clockwise, always with the temple off their right shoulder, each half-mile circuit a prayer. I gestured toward the procession, and my new Tibetan friend, her son, and I joined the throng. We strolled through the alleys, smiling, laughing and looking at stalls full of bells, prayer flags, saddle blankets for yaks and hand-loomed fabric in stripes of fuchsia, ocher, indigo, and emerald. Pilgrims stretched out full body-length on the dirt road, marked where their extended hands touched, stood up, moved their feet to where their hands were and repeated the process as they circled the temple and the Barkhor. Some used the same grueling technique to circumambulate Mt. Kailas, the holiest mountain in Tibet—a distance of 33 miles. We looked at each other and nodded with respect toward the pilgrims. Her son’s eyes, wide-open, followed a man who whirled a paper cone around the inside edge of a circular metal pan, accumulating white spun sugar with each twist. I bought cotton candy for the three of us, and the boy beamed. My friend led us toward the Jokhang, past a dozen Tibetans prostrating themselves at its entrance, and into its candle-lit darkness with the scent of juniper incense blended with the pungent odor of burning yak butter, the rancid aroma that permeates Tibetan temples. For two hours we silently turned dozens of prayer wheels, again and again. We were the energy source spinning golden cylinders engraved with prayers and sending those prayers to the heavens. Rejoining the circuit, we stopped at a Tibetan merchant’s table. The merchant spoke English. He had left Tibet as a child many years before, and now that China had opened the border

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