Circling the Mountains--60 Days by Bicycle to Tibet

In 2004, Hsieh Wang-lin, a 24-year-old Taiwanese, traveled alone by bicycle for 60 days, setting off from the ancient city of Lijiang in Yunnan, crossing over 4,000-plus-meter-high mountains on the Yunnan-Tibet border, and reaching the "celestial city" of Lhasa. There, he performed the traditional Tibetan rite of "circling a mountain." En route, Hsieh experienced his own inner cleansing, finding himself on this journey of a lifetime.

After completing his trip, Hsieh spent two years writing Circling the Mountains, which chronicles his adventures and process of healing by means of this journey. The book has become an instant classic in Taiwanese travel writing, a work in the mold of A Steppe Story and Up from Poverty on Rock Mountain.

Hsieh has been fortunate, as a new author, to inspire this praise from Lin Hwai-min, founder of the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre: "This is the most moving Taiwanese book that I have read in the last few years!"

"In recommending this book I may seem like I am being a bit nepotistic, but after reading it through three times, I remained deeply moved by it. So I stopped putting on a show of impartiality," said Lin at a press conference launching the book. He went on to say that Circling the Mountains is not an ordinary travel book. The book does not introduce the sights or where to eat and drink and have a good time. Instead, its author takes the mountains and rivers along the way from Lijiang to Lhasa as a backdrop for his soliloquies, and for an examination of his own past life.

Hsieh's involvement with the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre goes back to 2004, when Lin Hwai-min won the Executive Yuan's National Cultural Award. With NT$600,000 provided by the award money, Lin established the "Nomad Project," which supports young people under 30 in foreign journeys of exploration. The grant stipulates that travelers must go it alone, living simply for 60 days. Hsieh, one of four inaugural winners of the grant, proposed a route that would take him from Yunnan to Tibet by bicycle; he was awarded NT$100,000 from the Nomad Project.

In the vast remoteness of the Hengduan mountain range, a solitary Hsieh took in the grandeur of the scenery. He, in turn, sent forth a wordless message to far-off places.

Ready to go

Before embarking on his journey, Hsieh met with all kinds of criticism from mountaineering veterans, who considered him a greenhorn: "Are you looking to die? You don't even have any experience in long-distance cycling!" or "It's too cold! You'll never make it through the freezing temperatures of Tibet!" Hsieh started his journey in wintry October, in part in order to not come up against the time period following graduation, when he would be obliged to perform his military service. However, when it comes down to it, why did he insist on this journey at all?

When sending off the dead, Tibet's frigid climate makes burials difficult, while the expense of timber puts cremations out of the reach of most Tibetans. In order to adapt to the environment and local religious practice, Tibetans will invite a red-robed "sky burial" master to feed the corpse to the eagles and vultures. While this may seem like a heartless practice, it in fact represents a final release for the dead as they seek the Buddhist Pure Land.

This was actually not the first time that Hsieh had embarked on such a daring journey. When he was in his third year of university, a failed romance drove him to seek a recovery in solitude. That summer he donned his backpack, bought a one-way plane ticket, and took flight to Urumqi in Xinjiang, China. He traveled through Yili, Tacheng, and the Tianshan range. While traveling, Hsieh hitched a ride for three days and three nights on a cement delivery truck on the highway between Xinjiang and Tibet, the highest motorway in the world at 4,500 meters above sea level. All along the way, in the grip of altitude sickness, he suffered vomiting, nosebleeds, headaches, and fever. After three months of drifting, Hsieh discovered that it was possible for a person to "forget the self." With this epiphany he decided that once he had graduated in political science and law from Soochow University, he would move on to study literature. This was also the time when he began to dream of visiting Lhasa.

In contrast to that trip, when he could rely on traveling companions, this bicycle journey was to be a more difficult solo trip. In his book, Hsieh does not shy away from an unvarnished recounting of feelings of timidity, helplessness, and fragility, a quality that makes Circling the Mountains a particularly gripping read.

On the tenth day of his journey, Hsieh found himself traveling past the great bend of the Jinsha River in Yunnan. This was during the height of the tourist season. The other travelers, seeing him on his bicycle in this remote part of the world, vied to have their pictures taken with him. For his part, Hsieh was so mesmerized with the scenery that he was delayed in making his way down the mountain. Alone on a strange road in this desolate place at nightfall, with sundry nameless and disturbing sounds coming out of the darkness, Hsieh's pulse quickened in fear.

Even worse, Hsieh slipped and, in his words, "fell off the path, bike and all, and onto a large boulder by the side of the cliff. My front wheel got caught in a crack in the boulder, but the back wheel and my two legs were hanging out over the edge." It was a 200-meter drop down into the ravine. Chagrined, Hsieh clambered back up, finding that his legs were trembling when he tried to stand up. Fortunately he had only minor scrapes. The gear-change mechanism of his bicycle, however, had been destroyed. All he could do was to walk his bike, step by step, for what seemed an eternity. When he finally saw the faint lights of Deqin County, he broke down and wept.

Publication date: January 2008

Forging on in the snow

On this journey of thousands of miles, Hsieh tried his best to adapt to his surroundings. He gnawed on dry foods, slept in simple homes along the way, bathed three times during his entire journey, endured a festering saddle sore, and wrestled fierce Tibetan dogs barehanded. For food, he shared butter tea, roasted barley flour, highland barley wine, and yak jerky with locals, fare that Han Chinese usually find difficult to stomach. Hsieh spent a total of only NT$6,000. It proved difficult, however, not to succumb to the environment. Once while in Tibet he contracted food poisoning, perhaps from raw meat, and spent three bedridden days suffering severe vomiting and diarrhea.

"I'm actually a timid person," writes Hsieh. "I was afraid to speak with strangers, afraid that I'd get robbed on the way, that I'd fall off my bike, and so on. But I was even more afraid that if I were unable to finish the trip, I would be pinned down as someone who couldn't take the suffering. So I overcame my fears and learned how to get along with strangers."

Apart from the physical challenge, this was a journey that would decide whether his life was determined by timidity or boldness. Indeed, each tremblingly passed test causes the reader to breathe a sigh of relief.

The author's style has a certain charm to it. Even in a strange place, with none but himself to dialogue with, he asks his imagined conversation partner, "How is this experience valuable? What can it reveal to me?"

In one such passage he writes: "You were fortunate to have journeyed to the borderline between life and death. You showed your will to survive (for in the past you had often contemplated suicide) in instances where you strove mightily to cling to life. These moments were like a primal affirmation, expressing how important indeed is life! Is death but a journey? You had no way of knowing, and did not want to spend further effort on this question. In the end, you came to see how frivolously you used to view your life."

In the end, what was Hsieh searching for? Did he find his answer?

"Each time I have gone to Tibet, I have experienced some unexpected bit of change in my life," says Hsieh, who is now in National Tsing Hua University's Institute of Taiwan Literature. He has seen himself go from being introverted to being extroverted, from being a person of few words to one of many words. "Maybe I was always like this. Or, maybe I have been creating another self out of these new possibilities."

Hsieh's bicycle, which accompanied him through many adventures, was sold for RMB1800 in Lhasa. This is the last shot of the bicycle, taken in front of Potala Palace.

Nomadic tradition

Hsieh's blend of wisdom, feeling, and contemplation are such that author Hao Yu-hsiang has declared, "Circling the Mountains can be placed with renowned international works of travel literature."

"Reviews of foreign books like to lavish praise on 'amazing prodigies,' and Taiwanese publishers have likewise often been too much in love with foreign authors. Some of the travel literature they choose to publish is actually not that great. Their authors are physically strong but mentally empty, lacking any depth of thought. Why are they so highly praised?" Comparatively speaking, says Hao, Hsieh shows an ability to laugh at himself amidst his suffering. His book shows a depth of encounter between culture, history, borderlands and religions. It displays vision and courage and a disdain for the trappings of fame and fortune that are rare for one of his generation. The work exudes a relaxed, natural air.

Veteran publisher of travel and adventure literature Jan Hung-tze further praises Circling the Mountains for "setting a new standard for Taiwanese travel literature."

There are two basic components of travel writing: the traveling and the writing. One cannot just have the adventure without the writing that comes afterwards. Each component needs the other.

"But apart from praising this work, I also have to pour some cold water on everyone's enthusiasm," says Jan, who is familiar with Western travel literature. For when Circling the Mountains is judged in reference to great travel writing of the past, overly effusive praise may be premature.

Jan mentions in his preface to the Chinese edition of Danziger's Travels that Sir Percy Sykes said in his 1934 A History of Exploration that the age of the adventurer gave way to the age of the professional explorer when the Norwegian Roald Amundsen stepped onto the South Pole. The globe had been thoroughly "discovered." All that remained was for the experts to provide more and more minute studies.

Others feel that the age of the explorer ended in 1953, when the New Zealander Edmund Hillary (who died in January 2008 aged 88) and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay climbed Mt. Everest.

Be that as it may, Jan feels that technology continues apace, long ago relegating exploration to aerial shots and satellite photos. In this age, explorers are often unable to show their true colors.

Adventures of the imagination

Nonetheless, the explorer is not yet extinct. Rather, through adhering to the spirit of going wherever there is difficulty to be found, explorers now use their imagination to set up challenging routes for themselves, from the remote reaches of the Amazon River, to the desolate places of Tibet, to the politically isolated and suspicious Middle East or China, taking up the challenge of chronicling "other cultures."

In 1982, the British writer Nick Danziger, with the support of a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship, set off from London on an epic journey. Traveling by train, bus, lorry, and foot, he traversed Europe and reached Istanbul. From Turkey, he traveled to Damascus in the Arab world, and on through Iran, very hostile to Westerners at the time; through civil-war-wracked Afghanistan; Pakistan; and then on to Xinjiang in China, at the time not yet open to Westerners. Danziger eventually made his way, by hook and by crook, to Beijing. In the end, passing through Hong Kong, he returned to Britain. Over 18 months, he had spent a mere £1000.

Says Jan, "Today's exploration is moving towards the kind of travel that allows no comfort or idleness, but keeps pushing you onward." Hsieh's Circling the Mountains lies in Danziger's tradition of "finding trouble for oneself."

When Hsieh reached his destination, he sold his bicycle to a young engineer from Beijing, assigned to Tibet. The man turned out to be somewhat of a counterpart to Hsieh, for two years later Hsieh would receive an e-mail from this young man, relating how after suffering the end of a romance, he had spent three months bicycling from Chengdu to Everest, and then back to Beijing. This episode provides a resonant, dramatic ending to Hsieh's book.

The torch of exploration continues to be passed on. As long as people go on seeking out the wonder and grandeur of the world, and have the determination and stamina to make the journey, exploration will continue. In travel writing to come, readers can continue to look forward to new views of the self and of others.

In the main hall of the Weise Temple in Mangkang, Tibet, an old woman spins prayer wheels as she walks. As she silently recites from the scriptures, each turning of a wheel connects her mind to the Buddha mind.

Hsieh took pictures and kept a diary all along the way. Yanjing was the first town he came to along the Yunnan-Tibetan highway. The local children were so curious at the sight of Hsieh on his bicycle that they began to follow behind him.