Our Tibetan Journey
by Ashleea Nielsen

This is the story of the journey to film the documentary "Journey Inside Tibet". The stars of this film are the renowned flautist Paul Horn and Lama Tenzin, the Tibetan Buddhist Lama of the Dharma Center of Maui, Hawaii. Twenty-eight others made the pilgrimage to Tibet with them from their respective homes in Hawaii, Arizona, California, and Canada to this rugged, forbidding land, where the air is thin and two miles above sea level.

Three sides of Tibet are formed with the highest mountains in the world. Tibet has long been known as the Roof of the World, and it's capital city, Lhasa, sits at 12,000 feet. Since most of us were coming from homes at sea-level, these oxygen-deprived heights were challenging to many in our group,and some of us got extremely ill with altitude sickness. The group was traveling the challenging route to get to Lhasa, Tibet: overland by bus. At one point, we called one of the buses in our two-bus convoy,the Hospital Bus, because nearly one half of our group were suffering with altitude sickness. . When we made it to the 18,500 feet elevation, there were only a few there to celebrate the highest point we achieved on the trip. The prayer flags were blowing wildly because the winds were gusting that glorious day, but about thirteen hardy souls de-boarded the bus to dance around like drunken fools!! A celebration was in order, almost as if we had made it to the top of Mount Everest!

Most of our group would fall into the category of professional: doctors, therapists, writers, businessmen and women, scientists, producers, etc. Everyone of us though had one thing in common: we were each successful in our own way. Yet we participated in some respects in a different journey as our intentions revealed themselves through words and actions. For some, it seemed about shopping; for others, it was about fulfilling dreams and making videos; for others it was about adventure and making new friends; for others, it was about returning Home again.

One of the primary purposes of the journey organized, filmed and directed by videographer Dr. Tom Vendetti was to record Paul Horn in various Nepalese and Tibetan temples and settings with the ultimate goal of recording Paul in the fabled Potala Palace in Lhasa. Tom was successful in all of these endeavors, with Paul becoming the first western musician to record inside the Potala Palace. Paul's haunting flute music fills this documentary video with the life and spirit of our inspirational journey.

For decades Paul has transported his listeners via his flute music to other well-known sacred places where Paul has recorded, like the Taj Mahal in India and the Great Pyramid in Egypt. So the Potala Palace was perfect as the capstone of this career track and a dream come true for Paul who had longed for this opportunity for years.

The second purpose was to record the homecoming of Lama Tenzin to his native land, family and monastery after an absence of nearly forty years. And once again, all went extremely well, with Lama reuniting with his family, monastery and friends. Lama had left his homeland traveling by foot over hazardous mountain passes when still a boy after the Chinese had invaded Tibet.

Tom had arranged the most amazing tour guides for us. Tenpa was straight out of the movie in which Harrison Ford starred (Raiders of the Lost Ark), and it looked like Tenpa had the very same jacket and hat that Ford had worn in the movie. He had beautiful almond-shaped eyes, a quiet demeanor and the rugged appearance of a man who had experienced a lot of adventure.

Our other guide, Tashi, was so kind, lovable and so eager to please that our group fell totally in love with him. Of course, it didn't hurt that he had these huge dimples. To hear his stories of the road that we traveled overland from Katmandu, Nepal to Tibet was to understand that the man had already faced his fears and had been there, done that fear!! Tashi was extremely informative and never seemed to tire of our endless questions. He told us the history of the Tibetan peoples: the Tibetans believe their race to have descended from a monkey-saint and a she-demon, whose children became human from eating a diet of grain. Early kings descended from the sky on rope and returned the same way. Until the 10th century, the Tibetans were a warlike people, and the shamanistic Bon religion was the only game in town. Then in the 7th century, Buddhism was introduced into the country and the character of the people began to undergo a drastic change. Tibet became a nation of spiritual seekers instead of warriors. Monasteries were built all over Tibet, with about 6,000 monasteries flourishing before the Chinese invasion. The larger of these monasteries were like villages, housing thousands of monks. One child in each family was expected to be a monk. The monasteries were repositories of learning, of art and precious objects...all dedicated to the practice of Buddhism. The first Dalai Lama dates from the 5th century, with his office representing the triumph of the Yellow Hat sect over the Red Hat sect, which had supported a dynasty of kings. Thus, both temporal and spiritual power gradually passed from the king to the Dalai Lama.

Our group was made up of unique characters, and each one contributed to the experience of a lifetime, and our extended family bonded together in ways both functional and dysfunctional as most families do. Each of us related to the monasteries, the people, the food, and the accommodations in our own way, and the laughter and camaraderie was infectious.

One of the most memorable pilgrims amongst our group was Paul's wife, Tryntje of Victoria, Canada. She had founded the nonprofit organization, The Nana Foundation in Victoria, Canada which assists abandoned animals. She was a lively character to share a road trip as she was always clowning around. She loved to get her picture taken, so we have lots of pictures of her interacting comically with the Tibetans. She was very concerned about the animals we met along the way, and made it a point to check and see if the local animals were fed and watered. While in Katmandu, she took time to bring daily buckets of water to local goats that were tied up in the center of town. The Tibetans loved her! I went with her one day on one of her notorious shopping sprees, and I was amazed at her stamina, her ability to communicate without language and her shrewd bargaining skills. I was exhausted, but she was still energized! She won the award for being the most gifted shopper with the most unusual items acquired!

It was such a great blessing to have Lama Tenzin join us on our intrepid Tibetan journey. Lama Tenzin and his translator, Georgeanne Cook, are well-known on Maui as they run the Tibetan Dharma Center. What a homecoming it was for him, with all sorts of restrictions placed by the Chinese about his visit with his family. He was so happy seeing his dear brother and other close family members again after a very long absence, and his joy became the group's joy as we all participated vicariously in his homecoming. Lama never stopped smiling throughout the arduous trip, but he was also the first one running to get on the airplane from the Lhasa airport to return to Katmandu. Lama (or Eddie was what we called him while on the trip as his Western moniker) had taken a risk returning to his homeland, and he took off his robes and dressed in western clothes. He wore his Maui Tacos hat reversed and looked, perhaps.... semi-authentic! In a past lifetime, Georgeanne was surely an old Tibetan, but in this lifetime she's a gorgeous American Caucasian woman who has devoted herself to the Dharma. She was always upbeat and a joy to be around, and she was very helpful to us by translating the language.

Our pilgrimage began in Katmandu, Nepal where we boarded two fairly new- looking buses to travel overland to the border between Tibet and Nepal. Very few tourists ever travel this difficult road, as most choose to fly directly in to Lhasa (as four of our group did) as this road is known to be very challenging, and landslides are common, especially in certain seasons. Our guide Tashi told us many frightening stories and tales of the road. Because it's uncommon for tourists to travel this way, we were really scrutinized by the folks we met along the way. Our gaily-clad group must have been a wonderment, and I often laughed at what a strange sight we must appear. Those of us that chose to go overland by bus felt that this mode of transportation allowed us to see more of what is going on in Tibet.

We had heard so many stories of cruelty towards the Tibetans by the Chinese, and we wanted to see for ourselves, with our own eyes. Lama Tenzin was shocked at the desolation of the countryside, as he had remembered it as a green forest when he was a boy. Now much of the trees have been cut down by the Chinese, and the landscape we drove through was quite barren and rocky. I had imagined Tibet with beautiful mountains and green forests, so I was quite disheartened to see how rocky, dusty and desolate much of the countryside was. Of course, there were many in our group who were rock-hounds, so they had a field day! They lugged a lot of Tibetan rock back home with them as souvenirs. The only Tibetan stone I returned with was a mani stone ( a stone engraved with Tibetan prayers) that I purchased from a little old lady at the Tsurphu monastery. Then again, I didn't get to see all of Tibet either for it is a sizable country (about the size of Western Europe), even though it looks small on a map. We just got to journey through one small southern corner of a country that is for the most part disconnected to the modern world.