November 18, 2004 - Lara and Chad

Lara is an awesome hiking partner. After blazing up any given trail, she often breaks out a thermos of hot tea and some tasty snack. A favorite snack is the delicate Japanese bean and mochi-based tea cakes that are shaped like flowers or mountains. They are both beautiful and a compelling reference to the natural world around us. In Seattle, we could buy these cakes at the Panama Hotel tea and coffee shop in the International District. Unfortunately, the local Japanese woman who was making these stopped providing them for the shop. As it turns out, these cakes are a specialty in the Kyoto region. When Tim and I went on a cycling tour of Kyoto this month (11.06.04 kyoto), we were able to scour the city and find four camellia-shaped cakes to send to her. Those cakes rode in my bike basket past ancient temples, around old ladies hunched over their own bikes, through a bamboo forest and then I hand-carried them on the train-to-subway-to-train ride home. I sent them by rush mail to the United States so she would get them before leaving with Chad on a Trip to visit Dave Kalil in Tibet. They seemed to be wrapped quite nicely when I bought them from the shop, so I hoped they would survive the rest of the journey. Well, they not only made it to the States, but then turned right around and boarded a plane for Tibet. How many miles of travel those cakes have seen. It's so exciting to have Lara in Asia now and to imagine what she is experiencing.

Guest Contributor Lara B. Kellogg - Tibet

It was the beginning of a religious holiday that begins with winter so all of the nomads come into Lhasa for the winter and are here for the passing of the holiday (a few weeks long). They look like such totally wild people. They stare at us and we stare right back at them unable to take our eyes off of the elaborate clothes, decorated hair and weathered faces. The other day Chad and I followed a posse of them around and ended up in monasteries that Dave had never been to, we went into rooms where 1000 butter lamp candles were lit and it was so hot and smoky I almost passed out. We met monks and lamas and hung out the rooftops with them overlooking the Barkhor where the pilgrims come and walk circles around the monastery that hold the Dalai Lama's throne. They walk circles from the left, clockwise spinning their mani wheel or take one step then bow down to prostration and then stand back up take another step then repeat the process. Some of them have come 2000 miles doing these prostrations for every step they take. Yesterday we hiked up to the summit of a holy mountain for the Sri Valak (new god) holiday. It was absolutely amazing! They were burning juniper on the ridges hanging 1000's of prayer flags and offering prayers to the wind. Chad an I were on a mission to summit each of the rocky spires on top and traverse the whole thing then end up in a town we call drip. (I can't understand what they are saying so that is what we call it) We were pretty exhausted after our journey!

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