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NEPAL-TIBET: First Regular Bus Service on the Earth’s Highest Point

Akhilesh Upadhyay *

KATHMANDU, May 2 2005 (IPS) - History was made this week as China-controlled Tibet opened the doors of its once forbidden capital to ordinary Nepalis, with the launch of the first trans- Himalayan bus service linking Kathmandu with Lhasa.

Early Sunday, Nepali and Chinese officials flagged off the Lhasa-bound state-owned Sajha Yatayat luxury bus with 40 passengers on board as scores of onlookers waved and clapped. The 945-kilometer long journey, for a mere 70 U.S. dollars, traverses the Himalayas by way of the incredible Arniko Highway that connects Kathmandu with Lhasa – with the bus, specially built for highland travel by Benz and Chinese company Yaxing, arriving in the Tibetan capital 30 hours later.

”I am very excited,” Sudarshan Karki, a Nepali businessman, with a briefcase in hand, told IPS He was wearing a light-red suit and a broad smile. ”Nepal-Tibet ties are finally getting their due recognition.”

Currently, the two cities are connected by Air China flights. But air travel is much more expensive and is operational only six months a year because of the high altitude and weather hazards. With the completion of the China-Lhasa railway, the bus service will receive a further boost as Nepal’s prospect as a transit route for trade between India and China increases.

Nepal and Tibet have shared centuries-old cultural and business ties. The high-altitude passes in the Himalayas were important as salt trading routes.

The traders from Tibet would carry salt from the salt lakes on yaks through the Himalayas before transferring it to mules, on arriving in warmer areas. They would then ferry the salt down south to Nepalese settlements. When they returned, the traders carried with them food grains and other supplies that were not found in the Tibetan plateau.

The trade continued right through the year except in the winter when the passes were buried deep in the snow and movements became impossible.

Currently, Nepal-Tibet trade is based on a system of international barter though two sides agreed in 1992 to promote cash trade as well. That year, an agreement was signed between national Nepal Rastra Bank and the People’s Bank of China for encouraging cash transactions. The Nepal Bank Ltd. and the Bank of China, Tibet branch, have been authorised to open letters of credit and promote trade between the two sides through banking channels.

Already, tourism entrepreneurs on either side of the Himalayas are excited about what could perhaps be a regular passenger bus service on the highest point on earth.

”The closest comparison you can make is the romance of trans-Siberian railway that you read about in classical Russian literature,” said Pemba Sherpa, an entrepreneur. ”It is going to be one great experience, travelling first through the Himalayas and then the vast Tibetan plateau in bitterly cold weather, which is only warm in summer.”

Bikash Rauniar, a photojournalist who traveled to Tibet four years ago, remembers the long journey he made at that time.

”We made three night stops before arriving in Lhasa. Nelam, a three-hour ride from the Nepal- China border, was the first point, followed by Lhatse and Sigatse,” he said.

“The Tibetan settlements were acutely short of water and the journey was very tiring,” reminisced Rauniar as he took pictures of a mother and daughter waiting outside the bus. ”But the travel was worth it for the sheer visual pleasure and the pictures I was able to take. It was strange – the Himalayas look so high up from this side (from the south in Nepal). In Tibet, they are at eye-level.”

Following its consolidation of power in 1949, the Chinese communists invaded Tibet and illegally annexed it to China, and giving it the misnomer of an ”autonomous region”. Since the brutal invasion, more than a million Tibetans have lost their lives. Unknown numbers are in prison for crimes such as peacefully opposing China’s rule over the once sovereign country.

The people of Tibet rose up against the brutal Chinese occupation in 1959. This resulted in a mass slaughter of innocent Tibetans, including hundreds, perhaps thousands, who were simply trying to escape by crossing the Himalayas into Nepal or India.

Since the strengthening of trade ties between Kathmandu and Beijing, the Nepali government stopped granting legal refugee status to Tibetans who had arrived from Tibet after December 1989.

Now Tibetans arriving in Nepal are considered illegal immigrants if they do not have a visa and many have been forcibly deported back across the border.

According to human rights activists, it has become increasingly difficult for Tibetans from central Tibet, particularly Lhasa, to obtain passports in recent years, although it is still possible for them to do so if they have good connections with well-placed officials or are able to afford bribes to pass onto a ”middleman” who can obtain access to officials.

A Tibetan from Lhasa who is now in exile told the London-based Tibetan Information Network: ”All applicants for passports and visas are screened for their background and present loyalty to China. Moreover, participation and support for the Tibetan cause is the deciding factor; one family member with a record is sufficient to create problems for the entire family.”

“”If you are a Tibetan holding Indian or Nepali identity card, think twice before jumping on that bus to Lhasa. As far as I know, China regards us as Chinese (overseas Chinese) and may very well see our visit as returning back to the Motherland,” said an exiled Tibetan, who only wanted to be identified as Champa.

”They (the Chinese) certainly will not recognise your identity card and most probably will not issue a visa on it either. But you will have no trouble getting into Tibet, the only problem is your conscience, can you accept yourself as a Chinese? Can you accept Tibet as being part of China?” he asked. ”Whether you’ll be allowed to get out of China is another matter.”

Meanwhile, as the official function got under way to mark the historic occasion on Sunday, Ma Chin Xin, the Chinese driver who had drove the bus from Tibet the previous night, got busy surveying the 40-seater bus, its cargo hold, and the engine.

He was preparing the Benz-Yaxing production – with big glass windows, roomy seats, two television sets and a water filter – for a long haul. Now in his half-shirt, Xin was taking last- minute instructions from the bus conductor and Tibetan officials who would get down for a similar function four hours later on the Nepal-China border before crossing over to Tibet.

Xin will then take the wheel from a Nepali driver.

”It will be a 30-40 hours ride,” said Sambhu KC, a supervisor at Sajha Yatayat. ”We have been flooded with enquiries for bookings.”

(*with additional reporting by Sonny Inbaraj.)