i'm supposed to be in Lhasa by now, in fact finishing my tibet portion of the Yunnan-tibet overland trip which began on the 9th Oct. Yet here i am, in an internet cafe in Deqin, waiting without certainty for the tibet permit which already had been delayed for 2 days.
The Yunnan-Tibet overland trip had begun with a freak accident on the second day of the trip -the jeep carrying my travelling partners, all seniors of age 47-57 overturned into the ravine 12m below the road they were travelling on and they were all injured, save for the driver.The accident scene was quite horrifying with the car literally overtuned, all 4 wheels up, almost a third of the car was submerged in the river. The ambulance took ages to appear and by the time the injured arrived at the nearest hospital,(which was in Zhongdian aka Xianggelila} it was 4 hours since the accident. The hospital conditions were worse than the worst guest house i had ever stayed in and they had no blankets available to cover the drenched and shivering injured, nor wheel chairs, nor proper stretchers when they were lifted out of the ambulance. There was no assistant staff and it was the people from the travel agency who had to do the lifting of the injured, help out in the x-ray room which was not closed even while the x-ray was taken. The doctors smoked as they walked in and out of the x-ray room and along the corridors.The hospital does not provide meals , not even hot water and the doctors there only work from 9-5.Getting the insurance to approve the SOS flight to come over was another nightmare and EL spent hours throughout the 2days, night and day pressing the NTUC,AIG and SOS before they finally acted. Her autoroam bill will be another nightmare we have to face.
ELand i had put our trip on hold when the accident happened and so all prior arrangements including the foreigner's permit into tibet were cancelled. After the whole ordeal of the accident, we decided to continue with the original plan 'cos the refund would not have been worth it. However the permit has to be rearranged and there was problem now that there're only two of us. Given the tibetan unrest in March, security had tightened and the permit was more difficult to come by. We ahd given the agency a week to apply for the permit while we wandered off to Daocheng/Yading which was originally planned for the end part of out trip. But the permit was still not ready when we returned to Zhongdian 2 days back. And so here i am, not knowing if i'll make it to tibet afterall for time is running out. We were offered other options including using fake local identity cards but we shall see what goes tomorrow...
Although, it sounded a disastrous trip, in the midst of this all, on hindsight, i see blessings in disguise.The first blessing was the car myself, EL, and the guide were on was safe. The second blessing was the water at that portion of that river where the car overturned was not deep. The third blessing was the injured were pulled out in time by the driver;the fourth blessing was they were all conscious and none of them shed any blood, though they had bones broken at critical parts of the body and clearly in shock. The fifth blessing was, EL n i had our sleeping bags with us and this proved a great help in keeping the injured warm while the were waiting for help by the river, in transporting them from the ravine up to the road as well as subsequently at the hospital where there were no proper stretchers. The sixth blessing was EL , she was very quick in calling the s'pore agency, the insurance companies and the SOS even while we waited for the ambulance and her agressiveness and selflessness in pressing the 3 parties throughout the two days must have resulted in the subsequent approval of the SOS flight almost 36hours after the accident.The seventh blessing in disguise was that that the local passers-by at the scene of accident were themselves selfless in helping the injured instead of just looking on. Some went miles to borrow a ladder to act as a stretcher and to fetch a village doctor, some rushed down to help open a route for the transportation of the injured from the ravine to the road by bashing the bushes, some offered to call the ambulance for us, many went down to carry the injured and it wasn't an easy task. The eight blessing in disguise was our local travel agent,who bore all responsibilities and reacted fast by sending out almost 20 of the staff to the scene and at the hospital, the boss of the agency himself rushed down and throughout the ordeal, we saw the amount of effort and initiatives they took to help the injured including bearing all local
hospitalisation costs and the cost of 3 business class seats for the lady who was not accepted by the SOS flight, they also took turns to take care of the injured throughout the day and night in the hospital and truly there was no fault we could find with them. The ninth blessing was that the directors of the tourism board, the traffic police and other high ranking officials also came to visit and through their 'connections' the sending off of the patients back to Singapore was also more or less hastened........
Let it be
Looking back at blog entry on 8 Aug and the few before, i'm quite sure there's a great boxing team here in the dungeon. What goes on in the boxing ring is that basically you try to knock out your opponent with continuous punches,even after he appears to be knocked down, you do not relent but punch harder especially when he shows the slightest sign of recovery.The game is over only when he gets completely knocked out and can no longer stand up at the referee's counts.
i was an unwilling participant in a boxing ring, it's not a match cos i had no chance to punch back at all and every sign of recovery earns me more punches.
Round 1 (first two quarters of the year): knocked real hard. When i was about to show the slightest recovery, comes
Round 2 (in the third quarter of the year), this time,punched with 'concern'. Again i was knocked down, recovery was a little quicker this time 'cos i've a vacation to look forward too.
Just a day before i depart for my much awaited trip, that is today,again, comes
Round 3 (in the third quarter of the year, almost exactly a month after round 2), this time, the boxer's punchline (if i may use this word this way): it's his job to 'counsel' me, to fill in the report, to 'feedback' to the bosses about my 'reaction'....
whoa!! didn't know i was a guinea pig! what feedback, what reaction? He continued to rain punches in the same manner as the boxer in round 2;
his weapons : feedback from the poisonous tongues of my dungeon mates
i'm knocked down again, but the pain is much less now, cos i'm quite numb by now.
Let it be, let all the allegations that comes from your poisonous tongues be.
Let it be that i purposely do not acknowledge your messages, that it's my fault you did not bother to verify if i really received your messages
Let it be that i purposely issue clearances curtly so that you cannot catch it and therefore it's my fault you are unclear about the instruction and it's my fault you do not bother to verify the clearance again with me
Let it be that i purposely do not offer an alternate path for traffic when i'm 'up there' 'cos i have something against everyone of you and it's my fault that the string of outgoing traffic has greater priority for that alternate path cos it's meant for them.
Let it be that i purposely keep myself away from all your 'social networking' 'cos i want to cause everyone stress and it's my fault you have all this to say about me.
Let it be...that the boxer of round 3 is going to submit an adverse report and it's my fault that i couldn't master the art of 'acting' as i have aspired too.
Let it be that i'm a despicable colleague, an incorrigible employee, an irresponsible worker.
Let it be....let it be....let it be...let Round 4 and 5 and so on and your poisonous darts continue to come by when i return from my trip (if i return) for i'll usually return in high spirits, and it's probably the time when you would most want me knocked dead.
Let it be-my feathers, my beak, my talons be all knocked out.
Yet,
i shall not die unless i choose to.
i was an unwilling participant in a boxing ring, it's not a match cos i had no chance to punch back at all and every sign of recovery earns me more punches.
Round 1 (first two quarters of the year): knocked real hard. When i was about to show the slightest recovery, comes
Round 2 (in the third quarter of the year), this time,punched with 'concern'. Again i was knocked down, recovery was a little quicker this time 'cos i've a vacation to look forward too.
Just a day before i depart for my much awaited trip, that is today,again, comes
Round 3 (in the third quarter of the year, almost exactly a month after round 2), this time, the boxer's punchline (if i may use this word this way): it's his job to 'counsel' me, to fill in the report, to 'feedback' to the bosses about my 'reaction'....
whoa!! didn't know i was a guinea pig! what feedback, what reaction? He continued to rain punches in the same manner as the boxer in round 2;
his weapons : feedback from the poisonous tongues of my dungeon mates
i'm knocked down again, but the pain is much less now, cos i'm quite numb by now.
Let it be, let all the allegations that comes from your poisonous tongues be.
Let it be that i purposely do not acknowledge your messages, that it's my fault you did not bother to verify if i really received your messages
Let it be that i purposely issue clearances curtly so that you cannot catch it and therefore it's my fault you are unclear about the instruction and it's my fault you do not bother to verify the clearance again with me
Let it be that i purposely do not offer an alternate path for traffic when i'm 'up there' 'cos i have something against everyone of you and it's my fault that the string of outgoing traffic has greater priority for that alternate path cos it's meant for them.
Let it be that i purposely keep myself away from all your 'social networking' 'cos i want to cause everyone stress and it's my fault you have all this to say about me.
Let it be...that the boxer of round 3 is going to submit an adverse report and it's my fault that i couldn't master the art of 'acting' as i have aspired too.
Let it be that i'm a despicable colleague, an incorrigible employee, an irresponsible worker.
Let it be....let it be....let it be...let Round 4 and 5 and so on and your poisonous darts continue to come by when i return from my trip (if i return) for i'll usually return in high spirits, and it's probably the time when you would most want me knocked dead.
Let it be-my feathers, my beak, my talons be all knocked out.
Yet,
i shall not die unless i choose to.
Rebirth of the Eagle
Below is a beautiful slide presentation forwarded to me. It's a pity the author/creator is unknown. i really love it and so i hope its creator will not mind me sharing it here....
REBIRTH OF THE EAGLE
The eagle has the longest life span of its species
It can live up to the age of 70years but to do so, the eagle has to make a tough decision.
In its 40's, its long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey for food
Its long and sharp beak becomes bent
Its aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, become stuck to its chest and inhibit its flight.
Then, the eagle has a choice: DIE or go through a painful process of CHANGE which lasts 150days
The process of CHANGE requires that the eagles flies to a mountain top ............
there...it knocks its beak against a rock until its beak is knocked out;
after that,
it will wait for a new beak to grow.
Thereafter, it will pluck out its talons......
When the new talons grows, it uses its talons to pluck out all its aged feathers.....
After 5 months, finally, the eagle takes its famous flight of rebirth
is geared to soar for another 30years!
Many times, in order to survive , like the eagle
we have to start a change process
We sometimes need
to get rid of old memories,
habits and other past traditions
Only freed from past burdens,
can we take advantage of the present, and live life to its fullest.
My personal comments : it's a truly inspirational piece and i truly respect the eagle for its wisdom, its majestic stature and its ability to go through the painful process before rebirth if the account above is true. 40 years is already a good deal of time if it was meaningfully spent. Life has to be truly worth living for me to be willing to go through such painful changes, and at the moment i don't think it's worth it yet .
Updated 6th Oct 2008:
Thanks to Anonymous 1 's comment, i read from the 'snopes' site that the eagle rebirth story is indeed only a myth. (Still my admiration for the king of birds is no less). It goes to show how some people would paint a beautiful picture of life and spur themselves on with inspired myths to go through times where truths are dark and painful.
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