Challenge 30: Place

182. If you were awarded an expense-paid trip to any one place in the world, where would you go? Why?

“The blue skies and the green pasture is something you cannot find anywhere. I dearly miss the cool trickling streams and the warm sun caressing me in the fields,” said my grandmother with a nostalgic smile across her face. “Do you know why it’s called Lhasa?” my grandmother asked me after a pause. I shook my head from side-to-side as I waited for her to answer the question. “Lhasa is the land of the gods, ‘Lha’ meaning god and ‘sa’ meaning land. The name is fit for the place as it is the prettiest place I have ever been to throughout my whole life. The weather is perfect throughout the year, not too hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter. What more can you ask for?” This is just some of the few things, out of the hundreds, that I remember my grandmother telling me.

Our home country is no longer in the hands of the Tibetan people. Now being under the Chinese government, it is very hard to get a visa, and the only flight into Lhasa is from Kathmandu, Nepal. Being an Indian passport holder makes it even more difficult. Having heard stories about the mystical land throughout my childhood, I have always longed to go there.

My mother is constantly arranging a trip to Tibet, but some member of the family or the other just doesn’t seem to have the time. This expense-paid trip allows me to travel alone and gives me exposure to different people and cultures in different places. I can go see the place for myself and how much it may have changed from all the stories I have heard. Until then, I have to patiently wait until I get a chance to go to the roof of the world.