Did you hear the one about...

So two Polish guys hop into a minibus with an Israelite, two couples (a Dane+Chilean and a pair gone Dutch), a Canadian, a big fat Greek and me.   Okay, so this isn’t a joke, but the composition of my Tibetan tour group.

One of the fun things of traveling is meeting random people and hearing their stories.  I only hoped that my life story would be just as interesting as theirs.

The two Polish guys reminded me of Laurel and Hardy – one talked and the other one didn’t – unfortunately they weren’t very funny (Poles have a strange sense of humor), but nice guys nonetheless.  The Israelite is the mother of a famous actress in Israel and could have probably kicked my ass if she wanted – she couldn’t join us further into Tibet because she had high blood pressure and her doctor back home suggested she not try to test the higher altitudes (okay so I might have managed to defend myself in Lhasa).  The Chilean-Dane couple is a species you don’t see very often these days.  The Chilean having gone to university surrounded by guns and violence and the Dane having forgone everything to teach divers the art of escaping hippos from Malawian waters.  The Dutch couple, one freshly graduated from university and the other still in university, has been together for the last five years and surprisingly were chatting with each other non-stop (they did however, pay for their own individual meals).  The Canadian, a man of nature, traveled through the Andes, Kilimanjaro and Antarctica all in the last six months and soon will traverse the Himalayas (he seemed to have shacked up with a hot local girl from every country in South America he was in – I saw pictures!).  And the Greek (we nicknamed her “mama”), well she was a bit of a pain in the ass.  She complained about everything throughout the whole trip and inevitably became the butt of all our jokes (she avoids us now as we bump into each other in Katmandu).

It’s been great hanging out with these people for the last two weeks.  Everyone had different perspectives about the politics and culture of Tibet and everything else.  Even the Canadian got me thinking differently about things.  It’s sad that everyone will be going his or her separate ways in a few days.