Last week, a friend asked me why I wanted to go to Tibet so much. She knew how crazy I was about this sacred place and how much I wanted to go there. I did go there, finally, two years ago before my graduation.

    Why did I want to go to that place so much? I know I just simply wanted to go there.

    But why Tibet? Why not somewhere else? Some part of me realized that it’s just because this place has become some sort of faith to me.

    When I first learned about this place, the first thing that attracted me was the breathtaking beauty there, the snowy heaven on a plateau, the golden top of the Himalayas under the rising sun, the pure white of Lake Nam, the reddish tan on people’s cheek. Every picture of Tibet made me so fascinated and I told myself that I must go and see this place. There’re a lot of beautiful places in the world, but it seems that Tibet just has that kind of magic, the magic that makes you never forget this place. In Tibet, the Buddhist word samsara means life does not end, you come to this life and die, but the life somehow continues. Simply speaking, this life is a reflection of your last life. I didn’t know what I had done in my last life, but I thought I had known this place in my last life and I had to go back there this time.

    Later, when I learned more about Tibet, I came to know the pilgrimage. Every year, numerous devout pilgrims start their journey from every corner of Tibet to Potala, the holy land. It’s not an easy journey. Every third step, pilgrims kneel down on their knees, palms together, then lay on the ground and touch the ground with their hands. Over and over again they do this until they arrive at Potala. This pilgrimage might cover hundreds or even thousands of kilometers, under fierce sunshine or piercingly cold wind on the plateau. They pray along the road, hoping the Buddha might hear their pleas. Watching the photo of those pilgrims in ragged clothes and the lines on their tanned face, I couldn’t imagine how tough this could be for a human being and what kind of belief could lead them through mountains and rivers. But it’s Tibet, it’s this sacred land. I adore this land, where people have the strongest beliefs and purest hearts, and I wanted to become one of them.

    Tibet became a dream to me. I told this to someone very important to me at that time and we made a promise to go there together, hand in hand. Though thinking back now, it sounds a little na?ve and too romantic to a 25-year-old girl like me.