CHENGDU, China — What do you do when you have two vehicles, a spare seat and hurt people beg you to take them in the other direction to hospital?

You apologize over and over again, explain you have to cover the story and hope that help turns up. Then you convince yourself it was the right thing to do because telling the bigger story of the suffering of thousands is far more important and worthy. Yeah right.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t slept for 55 hours, because of guilt. I have no idea what happened to those wounded … God, I hope they’re okay …

TOKYO, Japan — The scene is reminiscent of a public memorial to fallen star or royal family member, stolen before the public could let go: Mourners lining up to sign the condolence book (10,000 names signed so far) and dozens of flowers and stuffed animals surrounding the pictures of their beloved, lost one. A woman, arriving at the elaborate shrine, breaks down into giant sobs, collapsing into the arms of her husband.

Thousands have flocked to the elaborate shrine.

This has been the continuous sight outside the panda exhibit at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, Japan, after its 22-year-old panda, Ling Ling, died. The only giant panda that belonged to Japan, the zoo suddenly finds itself without a panda for the first time since 1972. And it’s why China’s President Hu Jintao’s announcement that his country would be gifting Japan two pandas is such a powerful gesture to this panda-obsessed nation.

To people outside Japan, the gift may simply seem like a slick political move. Send over a couple of fuzzy bears and presto, a nice picture for the evening news. But Japanese people prize anything that’s kawaii, which means cute, in Japanese. Stroll through Tokyo and you’ll see uber-cute cartoons on every corner, every advertisement, and on the clothes and key chains of most residents. Heck, even the police department has a fuzzy bear as its mascot, printed on the signs of all of its police stations. This nation takes cuteness seriously.

The panda, and the elderly Ling Ling in particular, epitomize kawaii. Throw in the fact that pandas are endangered and that’s enough to whip some Japanese people into a frenzy. Japanese government officials, noting the giant outpouring of grief over Ling Ling’s death, even publicly suggested a panda gift from China might ease their broken hearts.

It wouldn’t be the first time pandas have strengthened political ties between Japan and China. In 1992, Ling Ling arrived in Japan in exchange for a Japan-born panda to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral ties with China. But in the decades following the panda exchange, ties became strained and at the turn of the century, icy, over past war crimes and allegations that each was trying to re-write its history books. These nations have dueled over Tibet, food safety issues, gas exploration in the East China Sea. Japan, once the superpower of the East, greeted mainland Chinese tourists with a sense of haughty disdain.

But times have changed the world’s economic and political landscape. With Japan’s Prime Minister Fukuda and China’s President Hu, that once icy past is thawing to a new spring, say foreign ministry officials from both countries. The leaders inked a deal promising to work together and forge a healthier future for both countries.

And what more powerful way to cement this new phase of their friendship than with a pair of fuzzy, endangered, kawaii pandas. Just in the nick of time to heal a nation’s broken heart.

Watch video of mourners at the zoo

MOUNT EVEREST PRESS CENTER, Tibet Autonomous Region, China — After an eventful week, with all that travel at high altitude and hectic but futile efforts to find out what is happening on Everest, I finally felt tired.

Between cans of Red Bull and cups of instant coffee, I did a few live shots for CNN International on Friday morning and in the afternoon I agreed to visit a 1,300-year-old Rongbu De Hermitage Monastery during a three-hour organized tour by the officials from Beijing Olympic Committee.

The monastery is built on a small flat area in a slope about a hundred feet above the bottom of the valley.

It took me 15 minutes to hike up that little hill with my camera.  I was exhausted and regretted going. Once on the top though, the exhaustion melted away.

There was an immense sense of spirituality at this place and I was almost afraid to take pictures. I sat on a sun-heated stone listening to the sound of prayer flags madly flickering in the wind and finally gathered the courage and energy to film.

The weekend was miserable. When I stumbled out of our hut on Saturday morning I discovered to my horror and disbelief that fresh snow was falling.  The magnificent view of Everest disappeared behind a frightening wall of dark gray clouds. I didn’t want to imagine what it was like on the mountain.

I was busy with live shots and with trying to keep myself warm, which isn’t easy here since there is no heating around. I just put on as many clothes as I could and kept drinking hot water.

My problems were nothing compared to two other journalists from our group. A cameraman got a serious and extremely painful tooth infection and after an agonizing night (”It’s been years since I cried”) was put on painkillers and strong antibiotics. 

My room-mate was struggling with high blood pressure and low blood oxygen levels causing debilitating fatigue.

The cameraman since recovered, but our German colleague was evacuated back to Beijing. The rest of the group was holding on, struggling with ever-present cold and increasingly with boredom. There is not much to do — apart from waiting for the weather to improve.

On Saturday evening, Everest cleared for a few minutes. The giant has changed dramatically since we last saw him 24 hours ago.  Even in the orange light of setting sun one could see the fresh snow cover blanketing almost the entire mountain.

However beautiful, it creates serious problems for the climbers. Walking and climbing in deep, fresh snow is exhausting at high altitude.  Even more serious, fresh snow causes dangerous avalanches. Records show that Himalayan avalanches killed hundreds in a century of climbing here.

There is even more snow on the ground on Sunday morning. 

Expedition spokesman Zhang Zhijian shyly admitted during the regular morning press conference that the climbing on the mountain had stalled due to bad weather. He had no information about the weather forecast for future days. 

Although it became sunny in the afternoon, Everest remained hidden behind clouds and in the evening, the snowfall returned back to the valley and began covering the Media Center again. The temperature was dropping not only outside. Long faces of the trip organizers and of some of the journalists during Sunday dinner spoke volumes about the weather concerns.

One person who remained optimistic was a Chinese experienced climber and an official adviser to the expedition, Liu Jia. “I would not even consider it a storm,” he told me that day in a filmed interview. “I do not think it will affect the climbing activity too much and for too long.” he added. 

After filming we chatted a little bit longer when he said: “According to my experience, if there is a lot of snow, there will be a big break after and it can create good opportunity to climb to the top.”

The next day we woke up to a gorgeous, bright sunny morning. 

MOUNT EVEREST PRESS CENTER, Tibet Autonomous Region, China — I am sure I remember correctly that during the initial meeting regarding this trip somebody mentioned showers and hot water. Or I saw it somewhere written in the paperwork we got. But then, maybe my memory is going. There are no showers and only little hot water.We wash ourselves in small plastic washbasins with water from thermoses. It reminds of the times when I was with the U.S. Marines in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in January 2002. Only then it was worse; no washbasins and no thermoses, only freezing bottled water.

Perhaps I should come back here one day.

Another journalist here got a case of high altitude sickness and had to spend big portion of Thursday in an oxygen chamber. The rest of us are holding on. Although long working hours, compounded by the difficulties of working in high altitudes and restless freezing nights are starting to show. With thick layers of sun cream on our faces, the Media Camp looks to be filled with walking zombies. We are checked every day by a Chinese doctor provided by the organizers of the trip. My blood oxygen levels are steadily above 80 percent which is considered excellent. (The levels of the journalist who ended up in the oxygen chamber were 55 percent.)

After morning live shots I joined the rest of the journalists for a regular 11 a.m. press briefing. I did not expect much since we have not learned anything useful yet at these meetings. But I was mistaken. The organizers introduced three climbers who had climbed Everest before. They talked to us about the climb itself and about the current conditions on the mountain.

One of them was Chinese climber Sun Bin. Not only did he successfully climb Everest last year, he was also one of the climbers who tested the special Olympic Torch for this year. Now he is a team leader of Mt. Qomolangma torch relay. After days of excuses from the officials, Bin was a breath of fresh air. He is mild mannered and modest, but charismatic. He answered our questions with patience openly and honestly. How little does it take to make us happy?

Bin informed us that the torch is still in an advanced base camp 6,400 meters above sea level. The climbers are waiting for better weather. When I pointed out of the window at the spotless azure sky and sun-bathed Everest, he said that the climbers needed a window of at least four days to get safely up and down. “We don’t have that guarantee at the moment,” he added. Sure enough, around 2 p.m., the mountain disappeared in dark clouds. Even the temperature in the Media Center dropped drastically. Everest was battered by a snowstorm.

Resourceful Bin said that the torch expedition leaders had not yet decided who would carry the torch to the summit. “They have a pool of some 30 very strong climbers who can do it. There are several Tibetan women among them,” he explained. When I asked him if there is a big competition among the climbers to get the spot he answered: “Not really. They all realize the importance of the task and they know that they can only achieve it as a team. They are supporting each other.”

When asked about difficulties of the ascent, he admitted that it is hard, very hard, no matter how good and advanced equipment you have. And it is dangerous. “I saw seven dead bodies on my way up. You do not think about it. They are objects just like stones. You do not have the energy to think about it. You have enough problems of your own,” Bin remembers.

Then he showed us on a big screen some 200 pictures of his successful ascent. Exciting, beautiful pictures.

They reminded me why I started climbing 30 years ago and continued through injuries or encounters with avalanches. The presentation also started an itch. Perhaps I should come back here one day, but not as a journalist.

Watch my latest report in video

MOUNT EVEREST PRESS CENTER, Tibet Autonomous Region, China — Perhaps the most difficult thing here at the Media Center at Mount Everest base camp is to climb out of a warm sleeping bag into the freezing air every morning. What helps me is a thought of a cup of instant coffee, which I prepare from hot water provided to us in a Thermos.  After filming a sunrise, and breakfast, I continue filming our life in a camp. The idea is to produce some sort of video chronicle of the whole trip. Most of the journalists are busy with their work but a few managed to go for an arranged supervised visit to a monastery, the highest in the world. We are not allowed to go alone.

At 11 a.m. there is a regular press briefing. Trying to get any meaningful information is like pulling teeth. Despite heavy questioning from the Western media, once again, there is no word about the whereabouts of the torch. Security measures are one thing but a complete information blackout is quite another.

It is not a Chinese military exercise; it is an event the world deserves to know about. While I understand and appreciate the concern of Chinese authorities after the torch fiascos in London, Paris and San Francisco, I think that keeping the torch climb secret is counterproductive.

I talked to quite a few people around the globe during the past few months about the issue of the torch coming up Qomolangma. And many of them, even those who do not agree with Chinese policies in Tibet, thought that the torch reaching the top of the world is a cool idea. The world is interested, the world is watching, and concealing the information just does not look good.

Wednesday 2 p.m.

The moment we are all waiting for. The organized trip to the base camp. We are packed aboard two buses and start climbing some 50 vertical meters on a 5-kilometer road to the camp. First we pass a security check manned by Chinese police armed with AK 47-type weapons. It’s hard to miss the hundreds of tents and trucks belonging to the Chinese border military as we approach the base camp.

Finally we arrive at the wide open space which climbers unflatteringly refer to as a “gravel pit.” Usually it is dotted with hundreds of colorful tents from climbing and trekking expeditions around the world.

This time there are dozens of green tents of the torch expedition, neatly organized into a small city, and, yes, more military tents. But most of the camp area is empty.

We are greeted by Zhijian Zhang of the Chinese Mountaineering Association who lectures us on Everest’s history, adding that the Olympics and climbing strengthen friendship between nations. When I ask him why no other expeditions on the mountain have been allowed he smiles: “With regards to the fragile environment and because of the limited space capacity in the base camp, we were forced to close Qomolangma to other expeditions. We had no choice.”

Then we finally hear word of the torch’s whereabouts. The chief of the base camp weather center tells us that the torch is at the advanced base camp at 6,400 meters (20,997 feet), awaiting better weather before being taken higher. We were in shock and awe. After days of blackout we are finally getting proper information. I immediately call CNN in Hong Kong: “We found the torch!”

After that things get better and better. Next we are taken to a tent of the Chinese Space and Industry Agency which helped to develop the torch and is responsible for its maintenance. There are several torches being taken up the mountain as back-up and we are allowed to touch one. It took two years to engineer a torch with a special solid fuel which enables the flame to burn at high altitude with little oxygen.

The Olympic flame will be carried in a couple of lanterns similar to those in which the flame is transported on the planes. When the climbers reach the summit the torch will be lit. The fuel lasts for 7-10 minutes and, weather permitting, the organizers hope that several will be lit and carried in the summit in a symbolic relay.

If the team reaches the summit at dawn — as it often is the case on Everest — the pictures should be dramatic and spectacular.

The temporary studios of China Central Television are the next stop on our base camp tour. The studios in cupola-style tents can also be used by foreign journalists for a hefty satellite fee of $2,000 per 10 minutes.

But because of some logistical glitch it is almost impossible for us to reach the studios when we need to because we do not have the right permits to travel between the media center and the base camp. Nobody is happy: some of us cannot do our work properly and CCTV is losing a lot of money due to lost bookings.

So, a good day. For the first time in six days we have something to report. We have concrete information and good pictures. Everybody is up late filing stories. The camp doctor is worried: “You were working very hard all afternoon at high altitude. You should rest now.” There is no time. Plus I feel great.

I am finally finished at three in the morning. Although exhausted I cannot sleep. The strong freezing wind is hauling outside and the temperature in the hut is way below zero Celsius. I am used to sleeping bags but for some reason tonight I feel claustrophobic and short of breath. Only when I pull my arms out of the bag I feel better. But then I am freezing within moments. I prefer cold to the feeling of not being able to breath.

Somehow I fall asleep. The mobile phone alarm wakes me up three hours later. I hope the water in the Thermos is still hot.

MOUNT EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet Autonomous Region, China — After the first night at the media center near Mount Everest’s base camp, we woke up to a freezing morning. Fortunately the sun quickly warms up the air. One journalist had to be taken to lower altitudes late last night. Our colleague from Hong Kong got a severe case of altitude sickness and had to be evacuated. As if that was not enough, the ambulance that was transporting him turned over. An accompanying nurse suffered a cut to her head, and the journalist is now recovering in the town of Shigatse.

He may as well enjoy his time there because he is certainly not missing anything here. The situation at the Mount Qomolangma Media Center came to a virtual lockdown. Inexplicably, we are not allowed to leave the center. Our requests to visit the base camp were denied. We were also asked not to visit nearby Rongbo monastery. One reporter described the situation akin to being in prison.

A Japanese journalist, an experienced mountaineer, decided to hike up toward the base camp on his own, carrying just a stills camera. Thirty minutes later he returned, frightened, saying that he had been turned back at a gunpoint by Chinese police.

Even worse is the lack of any information. After a week in Tibet, all we know is that the torch is somewhere on the mountain. But where is it? Base camp? Already climbing? Where is the torch that the whole world is watching? Nobody seems to have any answers. Actually, at least one official does; at a press briefing, one official said: “We cannot provide this information due to the difficult meteorological situation on the mountain.” But the weather is sunny and clear. “There is a tropical storm forming in Bangladesh.”

But we keep pressing for the information. It is our job to find out what is going on and we have an obligation to our readers, viewers or listeners to provide them with reliable news, not guesses. “We pass your concerns to our superiors,” we hear the answer for the 100th time.

It is absurd and maddening. Why were we invited here if we are kept locked down? The original idea to bring international journalists here to cover the event was born months ago. I went to the first meeting between the invited journalists and organizers of the Beijing Olympics and the torch relay seven weeks ago. The atmosphere was cordial, friendly and business-like. Then came the March unrest in Lhasa, followed by the torch relay protests in London, Paris and San Francisco. The atmosphere of the relationship between media and organizers of this trip has changed.

The fact is, however, that the trip was not canceled and we are here. And since we are here we should have access to full and uncensored information. I tried to talk to one of the organizing officials in person, trying to explain that all I am interested in is the progress of the climb. All I want to know is when the climbers move from point A to point B; what is the elevation of point B; and when will they arrive to point Z.

“We are trying all we can,” she replied. Maybe they are.

LONDON, England – It’s said that there’s only one thing worse than bad publicity, and that’s no publicity.

Chinese government officials might disagree after the events in London today, where the Olympic torch relay was marred by pro-Tibetan demonstrators.  The runners were booed, demonstrators clashed with police and one man tried to grab the torch while another almost doused the flame with a fire extinguisher.  CNN were not alone in beaming the drama around the world, and it will have made uncomfortable viewing for the Chinese authorities.

They are fast realising that by hosting the Olympic Games in August, whatever goes on in China is now everyone else’s business. Their decision to send the flame on the longest ever global relay – some 85,000 miles – seemed bold before, especially so now.

I should mention that there was plenty of support for the Chinese on the streets – especially in Chinatown where the Chinese Ambassador Fu Ying ran with the torch – and my colleague Emily Chang spoke with some of them. They were livid about what they saw as the one-sided coverage by all the media, and while that was part of the story, there was no doubt about the main headline.

Picture editors will have an interesting choice for tomorrow’s front pages, in addition to the disruption on the streets, the British Prime Minster Gordon Brown posed with the flame at 10 Downing Street.

Pro-Tibetan campaigners and at least one leading British politician had urged him not to, and in an attempt to defend the government’s position, the Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell approached us for an interview. Live on CNN, she said that Mr Brown’s participation in no way means that he condones China’s violent behavior in Tibet.

Of course it doesn’t require a great leap of imagination to see the image being used for propaganda. To be fair, he was in a tricky spot, to have refused the torch would have been a serious snub to the Chinese; it remains to be seen whether such an endorsement will return to haunt him.

It will all be a different story in London in 2012 when the flame will be welcomed back for a two week stay during the summer Olympics. In fact, during the torch’s procession through Stratford – venue of the games in four years time – it was met with loud applause.

But if the scuffles and the skirmishes are anything to go by, it’s going to be a long road back to Beijing and the other host cities of the torch relay will now be bracing themselves. Chinese organisers must wish they can stick it on a plane and fly it straight back to China!

GUANGZHOU, China — We are here trying to get a glimpse about why exactly this yearly migration back home for the spring festival is so important. Being new to China, I really didn’t know what to expect about the restrictions on reporting, but after our nosing about at the factory workers dormitories, incurring the rage of the owner of the factory, we had the opportunity to exercise a textbook trick. When trouble looms, change the tape in the camera; they will ask to hand to them what you filmed which you will do kindly and they will get a nice blank tape. Everybody’s happy.

The next day, our producer decides it will be great to travel with the migrant workers on a leg of their return home. Rushing down the train station platform trying to keep our correspondent framed and being shoved by people desperately trying to get a seat for the long journey, I realize it’ll be tough. Not even five minutes of being in the train, there’s a heated argument on the other end of the car. Not enough seats, but I can’t afford to give up my camera’s position. A coat over it and a woolly hat make it look like a sleeping person.

Very soon, we attract the attention of our fellow passengers. Pictures being taken, sweets offered … the conductor fetches some hot water for our tea. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all. But the novelty and excitement wears off pretty soon: sleeping seated on a hard bench, with equipment all about you, waking now and again to get this or that shot … 10 hours pass – it’s morning and the train is stationary for more than four hours.

Pacing up and down the aisle, it seems like a good idea to haul our gear through the window (all doors are locked, nobody is allowed in or out) and hire a car to move to the next station. But we stick by, and 17 hours later, with intermittent sleep, sparse food and no more tea, we get to Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. At least I’ve heard loads of compliments about this province’s food. Here we’ll stop to send our report back to base, and rest on a nice comfortable bed. As we go, we see how many of our fellow travellers are bottled on the next train’s door … again, fighting to get a seat for the next leg of their trip.

GUANGZHOU, China — The roar beats like storm gusts against my hotel window. It is the sound of human voices. If they are using words, they have lost any separate identity. It is simply the sound of a crowd, the elemental unit of Chinese history.

Like the police officers who sprawl in the lobby of this hotel opposite Guangzhou train station, I am tired. I know from standing among the people, for days and nights on end now, that they are also, individually, tired. Some are spent. They stagger, some supported by others, some in tears, as they proceed from barricade to crowded barricade in their journey towards the possibility of a train ride home.

But the crowd itself is perpetually refreshed.

As each new few thousand are released from one barricade, to run with their bags for a good position at the next barricade, the energy and the sound is as urgent as it was a week ago.

It is no wonder the Beijing authorities fear the crowd above everything. It was the masses that brought the communists to power. The government now is barely recognizable in its policies from those Maoist revolutionaries. But they understand the power of mass emotion.

So, they have produced a troop surge. 306,000 Chinese troops have been deployed, here, in southern China. That is nearly twice the total U.S. deployment in Iraq. The soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army are fighting what Beijing is rather sweetly calling “the war on wintry weather.”

The people crammed and crushed against barricades are perfectly ordinary people. After four years in China, I identify with them not quite as a native, but enough to understand as perfectly reasonable their desire to get back to be with their families for the Chinese New Year holiday.

The police and the soldiers seem genuinely interested in helping them, to ease their suffering. Again and again, I have seen these agents of state security racing beneath the feet of a thundering crowd to re-right a toppled pile of suitcases, to ease pregnant women and children and the frail and the simply over-emotional to a place of greater safety.

On Friday, a woman called Li Hongxia fell before the rushing crowd. By the time, she was lifted clear, she had been trampled by people powerless to avoid her. She died the next day in hospital. Li worked in a watch factory in Guandong. She was trying to get home to Hubei province.

But by the count I received a few hours ago, 483,000 people have made it onto trains. By the surf-like roar from the street outside, many many more are still anxious to try.