Simple? I think not. First, the taxi driver "misheard" me and took us to the wrong airport. Puleez. I speak Chinese passably. Then, we didn't know which terminal our flight left out of. Neither did the taxi driver, of course. So we went to the wrong terminal and had to bus ourselves to the next one. After that, Travis and I were rejected at the Shanghai Air counter because "It's an Air China flight." But we had the same flight as everyone else, right? No. We had a different flight around the same time. We didn't figure that out until we boarded and no one else from our little group was there. And it doesn't end there because our flight was 30 minutes late and our connection time was only 1 hour and 20 minutes to begin with. We arrive with 40 minutes to get our TTB permits and board the plane. No one spoke English and I was terribly flustered. We finally found our stressed-out group and Katherine, our trip organizer, who promptly stamped our tickets and left us to the security folks. We were all a bit snippy with one another but when we finally boarded our (now delayed) flight to Lhasa, we calmed down a bit. We were almost there!
Oh my gosh, the approach into Lhasa was incredible. We flew in over soaring, snow-capped peaks into a dry, flat plateau. The highest airport in the world. I'm pretty sure anything in Lhasa is the "highest in the world" but it's fine. We found our group and bus rather quickly, after a scary missing-passport incident, and drove the 1 and a half hours to the city. We were not allowed out that night, due to the National Day Holiday security, so we settled in a very nice hotel and popped some "altitude sickness" pills for good measure.
Oct 3rd: Drive to Shigatse to see a monastery, eat some good food, and bond with our tour-mates, including a Spanish couple, an old German man, a German-Austrian ex-pat couple, an old American couple resembling Santa and Mrs. Clause, and various single ex-pats from around the world. All were quite nice and very impressed with our college group.
The group (from left: Nick, George, George, Anna, Forrest, Travis, me, Phoebe).Oct 4th: Drive to Everest Base Camp and Rongbuk Monastery (also the highest in the world). It was 10 hours of bus. Too, too, too long. But in all honesty, I've forgotten it, because the sight before us was absolutely incredible. We stayed in the monastery's guesthouse, a cement room with four twins and sketchy blankets. This night was the worst in terms of altitude sickness, with all of us suffering from delusions and headaches.
Wow.Oct 5th: Long drive home to Shigatse. Best sleep ever.
Oct 6th: Crap breakfast and drive to Lhasa via a glacier and holy lake. Incredible photos and group bonding.
Oct 7th: Lhasa Lhasa Lhasa. Now free of martial law or whatever it is the Chinese call it, tourists could freely tour around the biggest city in Tibet. I love this place. The shopping was fantastic: varied and cheap. Tibetans are a beautiful and gregarious people. Far more relaxed than your average Chinese. We visited the Potala Palace and Sera monastery and I took some time to add on to my collection of watercolors. We ate incredible meals in Lhasa which was nice because I'm sure I lost weight on our jaunts out of town.
Oct 8th-10th: Train home. 52 hours of close-quarters and minimal sustenance. Could've been awful but turned out fantastic. We saw the tundra, mountains, canyons, terraced fields, villages, and rivers. We played cards, read books, did homework, and chatted.
In sum, I am supremely glad that I went through the trials of planning and executing this trip. Tibet is a beautiful treasure and I would love to go back. I believe the Chinese are implementing faulty policy and it needs to be changed immediately. When people tell you that Tibet is "complicated," they are wrong. It is only complicated now because the Chinese extricating themselves would be difficult. It is simple: the Chinese control Tibetans' lives and attempt to solidify that control each day. Every developmental benefit brought by China is countered by a slow destruction of Tibetan culture and freedom. It is not, and never will be, worth the cost. I hope that our government can help influence correct policy, especially with our new Nobel Prize-winning president (wtf?).
Ah, yes China.There is much more to say, but not now anyway.
Temple walls.I'll link my photo album for those without Facebox.
love,
ellen
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