Tibet Hotel - Lhasa

... climate. After dinner we walked back to the hotel past the market area which was finishing up business back to the hotel. There is a lot of police and military presence here in guarding certain places and police stationed at points on our walk. We went to bed and Wayne was feeling slight aches already and it seemed the altitude was affecting him more than it was me. <br> Monday 9th November. A restless night for both of us with poor sleep and we dragged ourselves out of bed at 8am ...

... for the first few days, but that was it. Our guide suggested we drink a lot of water, and that really seemed to help a lot. Something to do with dehydration I think. <br><br>Tibet is truly an amazing place. We were only there a week, and I hated to leave. I felt I could spend the rest of my life exploring this amazing province. Sadly, with my limited writing ability, I cannot even come close to describing it. It felt ...

... with so many different types of Buddha&#8217;s, including the nirvana Buddha&#8217;s who it is said reached divine heights by consorting with nuns or other religious women in the temple. Let&#8217;s just say the statutes left nothing to the imagination. Money covered everything and was inserted in lots of strange places. Hmmm, maybe putting that sentence earlier would have been better. <br><br>After our earlier session at the Potala palace I was suffering from Tombitis and to be honest ...

... chest was going to collapse within. Needless to say, I just had the a taste of altitude sickness, I dont feel superwoman anymore. <br><br> We walked about ten minutes from the platform to the bus. I thought I was going to die, but I am more embarassed to stop the group and cry. Stupid. I made it to the bus. We were welcomed with the white scarf given traditionally to visitors. I began to like Lhasa. I learned "Tashi Delek" which means best ...

... the river at night. This was so spectacular and was a million miles away from Tibet. The local girl on the bus said the city had 30 million people, the largest by population she claimed. Big by any standards. Now staying in the Yak hotel. Everything is Yak. The meat, the milk and the butter which the people offer as gifts to the monasteries. They pour the hot butter from flasks into vats where candles burn in the solidified butter. Lhasa is 3700m ...

... by the Tibetans and many bold monasteries refuse to display his portrait. He does not presently reside in Tashilumpo but (aged 20 now) is studying in China. Tashilumpo still has 800 active monks. It houses the world's largest gilded Buddha, a Maitreya (or Jampa = future Buddha) standing a proud 26m high. It also houses the funeral stupas of the 4th-10th Panchen Lamas. Most intersting for us, though, was the chance to not only witness a buddhist prayer ceremony ...

... a stop to see a natural Budah that is carved or miraculously appeared on this mountain side in the 7th century. There are a lot of prayer flags, scarves, and butter lamps lit. Lhasa is quite larger and more modern than we thought, but a lot of changes have taken place since the late 90's. It is much cleaner than Kathmandu and the cars and vans all seem to be newer. The sidewalks are very wide and it looks quite ...

... sprint north, to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. The road straight through the desert was new, built by oil companies since my 1980s visit, and the fearsome Taklimakan yielded in 11 hours, not 21 days. On its northern edge, we came to marshland and finally the great cleaving river, the Tarim. If the Kunlun Shan doesn't look to you like the 'outer ring' of snow mountains, and the jade kingdom of Li leaves you unconvinced, and the circular shape of this desert basin doesn't reflect the ...