Lhasa - the return journey

Trip Start Sep 01, 2007
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Trip End Oct 22, 2007

Flag of China  ,
Tuesday, October 2, 2007

With our newly gained knowledge of extremely slow checkpoint time limits along with the fact that most monasteries are quite dark inside so difficult for me to see much detail we had decided last night that we would forgo the excursion to Gyantse to see Tibet's third city and another Yellow Hat monastery. The 180 km round trip with speed restrictions and visiting time usually takes between 3 and 4 hours which is on top of the almost six and a half hour journey from Shigaste back to Lhasa! Our guide agreed with us and said, based on seeing my vision problems, he had planned on making the same suggestion.

We had a leisurely start with a late breakfast and then set off on our trundle through the Tibetan countryside. It turned out to be an interesting and enjoyable trip.

We learnt that the current Chinese President, Hu Jintao, was originally the premier of the "autonomous" region of Tibet. We further learnt that, on his rise to president and with his knowledge of Tibet, he made sweeping changes in favour of the Chinese. This included having a hand in the choosing of the current, 11th, Panchen Lama who spends most of his time in Beijing and is most unpopular in Tibet. When the Panchen Lama does visit Tibet there is always a very poor turnout to see him.

Rather than waiting for the driver to choose some innocuous place to pass time we got him to stop in some farmlands so we could see some local life. Our guide quickly got the message and arranged another farmland stop followed by a stop in a village so we could walk onto a small bridge that crosses the giant Brahmaputra River and where we got to see and photograph some wonderfully normal day-to-day life in the Tibetan countryside. Relaxed Return to Lhasa
Relaxed Return to Lhasa
 We also got a treat of some fresh locally grown watermelon (YUM!), our first fresh fruit in days!

Next stop was the same restaurant as on our way to Shigaste for a repeat of the delicious "Fried Noodles Vegetables", they were home grown veggies and absolutely delicious.

After a few more stops including one where we had to peer from the roadside at the "Stone Buddha" as it was closed for the holidays(?!). This is an image of a Buddha which was painted onto the rock face hundreds of years ago yet still retains its vivid colours.

Back in Lhasa we checked back into the same room of the same hotel we had left yesterday, home from home with our great view of the Potala Palace.

To continue the consistency we took a bicycle-rickshaw back to our favourite restaurant for supper. The only difference was that, for the first time since Shanghai, we did not eat local food. We opted instead for sandwiches (with local tea) followed by apple and banana fritters for desert. Even though we have really been enjoying the local food throughout our trip and the bad ones are very few and far between, it made a really nice change to have a decent sandwich for supper.

Back to the hotel to pack and sleep as we had our usual early start to head back to China to the city of Chengdu.
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