June 19th

June 19, 2007

First day in Tibet, it took what seemed like forever to get here. We took a cab from our apartment to the airport at 6am, the flight took off at 9:30, and landed in Chengdu for an hour around 12:30. Around 1:30 we boarded for Lhasa and arrived around 4:30pm. The bus ride from the airport took about an hour and finally we made it to the hotel…I mean hostel.

Today I learned two things in Beijing: when you look outside, it’s not permanently foggy, it’s smog. And fannypacks have made its revengeful return.

But anyways, so Lhasa, Tibet has some pretty great weather. When we got here it was a perfect 72 degrees and basically no humidity. Our hostel is right by Bankor Street which is a closed off pedestrian street with little shops and with sidewalks lined with booths and carts selling all sorts of stuff. For instance, you can buy all sorts of Tibetan jewelry, I’m assuming they are not real silver, Tibetan swords and knives, prayer flags, white shawls (to welcome visitors), and even silver fox fur, which I’m also assuming is illegal and endangered. So after walking around for a bit we found a restaurant to eat some dinner and I didn’t even bother looking at the menu I was so tired. When my dad ordered, I thought about it for a second and thought it sounded weird but didn’t say anything. When the food came, it was outrageous! We got dried yak meat, which is literally raw meat sun-dried which tastes sorta like beef jerky, but really bad. It was so dry it was stringy and had an aftertaste of grass. I guess that’s what happens when you eat natural grass raised yak. Hopefully next time we’ll get some cooked food. I had some yak butter tea, which was nice to try but I think I’ve had enough with 2 sips. It was buttery and salty and tasted like it had just come out of a yak. So unless I find something quick I like, this is going to be a weight loss program for me.

We also went to the town center where migrants come from all over to do these prayer things. They have like little footsies for their hands and they start by lieing on their stomachs on thin mats and then they push themselves up with their hands, stand up, and then they kneel down again and finally end on their stomachs again. They repeat this motion all day while saying prayers. Some serious religiousness and workout. I’ll be going back there to do some picture taking later on.

The people here are really nice and just want to sell you stuff. I asked how much this embroidered hanging was and the lady started out at 50, but the time I walked away, she had lowered it to 10, which divided by 7.7 is $1.30 basically. It’s a pretty good example of a 3rd world country, but we have cell phone service and my mom called us, so I guess not that far behind.

As for altitude sickness, I haven’t had anything, no headaches, no nausea. The only thing is a little out of breath when I walk too fast or when I climb stairs. So take that, klod!

I haven’t gone to the hospital yet, but I will probably in the next 2 days. If there are things in here that are incoherent, it’s cause I’m on 4 hours of sleep since Sunday. It’s 10pm here and I think I’m off to bed.

PS: the really cool thing about the hostel is the rooftop that has an internet café and these tables with swings for seats that hang from the canopy. There’s a perfect view of Potola Palace and the mountains in the distance. I’ll add pictures later. (Potola Palace is the main palace where the Dalai Lama does his official business and was built in the mid 17th century commissioned by the 5th dalai lama)