BootsnAll Travel Network



Tibet an occupied land

Firstly I want to bring my readers up to date on the status of my mother, my children took charge & rescued her from incarceration in the bowels of Brockville General Hospital where she was serving time in purgatory due to Ontario’s UNcaring Health UNcare system. Any one without mega bucks or a family to go to bat for them in Crapanada is “SCREWED”!!!

She is now in a nice new assisted retirement home in near the family, thanks in part to my daughters SIL who works there who managed to pull some strings. Guess I did some thing right in bringing them up.

The only thing left to say about Nepal is it’s only 3 1/2 hrs away from the border with Tibet & the 1st 1 1/2 hr leaving KTM is on roads under construction that are the worst I have seen. The infrastructure problems apparently stem from being set up for around 350,000 people but population now is 3 – 4 million (depending on who you ask) with a corrupt government that funnels the money away from where it’s needed.

That Nepal is an interesting small country where one can enjoy the jungle’s wildlife in Chitwan National Park, climb Mt Everest or do various treks, shouldn’t be missed if in the area but it is best not to stay in the Thamel area. IMHO

After the bone shaking bus ride to the border it,s off the bus & walk up the hill to Nepal immigration then uphill some more & across the bridge where first thing you do is go through medical screening for swine flu (thanks loads WHO for the asinine level 5 pandemic alert) then immigration & customs baggage X-ray & check then the same process with the police where all they are interested in is stealing your Lonely Planet China guide book because Taiwan on the map. Naturally I put up a bit of a fuss about this so have to be careful what I write here while still traveling in China.

A warm & fuzzy welcome to China!!! NOT

My plans for a 25 day stay that my visa allows have changed, think when I reach Beijing it will be a trip out to the wall then the 1st flight I can get to Manila, or not depending on whether or not Great Lakes College comes through on their promise to show me around?

So far Tibet has lived up to it’s mystic of being “The roof of the world” & just seeing Mt Everest, all be it from afar was just an out of this world experience that all 4 of us in the jeep expressed together “WOW!! Mt Everest I never really believed I would actually see it!”

Of coarse no one was prepared for the state of oppression caused by the presence of the occupying Chinese army + the police force made up almost entirely of Chinese or the fact that our guide warned us about political discussion or taking pictures of the occupying forces. This presence was evident in all towns we passed through on the way to Lhasa where it was extreme! Therefore I didn’t feel safe in writing these remarks in the draft of my blog where they were on my computer visible to any one who chose to look as one has no rights in China.

Our tour group of 33 + another small group is traveling in a loose convoy of 12 Toyota Land Cruiser’s 4 people each, stayed at a fairly primitive guest house in Nyalam with 4 bed dorms the 1st night. Each jeep’s passengers to a dorm. Our group consists of a 30 something Brit girl + a Polish girl a bit younger & a 22 yr old guy from Maryland who get along well.

The 1st day we only traveled an hour or so from the border then had to stop until dark as the road was closed for construction during daylight hours then another 3 hrs to the guest house.

Second day we crossed the highest pass at 5200 meters then later on got our sight of Everest which stayed in sight on & off for the next couple hours & was the highlight of the day. We then spent the night at Lhaste a bit higher class with only 2/room.

Third day we only traveled 3 hours, with a stop for some good photo’s of the local domestic animals including Yak’s, to Shigaste where we are staying in a hotel with real western style toilets en suite + hot water showers (Ah paradise!! as anything where you don’t have to walk outside to a squat toilet is 5* Royal treatment LOL) & even one English channel on CCTV 9, no decadent CNN!

Fourth day was a short hop to Gyantse to visit the Khumbula stupa & the Phalkhor Monastery & stay at the Everest Hotel which lacked the hot water shower. Although did manage to locate some Chinese peanut butter in the local market along with fresh oranges & bananas not bad for the last week of Oct but this whole journey in Tibet has been amazing & no one on it really believes we are here, it will take some time for it to sink in that we are actually traveling on the roof of the world.

Day 5 saw us drive the final 200+ km to Lhasa with a couple photo stops for the incredible views. So yes Dorothy Lhasa really exists but it’s NOT in Kansas & this farm boy from the Townships is sitting in the Mandala Hotel updating busman’s blog (providing this isn’t one big dream)!!

Day 6 & 7 spent visiting local monasteries, prowling the Barkhor St market adjacent to the Mandela Hotel & watching the worshippers at the Jokhang temple which “is the busiest place in the center of old city “ the Roof of the world” Lhasa city” so says the hotel brochure. Our hotel was in a super location providing access to a fantastic market area with ATM & internet only a short walk away, even got a much needed haircut along with a massage just down the street.

Now the occupying army presence in Lhasa was taken from the extreme to the ridiculous with kids in “clown” suits & riot gear carrying BIG guns strutting through groups praying before the stuka just showing off how macho they thought they were. That along with the persistent rumors of a country road outside of town where dissenters were taken & used for target practice kind of left one with a not nice warm feeling for the Chinese which wasn’t alleviated in Beijing!

Day 8 & 9 train to Beijing arriving the morning of day 10.

Met some interesting people the first day of the train trip including an ex-pat Canadian working for the 4th largest Chinese cement company which alone does business equivalent to all North American companies (food for thought!) however most got off the next morning leaving the train quiet most of the day, then filling up once again as we neared Beijing.

Not sure if the design of the train cars was Bombardier’s or the Chinese but the old hard-sleeper cars on the Chinese Trans-Mongolian are preferable (IMHO) to the soft-sleeper ones on this train. A combination of little things adding up to making the 2 day trip more an endurance test than the enjoyable adventure of the 6 day trip from Moscow to Beijing.



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