On Top of the World…
Man, I don’t know what it is but I just feel absolutely awesome today. Where should I start?
Ummm, well last night, we basically just relaxed and watched some movies for a bit… then we sat down with our new friends Marlan, Cheryl, and Mat… had some beers and talked about EVERYTHING. It’s great hearing travel stories from different people, especially when they are super charasmatic characters. We talked about everything from our favorite Countries, to the worst poos we had on the travels… it was really quite entertaining. I’m sure you all wanted to know that.
Then, we got up at 5am to get to the airport to fly to Lhasa. Fortunately, everything with our Tibet permit and everything worked out so we didn’t land in some random jail anywhere. And coincidentally Cheryl and Mat were on the same flight so we made our Jouney to Tibet together. The flight was only 2 hours… but man… I’m so glad we flew. The view flying over China and Tibet there was absolutely spectacular. I’ve never seen such awesome mountains spanning over such a huge distance. It almost brought a tear to my eye. It’s moments like that that just make me all warm and fuzzy inside and I realize how amazing this trip has been. Anyway, we managed to get everything figured out at the airport and found a bus that could take us to Lhasa (about 70km from the airport). The drive was also beautiful… turquiose blue rivers, vast land, the most interesting little houses, prayer flags…. all surrounded by the beautiful mountains… I was loving this place before we even got to Lhasa.
Of course, when we arrived here, the first thing we saw was the GIANT Potala Palace…. it was HUGE. We were pretty beat so we decided to go find our hostel first… and surprisingly, it’s like right around the corner from our hostel! We can literally see the whole palace on the hill from our room window! Not to mention a perfect view of all the surrounding mountains (we are on the top floor). We decided to team up with Mat and Cheryl so we are actually sharing a very large room (with it’s own bathroom) for only 20rmb/person… that’s like maybe $3…. not even… haha. Man, I love this place.
After putting our stuff down, we headed out on the town in search for lunch… and boy did we find it! We found and AWESOME cheap place that served tibetan food… I believe I had the veggie bobi thing? It’s like a fajita…. and John of course had to try the local meat so he had a Yak burger… hehe. Yaks…. they rule. We had huge meals for like $4 too.. man. Then we just hit the town for a bit… visited a temple… saw the market… the culture here is absolutely fascinating…. there are so many different groups of people… so many little customs that I have never seen before…. very very cool. Unfortunately, it seems that John, Cheryl, and Mat have developed a bit of mountain sickness so they are lying in bed upstairs… and I have nothing to do… so I’m here… writing to you all… sigh.
Well, I guess I’ll go check on all my fallen comrades… see y’all later.
Tags: China
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