Kathmandu omissions

I never really went much into my mystery illness. So let me begin. I wasn't feeling all that well. Something to do with my stomach. So I deduced from that that it must have been something that I drank or ate. Then I suddenly remembered that I'd taken a vitamin earlier in the day that I started to feel not so good.... with tap water.

So after my one day of sightseeing and me planning to do a half day the next day with my bus leaving at 6pm, someone Sam had been traveling with for a few days back in China showed up at our hostel. Apparently, she had amoeboid dysentary. Not all that fun. So after she mentioned this I immediately became concerned that I had amoebas inside of me. After she left I looked up my travel guide health section and read all the water-borne diseases. All of them involved diarrhea. Good, I don't have dysentery. Of course that meant I could have any number of other things. I went to bed not feeling all that great so I took the garbage can and brought it close to my bed.

I don't know how long I'd been asleep but then I got sick 3 times. That didn't feel very good but I felt a bit better afterwards. Then in the middle of the night it became obvious that shall we say, I might have had amoebas. It was sudden and violent. The next day I still felt funny.

I still had to do a bit of running around also. I forgot to mention what a dolt I've become. Actually, I'm a bit iffy on the definition of dolt but I've become a bit forgetful. I just forgot my shoes on the bus actually, and I forgot my daypack on the beach a couple nights ago, I left my sunglasses behind on another bus, and while in Kathmandu I forgot my ATM card in surprise surprise an ATM. I didn't realize for a few days while when I next went to take out money. Who ever heard of a return card button? Once I get my money and receipt I figure I'm done and I leave. Anyways, I had to call the bank, meet a guy at the ATM, find out since it happened days ago my card is at the head office, go to the head office later but miss the appointment because my rickshaw driver was slow at getting me change, and go on my last day. I got my card back though. I was shocked my student card worked though. It's through a bank but I'd thought it would only be accessible in Texas. Don't ask me why I still have a bank account based in Texas.

The missed appointment is visa related. Don't try to get an Indian visa in Nepal. It's next to impossible. Scott, Sam, and I showed up one day at 1 trying to get visas. We were told there were closed and to get there the next day by 6am. It doesn't open until 9:30. The next day, days before my illness, I'm the only one to get up. I get there by 8:30. The line is long and I'm number 68 on the list. I doubt I will be seen. I spend the day there and read most of my book. Prisoner of Azkaban. Yep, been reading Harry Potter since Beijing. Anyways, I'm barely seen just before 12 when they close. They can't do anything for me. I need an onward ticket for a transit visa, of course I don't want to buy a ticket until I have a visa. Anyways, I buy a ticket online and head there the next day at 6 with Sam and Scott. They are getting tourist visas. This time we are numbers 44-46. A lot of people between 40 and 60 just leave because they lose faith that they will be seen. That's how I managed to scrape in the first day. Anyways, this second time I go in the line for transit visas. I was there the day before but someone moving from the visa line to the transit visa line convinced me I needed to be in the visa line first. Dumb since I got seen right away in this other line and just had to wait for hours while Scott and Sam waited in this miserable line. They were the last 2 to be seen before the window shut. Actually, that's what they like to say but really they were seen at 11:59 so technically the last before when they should've closed. There was still a line of people waiting and we were hoping they would shut the window and for things to get ugly. We got impatient and left. Scott and Sam had to wait a week for the telex clearance form to go through and then standing in that line all over again. My transit visa was ready in the afternoon and that's why I was late getting to the bank to get my card.

Let's see if there's anything else I should mention about my time in Nepal. Umm... I've rarely seen such a marked border. Nepal really is a lot greener and hillier than Tibet. I guess it began to change a bit before that but anyways. The change in scenery was as dramatic and Lonely Planet made it out to be. I would quote it but I've sold my China book. It was also much warmer and I only ever needed to wear 2 layers there. Well aside from when I felt cold during my brief illness.


Entering Nepal

Mountains floating in the sky

Dine and Scott

Look at how drunk I am

Good times, the Tibet 5 (minus 1)

Kathmandu

What can I say about Kathmandu?

I didn't actually do a whole lot in Kathmandu. Actually I pretty much just spent a week relaxing, not doing a thing. Showers (with hot water even!), real restaurants, bars, electricity. I spent my time just readjusting/overindulging in those kinds of things. I really did just do absolutely nothing. I read, sat around, ate, and drank.

I did spend one day, maybe a half-day sightseeing just looking around Durbar Square. There was a living goddess there but I missed her. She's called the Kudari, maybe just a Kudari. Anyways, she's this little girl goddess. Right, she's the Goddess of Kathmandu I think. She lives in her little temple and dresses in her little Kudari costume. When she hits puberty though it means she is no longer the goddess but a mere mortal so they kick her out and from that point on no man will touch her for fear of death within 14 days. I wouldn't like to be the living goddess. Scott and Sam saw her for a brief moment. They said she looked pouty and a bit resentful. Some other word also but I don't recall. I actually wasn't feeling very good on that last day.

We'd gone out that night. The first night after the girls had flown off to Bangkok we went out with some other people for steak (I had chicken since that's what I do, I go to a sushi restaurant and order teriyaki chicken, I like chicken. Steak I will eat but never order...anyways). Then we went to a casino where I lost 6 out of 7 hands of blackjack. So I lost my money very quickly and then started to feel unwell. I left early and paid way to much for a taxi back to the hotel. I wasn't in the mood to argue and my fuckitness (as I call it) was in fullswing so I just paid and went right to bed. I woke up the next morning feeling pretty shitty. Like I had drank way too much (2 beers, I swear). The one day I had left to sightsee and I felt sluggish and a bit sick. Here are some pics of Durbar square. I saw a monkey. Not great quality but I'm not retouching them on vacation.

Photo Highlight Reel

I've decided to finally post some pictures but due to the number of photos and that I'm paying to use the internet, I will only post a couple from each place. Maybe even some really bad ones of myself.
Leaving Incheon by ferry/ Slow boat to China

Shanghai

Bright blurry lights

It's like I'm in the future - Shanghai

Me in Tianamen Square

Obligatory photo

Feeling exasperated and like such a tourist in the Forbidden City

Konglish meet Chinglish

People crowd to see the Terra Cotta Warriors (you know what they look like)

Aren't pandas cute? I suppose.

Gotta lead Tibet with Potala Palace, home of the Dalai Lama...uhh..if he weren't in exile that is

Some happy Tibetan people

Me on a yak... ok half yak

People I was stuck in a jeep with for 7 days: Me, Vanessa, Dine, Scott, and Sam...... oh, yeah and Everest

I think that's enough photos for one day. The last 3 photos were stolen from the others. No more photos for you!

Nyalam to the border

The next day in Nyalam, the gateway to Hell, we did a bit of trekking. We hiked up a stretch of the mountain in search of a lake. We found out the lake was much further than we had thought. We never saw it but it was still nice walking along. I managed to step through some ice and got my foot sopping wet. I was worried I'd have to turn back but it wasn't that cold during the day and I forgot about it awhile later.

We found a big rock with some Tibetan prayer flags atop it, we climbed it. We saw some yaks. An abandoned house. Not really interesting to read about.

Then we drove to Zhangmu on the border with Nepal. It was so surreal. At first we are in the desert where nothing grows and only shepherds, goats, yaks, mountains, and rocks can be seen to really lush hills. Tibet was nice and all but we were pretty ready to leave. It must be much nicer in the summer. We were still all filthy animals. Zhangmu was just surrounded by trees and plants, all these waterfalls, and it really felt like Tibet was so far away. We found a place to stay and bid goodbye to Dawa. The hotel had actual showers, actual electricity, real menu options. It's hard to believe I could be so excited by such a thing as an electrical outlet or flushing toilets.

We spent the night out having a few beers. The girls went to bed and Sam, Scott, and I (lured by promises of bread that I never received) snuck out again. I was already pretty drunk and just wanted to sleep. We went to some club with performers on stage. It was kind of odd. Some Tibetan (city Tibetan I guess) kept trying to proposition women for sex. The last woman he approached was appauled, but only by the price he offered. At 500, it was all settled and the 2 of them hugged and walked off stage. Very odd story line. Then we danced with locals for a bit to Tibetan/Nepali/Chinese traditional music with a dance beat. A lot of them were in traditional clothes dancing the night away. One lady there must have been well over 40. It was jolly good fun.

Then we decided to switch it up. I was pretty tired but still went. I had a drumstick that I bought from a street vendor. Very good drumstick but a bit too spicy for my liking. I still managed to have 3 of them that night though. I didn't enjoy the second place so much. I missed the dancing girls who Scott had said were better than strippers and I didn't do any dancing there. I just longed for sleep or more chicken legs. I don't know why I was so tired.

On the way back we stopped for chicken legs several times passing a few places with red lights and Sam singing Roxanne. At one chicken plac, we saw 2 guys come in who were served chicken right away at no cost. The guy and his wife were so attentive to these leather clad serious men that we were sure they were local mobsters. Then we finally got back to hotel and Sam tried the key and it broke off it the lock so he kicked the door open. Ok, this part came between the girls going to bed and us going out again but I just forgot to mention it.

The next morning, the girls came in to wake us at 8. I guess we'd agreed to the time earlier. We got out of bed at 10. The girls were a bit upset and anxious to cross the border into Nepal. We had to get to Kathmandu before sunset or I'm not sure, something very bad would happen to us. We ate breakfast, exchanged some money, got into a small argument about the key (I'd conveniently gone in search of postcards), and then walked 10 feet and cleared Chinese immigration. Out of Tibet and China and into no man's land between the 2 borders.

So at long last I finish my travelogue of China and Tibet. I'm still one country behind since I'm actually no longer in Nepal either. Where could I be? Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until I'm 2 countries behind since I'm leaving this one in another few hours. 4 entries in one day, it's not that there isn't anything to see or do where I am but due to some unclear explanations by the ticket agent and people's unwillingness to watch my bag for just the afternoon it really isn't worth seeing or doing anything here with my heavy pack across my back.

Tingri & Nyalam

Tingri wasn't really worth the trouble of getting to. We did have a nice little argument with Dawa through one of the hotel employees. He said we had only booked 8 days. We knew we'd booked 9. I don't know why it escalated so much. We only ended up using 7 days total. We were threatening to kick Dawa's wife out of our jeep and just leave her wherever. Threatening to tell Snowland and anyone else who would listen what a shitty driver he was. I don't think the threats were translated.

We decided to go to the nearby hot springs. It was quite nice to actually be warm for a change. We pretended we were now clean and then headed to Nyalam. Lonely Planet says that Nyalam means "Gateway to Hell" in Tibetan. We were no longer worried about hell though having lived through it the day before.

We got to the hotel in Nyalam and the man at the hotel was quite nice. Later though he turned on us and wouldn't heat the guest room for us even though we were his only guests. There was no heating in this place either. I was really sick of being cold all the time. At least Canada has indoor heating in the dead of winter. It's really the only way to make the cold bearable, being toasty warm inside. Anyways, we are sure that Dawa tainted the innkeeper's image of us. He also wouldn't let us watch TV or do anything really. There wasn't much to do in Nyalam that night and we'd promised ourselves we wouldn't use the internet while in Tibet. We ate Nepalese food and shivered in our beds like so many nights before.

Dawa and his effin' wife

I forget whether I mentioned that Dawa had brought his wife along for the journey. We picked her up at another place where we'd stopped for momos. The bathrooms in this town we so bad shit extended all the way to the outside entrance. I should've taken a picture. Shit all over the floor. Apparently, Dawa's wife's cousin or sister was having a baby right on the border.

Nobody slept well at Everest and I woke up feeling pretty shitty. Combination of altitude sickness and a hangover and some weird feeling in my stomach. Dawa took us down to Everest Base Camp. We decided we didn't want to walk 2 hours from the monastery on a road very much accesible by car. It was freezing cold don't forget.

We decided we would trek around the base of Mt. Everest for a couple hours. We got there and the wind was howling away. It was blowing so hard in my face that I could hardly breathe. The girls turned back in less than 10 minutes, an iced-over stream was enough to make the tropical island girls (French Mauritian girls). Originally they had planned to do several days of trekking around the base. We all had a good laugh about that in retrospect. I trudged (is that the word?) for another hour or so. I had images of myself collapsing and needing to be carried back. Hangover trekking at altitude in strong winds is hard. So I kept going until I thought I'd get a nice clean view of Everest. Just around one more bend I kept saying. Anyways it became one bend to many and I turned back. As luck would have it, it really was only one more bend and then it became a nice little valley protected from the wind. Damn!

I walked back to jeep and stopped several times. I could've had nice little naps on the jagged stones. I laid down on several actually. There was virtually no vegetation at Everest. All I could see was rock and snow. Completely barren and lots of wind. It really isn't a place that humans are meant to go. By meant, I mean adapted to go.

So now we come to a key moment in the trip. One we have decided to immortalize in a t-shirt. We drove out of Everest base camp. Scott and Sam had been looking for it all over the place in the valley (we'd actually stopped the jeep there, some lady told us it was a 30 minute walk, I guess she had no clue). We'd been driving for maybe an hour and then Dawa stopped the jeep. He went to the back of the jeep and got some water. He came back and we kept driving. Maybe 20 minutes later he stops again. He gets out and goes around to the back. He's out there for maybe 5 minutes and Sam decides to see what's up. He opens the door and the back passenger side tire is completely flat. Rim touching the ground flat.

The girls decide that while he is changing the tire, they'll go for a walk and then we can pick them up along the road when we get moving again. Us 3 guys, decide to just sit and wait. Dawa slowly gets the jack out and then changes the tire. After putting the spare on, he decides there's a problem. The spare is flat, too! He never lowered the vehicle but decided him pushing on the tire was test enough.

He and his wife have some snacks since we're going to wait for a passing vehicle to help. The girls return aware that the odds of them being picked up by us were getting smaller and smaller. Eventually, Dawa decides to go. He and his wife grab some things and walk back down the road from where we came. All he tells us is to stay at with the car. We have no idea when he'll return. The 5 of us hang out in the car for a long freaking time and then I leave to go to the bathroom.

I come back and off in the distance we see 2 people walking along a path. Maybe we're saved. Scott notices what the 2 are wearing and yells "It's Dawa and his fucking wife." They'd been gone for 2 hours and we now walking along some parallel road in the opposite direction. What the hell!

Later, we see 2 more people off in the distance. Who are these people? We wonder who they are for the longest time and then see a giant herd of goats following them. We get worried as these 2 approach the vehicle. We were all in some weird state of paranoia by this stage. They come and peek into the windows. Tibetans aren't the cleanest of people and nor do they have the best of oral hygiene either as we discover. Sam decides they are safe and shows them what's wrong with the jeep. They'd approached from the left side. Then these 2 decide to hang around a bit, peering into the jeep and all. I don't think these 2 had had many opportunities with tourists or white people before. Then before they leave the offer us the chance to buy a goat so we could eat it. We decide not to.

Then we're alone again in the jeep. We decide to go through all the compartments to see if there's anything useful to survival. A few of us were sure we'd be spending the night in this jeep freezing to death right on the Tibetan plateau. Nice views of mountains but between them the land is absolutely flat. We find several items of note. First some unidentified green substance in little baggies. It isn't marijuana but that's really all we know. Next we find the vehicle registration. The vehicle we were told was a 1998 Toyota Landcruiser when we had been sure it was no later than a '93 was actually a '92. Then we find Dawa's ID. He's not 29 as he had claimed but 34. No wait, we find another set of ID and he is 29. Who is this guy? Why does he have 2 IDs with his photo with different birthdates.

We begin to wonder who our driver is. We question why he stopped for water. Did he puncture the tire on purpose? Is he going to let us freeze to death overnight? What was he doing when he headed off for 2 hours only to re-emerge in the distance somewhere else? Why had no cars past in the 3 hours we had been there? Why did Dawa not tell us where he was going? Should we have bought a goat?

We decided the next time a shepherd went by that we would indeed buy a goat. A few more hours past. We were still in the jeep. Then off in the distance, along the parallel road, which was paved (why weren't we on the paved road?) we saw two vehicles approaching from the direction Dawa had gone. We needed to save ourselves. Dine, Sam, and I raced to catch them before they had driven by. This other road was several hundred metres away. We didn't think we'd catch them. Dine used her big red scarf and waved it furiously in the air. They actually stopped and we went to them. They were Chinese tourists and didn't understand what we were saying. From what we could work out with signs, they had seen our driver, understood we had a flat tire, and motioned that they'd be coming around to our vehicle. We went back to our 4x4 which looked so tiny off in the distance along some dirt path that couldn't be seen from the main road. The Chinese never came.

Then maybe an hour later, we see another group of vehicles. This time Vanessa and Scott run to stop them. They reach them and out of one of the vehicles, Dawa emerges with a new tire. The jeeps had several empty seats as far as we could tell and she'd been making due in the back with all our bags piled up around her. We figured his wife must be at the next village. Dawa takes awhile to cross this field with a giant tire over his back. Just as he reaches the vehicle, a mysterious cart being pulled by a donkey arrives on the dirt road. Who do we see sitting in the cart but Dawa's wife? Why did she arrive by donkey and Dawa by jeep? It really made no sense.

With our fears of a driver who'd just left us to die in the middle of nowhere subsided, we were on our way again. Dawa had very strange driving habits. If the road was good, flat, and straight he would drive maybe 40km per hour. In the middle of nowhere, driving on what was barely even a path going over all kinds of bumps and through water, he would drive about 60km. No sense. Eventually the sun set and we were driving through these hills and over passes in the pitch blackness. We still didn't know if we would actually make it to Tingri and we had more images of us sleeping in the 4x4. Then at last Dawa pointed at some lights in the distance and said "Tingri." Then he would turn and the lights wouldn't be in front of us and we would worry. I was getting pretty restless in the end. I needed to get out of the jeep or something terrible might happen.

Finally, after about 10 hours (3 hours for other groups) we got to Tingri. We tried to find a guesthouse which we had read had hot showers. It had been about 4-5 days since our last one. Lonely Planet had lied to us. They only had hot showers in the summer. We spent another night in an unheated room. We had more momos. I had 2 bowls since Dine had just become really unwell and needed to go right to bed. I was starving. We decided we didn't need to stop at the guesthouse for lunch since Tingri wasn't that far away. Despite all our plans to post really bad things about Dawa and the Snowland Hotel where we had hired our car and driver, we never followed through. They really do have you on those one-way journeys.

Everest

I think the last time I blogged I was in Shegar. Well I wasn't actually in Shegar at the time but at any rate. We got out of Shegar without much todo. Well Dawa, our driver, was anxious to leave. Up for several hours, he was, just waiting.

We got into the 4x4 and got on the road. I don't remember if I this came before Shegar or afterwards but anyways, we were supposed to stay in some town, Tashi Dzom, I believe. There wasn't much there so we kept on going, stopping only for momos. What Tibetans call Chinese dumplings. We ended up at the base of Everest. Well not exactly the base but the Rongphu monastery with Everest right in sight. We really didn't do very much there. We got out of the 4x4 and went to the guesthouse across the road from the monastery. We put our bags in the room and noticed our splendid bathroom. Actually it wasn't a bathroom at all, okay technically it is, but a little stone cube with a narrow slit through the floor. Squat toilets didn't look nearly as bad as they did before. There were 2 slits I believe but one was covered over with... waste, shall we call it. The other one was practically right at the door, from which, you could see people standing about on the sidewalk in front of the guesthouse. So I kind of positioned myself in the best possible fashion pretending there was no way I could be seen. There was another bathroom but both holes had vanished so business was just done in corners. Pleasant way to start my journey to Everest right?

After that, we headed across the street to the monastery. It was a nice little monastery but not all that special aside from Everest being right there. The monks and nuns were a bit cold and tried to buy clothes from some of us. They gave us some bread and we told them we'd come back tomorrow. We didn't though. We just wanted to lie to Buddhists. Okay, the lie wasn't intentional.

We went back to the guesthouse and hung out in the kitchen with every other person who had come to Everest from the Tibetan side. We ran into almost all the people there at some point later in the trip. A Welsh guy traveling with 2 Koreans who didn't know each other previously, an Irish and Aussie girl who were downers for their group, 2 middle aged Frenchmen, and others. A Dutch guy I had met in Chengdu was there. I ended up just playing cards most of the night. Some Hearts and then Presidents and Assholes. I won a game of Hearts and was president for most of the night. I had quite a few beers at high altitude. Beer goes a long way at 5200m. I was toasty warm the whole time too being right behind the stove. Everyone was all bundled up and I was down to a t-shirt. Then they kicked us out of the room and we took the game to our chilly non-heated room. We took extra care to duct tape the holes and gaps in the glass. We had our little lightbulb though..... for about 10 minutes and then very slowly the light dimmed to blackness. I don't know why but we were obsessed with the game and everyone went to get their headlamps. We played for 2 more hours I think. We were noisy. Not that it mattered. Nobody slept at all. I'd been sleeping fine the whole time except for that one night. Even with all the alcohol the decreased oxygen in the air and the cold made it impossible to sleep. I also couldn't quit thinking about cards.

Some more from the Tibetan plateau

I'm no longer in Tibet but I've been doing a bad job at keeping this up to date. I was doing so well before I met people.

So last place I was was Shigatse? I think I need to prod my memory banks a little. Ok I think I've got it. From Shigatse we drove to Shegar. It was a pretty boring day really. We drove over fairly unfriendly roads around some very nice mountains and lakes. Tibet is very brown and lacks a lot of vegetation. Scott kept saying how it reminded him of Star Wars. I guess it is kind of other worldly, maybe Martian like but only because there's hardly any green to be seen. We'd see some other 4x4's making the reverse trip and some shepherds and their flocks. It really is hard to believe that they still have shepherds in Tibet. We's be driving forever and in the middle of nowhere would be this man and all these sheep/yaks. I guess there really aren't any predators there. Unbelievably boring job though.

There's really not much that else can be said for a day of driving. We got to Shegar which for some reason I'd imagined to be completely different. It sounds like some formerly great city, right? Anyways, we did absolutely nothing in Shegar. We arrived and there were no showers at all, no electricity save for a lightbulb in the middle of our room. "You can turn the light on after 7pm" they told us. Really barebones type stuff. Our pillowcases though were adorned with little birds that may or may not have been ducks. I actually had a dream involving these little cartoon birds. We spent most of our time in the main part of the hotel with everyone else since it was the only source of heat. In the centre of the room was a big oven that was really only used to heat water and unless you were really close to it couldn't feel any warmth. Tibet is freezing... well when there's no heat indoors. Yeah, no heat in any of our hostel rooms in the whole of Tibet. They are also lacking fuel in Tibet so yak poop and goat poop is burned. It didn't smell bad but then again I have a really poor sense of smell.

So the five of us sat around drinking beer (which goes a long way at high altitudes) playing cards and other weird little games until it seemed like a good time to go to bed.

I'll update tomorrow probably since I need to meet some people in 4 minutes. I was really hoping to put some pictures up but I'll need to burn a CD for that from Sam's computer. Seems like the easiest way since I've downloaded my pictures on his computer and deleted them from my memory card (reluctantly). I have 80 free minutes of internet from the laundry/internet place so I'll finish up Tibet then. Good times.

7 days in Tibet (well first 2 days I guess)

I'm not sure how much I'm going to write today. It's the first time I've been on the internet since I last wrote. I been through most of Tibet now, well from Lhasa. My hotel is only a few hundred meters from the Chinese border, another 8km to Nepal but my time in Tibet is coming to an end.

It was quite an interesting way to spend a week. I think this is day 7 of what was supposed to be a 9 day ride. I think 9 days was a bit too ambitious for us. Let me go back to the beginning now. If only I had my camera on me to jog my memory a bit.

We met our driver, Dawa, at about 8 in front of our hotel. He pulled up and the number 7 was displayed on the back of the Landcruiser. Lucky 7, I thought. We left Lhasa and shortly thereafter we saw a Landcruiser flipped over in the ditch. Nice way to start things (no accident is forthcoming in the narrative, just to let you know). We drove further and eventually came to Yagrem Lake (something with a Y anyway). It was a pretty nice lake but honestly growing up with the Canadian Rockies not far away it's hard to impress me with mountains and lakes. So we were on the top of the pass. It took forever to climb this hill with our slow driver and all these loops. We could see the same village at the base of the mountains for at least an hour or two. We got to the top and got out. I was scammed a little bit up there but not more than $5. I sat on a yak and had my picture taken. I gave her 20 yuan since I didn't have a fiver. She said everyone else in the group would get their picture taken and then no change would be needed. The others all paid seperately so I lost about $2 there. Then I had my picture taken with some dog. Not that special really and the dog and camera were thrust upon me rather quickly. Another $2 gone. I guess I need more pictures of myself on this trip anyway.

We were listening to some CDs in the 4x4. We decided to shell out an extra 500 yuan (umm, $70 per person over the course of 9 days) for a new vehicle, a '98 we were told. It came with a CD player as luck would have it. Shortly after passing the lake our driver stops and gets out of the 4x4 and looks under the hood. He never told us anything he did. Gets back in and we're off. Maybe 20 minutes later we just stop and stay there for 20 minutes or so. Something wrong with the engine or something. Dawa was a poor communicator. Anyways, we keep going and stopping for quite awhile. Eventually we reach some village. He tells us to go eat and everything will be fixed. OK. Actually, we called the agency and told them about the vehicle. At first, they don't know who we are or why we'd called. Finally, after speaking with our driver (Dawa speaks virtually no English btw), they figure it out. They'll fix the vehicle and send us a new one the next day. Whatever.

Somehow, we make it to the next place, Gyantse (no idea where we stopped for lunch to pay for an expensive buffet). We get there and aren't too impressed. So this is the least Chinese influenced city in Tibet? We decide to walk around and then leave in a few hours. We see some fort but it doesn't seem worth paying the entrance fee. We walk in as far as possible before getting caught and leaving. We decide there's not much to see in Gyantse and decide to continue to Shigatse (Tibet's number 2 city after Lhasa). Turns out we missed quite a lot in Gyantse. We didn't explore the Tibetan part of the town (no wonder it didn't seem very Tibetan) and we missed the monastery there. I saw it from the car at least. No going back now, I guess.

Shigatse we did something similar. We missed the big draw there as well in favour of a smaller one. We took a minibus to go see this monastery next to some tiny village. It was really nice actually. I don't know what to say about it really. We saw some little rooms with iconic images which wasn't too impressive actually. I felt a bit like an intruder there. All these buddhist monks and buddhists doing their worship (or whatever you want to call it) and me and my travel companions, mind you I wasn't with them for a lot of the time there. The most impressive part was seeing all these monks doing chants in the main room. I wasn't sure if I should be in there or not. I crept along the out walls (there were other tourists there so I didn't feel too bad) but then some monk who wasn't part of the ceremony smiled at me so I figured it was ok. There were only 3 other tourists there the whole time. A bit disrespectful I must say photographing with the flash on in there. I admit I took a short video with my little camera but there was no flash. Walking around the little halls around the main area with all these chants and drums was quite an experience. Maybe it was more that I felt I was intruding and was like some kind of spirituality spy.

We left the monastery and decided to hike up to the hermitage on the hill. We got to the base of the hill and 2 boys with a cart and donkey decided to offer us a ride. Vanessa was feeling a bit tired so she negotiated a 12c ride to the top. That donkey was slow and she lagged behind quickly. The boys only took her part way before renogociating at which point Vanessa got out and we waited 5-10 minutes for her to catch up. The hermitage wasn't all that impressive. We got to the top and took a break. There was a nice shrine that I would've gone to see had there not been a giant ravine that I had to walk around. I finished my Harry Potter book there at this buddhist hermitage in Tibet. Sam and Scott decided to go while the French Mauritian girls and I took a little nap. They actually got some holy water poured over their heads up there. I regretted that I didn't go a bit but realized I didn't really believe in that so what was the point in going through an empty spiritual ritual. I kind of wish I'd gone but oh well.

We got back to the village. We found some farmer and hopped on his little tractor to get back to the highway. We waited at this other village along the highway for quite awhile. We were passed by by all kinds of vehicles. Hitching was really the only way back. Half empty busses didn't even stop. Eventually some truck stops for us and we ride back to Shigatse atop all these glass bottles, can, and other various assortments of garbage for about 45 minutes. I had this bag of broken glass or something else very sharp under one leg. We made do.

We were going to go to the other big monastery in Tibet (home to the Panchen lama) but were too tired. We decided to just drive by the next day. That was kind of a mistake. Turns out it's this giant complex that is essentially a village inside the town. The Panchen lama is second to the Dalai Lama who is in exile. You can hang pictures of the Panchen lama and he is quite visible around Tibet. He's kind of like Beijing's poster guy for Buddhism. Tells Tibetans what Beijing wants him to. Actually he was a bit more rebelious than Beijing had hoped (he was appointed by the govt) but anyways. We quickly ran up to take a few photos and then left. Another high entrance fee and an impatient driver waiting for us.

Tibetans seem to all know at least 3 words. Hello, sorry, and money. They say hello, then sorry, and then hold out their hands for money. I must say I wasn't that generous. It depends on the place too. The city beggars have their beggary pretty well laid out. I remember one group of Tibetans walking by. The woman has her mouth full with this giant bun she was eating and she holds out her hand as they are walking by and says 'money, money.' Then she kind of shrugs her shoulders and moves on. All without stopping mind you. It was a bit depressing to see at times but you can't help everyone so my solution was to help no one. Cruel, I know.

Anyways, Scott stayed in the car while we went to the gates. Some kid came up to the window 'money, money.' Scott decides to give them a bun or something. One kid runs up the window and just grabs a couple from the bag. Can't reward the thief and punish the innocent so our breakfast disappeared pretty quickly.

I think that's all I'll go into for today. There should be something up here in the next few days. I plan to spend a few days in the next place I go so there'll be plenty of time to update my English teacher turned vagabond traveller blog.