Day 1 - Aug 9, 2007 Thursday Shenzhen深圳 - Xining西寧

We took the bus to Shenzhen Airport from Wanchai at 8am that morning. The flight was ZH9835 in Shenzhen ETA 12:30noon.  The flight had a stop in Xian 西安 and we had a glimpse of the famous warriors 秦兵馬俑!

We finally arrived in Xining Airport (2261M) at around 6pm. A young girl named Ms Zhang came and picked us up to the hotel.

So far we did not have any syndrome of AMS yet.

We went out to the local night market for dinner. We had some very delicious grilled fish later dumplings. The night market had got a lot of things and we hanged out there for a couple of hours. Bought a lot of fruit - we had had 5 catties of green grapes for RMB10 only!We also bought a watermelon for RMB12.

All 5 of us bought hats, RMB10 each, as our team wear!

We went back to the hotel by taxi before 10pm.

Day 2 - Aug 10, 2007 Friday Xining西寧 / Qinghai Tibet Train 青藏列

After breakfast, we set off for the largest inland salt water lake, Qinghai Lake 青海湖 (3200M). 

On the way to the lake, we made a brief stop at Sun & Moon Mountain (Riyue Mountain)日月山.  In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the emperor gave in marriage his daughter, Princess Wencheng 文成公主, to the leader of Tibet, Songtsen Gampo 松贊干布 to improve the relationship between the two nations. When the princess reached this mountain and took a break, she felt a surge of homesickness. She took out the precious Riyue Mirror given to her by her father because she was told that it would show her hometown while yearning for her home. But she resolutely threw down the mirror so as not to miss her country any more, and continued her journey to the west. The mirror was broken in two pieces shaped like the moon and sun. From then, the mountain got its name, Riyue Mountain.

We reached Qinghai Lake 青海湖 before 11am.  It was very cloudy and thus the color of the lake was not the best.  It has an area of 4,635 sq km and is more than 360km (220 miles) in circumference.

After lunch, we visited one of the most famous monasteries of Gelugpa 格魯派 of Buddhism, Ta'er Monastery 塔爾寺. 

Built in 1622, in the center of the entire complex, the Great Hall of Gold Tiles is the core structure of the monastery. The ridges of the hall's roof are decorated with auspicious objects such as treasure bottles, gold streamers, and gold deer. In the center of the hall is a silver pagoda built around a pipal tree; and a statue of Tsongkhapa 宗喀巴, the founder of the Yellow Sect of Tibetan Buddhism, is placed in the pagoda. In the hall therealso exists a collection of hundreds of works by Tsongkhapa 宗喀巴and his disciples as well as hand-written copies of scriptures in Tibetan and Mongolian.

 

We finished our sightseeing in Xining at around 5:30pm and headed back to the city for the train to Lhasa that night!

 

Day 3 - Aug 11, 2007 Saturday Qingzang Railway 青藏列車 / Lhasa 拉薩

The train runs at a speed of 120 km per hour within the Qinghai-Tibet section.  It also offers the record-breakers: the world's highest passenger railroad (at Tanggula Pass 唐古喇山口 - elevation: 5072m) and the world's highest railroad tunnel (Fenghuoshan 風火山隧道 - elevation: 4905m). Over 80% of the journey is at altitudes above 13,000 feet; fully half the track on this sector was laid atop permafrost.

It took around 24 hours from Xining to Lhasa.  We took off at around 10:30pm on Aug 10 and arrived in Lhasa at around 11pm on Aug 11.  We had berths for ourselves but the train was so full, our berths were not together!  Anyway to have nice views, we all moved to the nearby soft-seat cabin and took full advantage of the windows on both sides for photos.  Our train was not the scenic train and thus it did not stop at any station except Goldmud 格爾木.  The above photo was Kunlun Mountain昆倫山.

We passed Kekexili 可可西里 where we had spotted a few precious Tibetan Antelopes 藏羚羊 running across.

The train journey had been very tough.  We all couldn't sleep well on the beds.  The train was crowded with people and even though we are Chinese, we are still sorry to say that the bad habits of Chinese, spitting and some others, are very annoying.  Because we couldn't sleep, some of us developed headaches.  The food was bad too thus the only thing we could enjoy was the sceneries.

Day 4 - Aug 12, 2007 Sunday Lhasa 拉薩 (3658M)

The reason why we had to go in August was because of this festival - Shoton Festival 雪頓節.  On the 1st day of Shoton Festival, i.e. Aug 12 this year, the most important monastery of Gelugpa in Tibet, Drepung Monastery 哲蚌寺 unveiled the 35-meter by 30-meter Thangka painting bearing the image of Sakyamuni 釋迦牟尼佛, founder of Buddhism for worshippers.

We had our morning call at 4am!  Well, after a night of insomnia on the train, honestly speaking, we all were a mess.  In order to have a good view of the unveiling, we had to climb the mountain to Drepung Monastery.  Because of the celebration, the roads were blocked and we had to walk all the way up.  By the time we got to the mountain, me & Milly were both exhausted and could not go further.  At around 8am, the Thangka was brought out from the temple by some hundred of lamas and worshippers.  They walked the thangka all the way up to the mountain and started to pull out the thangka from the top.  The whole process was really amazing!  Go to my album or watch the videos and see the action for yourself!  The whole unveiling took around 30 minutes and the thangka remained under the sun until noon.

We stayed for another hour, took a lot of pictures!  Because we had not been sleeping enough, all of us (maybe except Kevin) were not feeling exactly right - nasty headache and exhausted.  We had some lunch and then went back to the hotel to rest for the rest of day.  We all slept and had different degrees of fever.  We did not have the stomach for any more food for dinner and thus me, Ronald & Kevin went down to grab some quick food - cup noodles and bread etc and went to sleep again after taking some pain killers.

 

At around 9pm, we heard the noise of firecrackers!  Ronald knocked and told us that we could see the fireworks from our hotel!  We all poured out to the corrider and got some of the actions in front of Potala Palace.  The small red tower in the picture was the TV tower in front of the great Potala Palace.

Day 5 - Aug 13, 2007 Monday Namtso 納木錯 (4718M)

We originally had Potala Palace today but our guide told us that Potala Palace had some special event that day and it was closed for the public.  We changed our itinerary to go Namtso Lake 納木錯  instead.

In Tibetan, Namtso means 'Heavenly Lake.' It is considered one of the three holy lakes in Tibet. Namtso is famous for its high altitude (4720M), vast area (1961 km²) and beautiful scenery.  Being the second largest saltwater lake in China only after Qinghai Lake, Namtso Lake is the biggest lake throughout Tibet. Meanwhile, it is the highest altitude saltwater lake in the world.  In every Tibetan year of sheep, thousands of Buddhism adherents will come here to worship. As a rule, they will walk clockwise along the Namtso Lake in order to receive the blessing of the gods.

 

On the way to Namtso Lake, we passed a mountain called 那根拉雪山 (5190M)!  We were smiling to the camera but our heads were pounding!  Headache again!  After went back to Lhasa, we had some dinner and then went back to hotel immediately and rest.

We still did not know what time we could go to Potala Palace at that time!  Some big noses!

Day 6 - Aug 14, 2007 Tuesday Lhasa 拉薩 (3658M)

At 9:00am, we still did not know when we could go to Potala Palace! 

 

In order to protect the palace, Potala Palace restricts the visits of tourist.  Only 2,300 tourists are allowed to visit the palace everyday.  During peak season like now, all people have to prebook the tickets at least 1 day in advance.  People have to queue for a ticket exchange and only if you have the ticket exchange you can get a ticket.  Our guide told us that all travel companies get the entrance tickets with 'dealers'.  The entrance tickets areRMB100 each originally which become a few times more in the dealer market.  We still did not know the time and thus our guide decided thatwe went to Jokhang Temple 大昭寺. 

Jokhang Temple 大昭寺 locates in cental Lhasa,right next to our hotel.  It attracts the most no. of worshippers amongst all thetemples and monasteries in Lhasa.  You can see a lot of Tibetans, going all the way from who-knows-where.

Gampo 松贊干布 (617 – 650, the 33rd king of Tibet) was the leader of the Tubo 吐蕃 (or Tibetan) Kingdom.  In order to promote friendly relationships with the neighboring countries, he successively married Princess Bhrikuti 赤尊公主 of Nepal and Princess Wen Cheng 文成公主 of the Tang Dynasty. When the two wives arrived in Tibet, each brought a statue of Jowo Sakyamuni 釋迦牟尼等身像. To house the Buddha brought by Princess Wen Cheng, King Songtsem Gampo constructed the Little Jokhang. Jealous of her, Princess Burikuti asked Gampo to build a Jokhang for her as well. Therefore, in 647 the giant complex was built.

The Jokhang Temple was built on the former site of a lake. According to the legend, the lake site was chosen after many failed attempts to build a temple in the region. Prior to this, every time a temple was built, it would collapse. Confused by this phenomenon, Princess Bhrikuti turned to Wen Cheng for help. Being a learned woman, Wen Cheng told the Princess that the geography of Tibet was very much like a hag, with the lake at the heart. In order to build the temple, Wen Cheng advised they must demolish the hag by filling and leveling the lake using 1,000 sheep to carry soil from a mountain far away. When the temple was done, it was called Ra-Sa-Vphrul-Snang ('ra' meaning sheep and 'sa' meaning earth in Tibetan) to commemorate those sheep.

After Jokhang Temple, we walked along the famous Barkhor Street 帕廓街 (八角街) in clockwise direction. 

Our guide received a call and we headed for Potala Palace 布達拉宮 at around 12:00noon.

As said, there was restrictions for tourist visits, we had had some hard times, and we had to pretend that we were Taiwanese in order to get in!  After almost an hour (including the time we walked up the stairs!), we finally got in!

Potala Palace is really a great palace.  It has more than 2,000 rooms all together.  Originally built by King Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century, Potala Palace is located on the Red Hill of Lhasa, Tibet. Destroyed by lightning and war, Potala Palace had been rebuilt by the 5th  Dalai Lama in 1645. Since then, Potala Palace has become the seat of Dalai Lamas and also the political center of Tibet. The thirteenth Dalai Lama extended it to the present size, 117M (384 ft) in height and 360M (1,180 ft) in width, covering an area of more than 130, 000M² (about 32 acres). Mainly comprised by the White Palace (administerial building) and the Red Palace (religious building), Potala Palace is famous for its grand buildings, complicated constructions, devotional atmosphere and splendid artworks.

This night, we went to see some Tibetan show.  Costed us RMB160 p.p. 

 

Day 8 - Aug 16, 2007 Thursday Shigatse 日喀則 - Lhatse 拉孜 - Tingri 定日

Because it had been raining, a part of the road to Lhatse 拉孜 collapsed.  Big trucks got stuck.  We were using a 4-WD so it was not a problem for us.  But the road was blocked and we were stuck for almost an hour. Ronald, Kevin & Alan were the most nosy.  They went out to the collapsed site and watched.  They said that it was the foreigners 老外 who helped the most. There was a big bus stuck in the holes and another truck needed to pull it out so that those working trucks could refill the collapsed areasand let the cars passed.

It took more than an hour to fix and we slowly & carefully drove through the dump and continued with our journey.

We stopped briefly at Lhatse for lunch and continued.

At around 3pm, we drove passed Karola Pass 嘉措拉雪山口 (5248M)!  This was the 8th day so we were feeling nothing at >5000M!!

From Karola Pass, we can see the Cho Oyu 8201M (or Qowowuyag) 卓奧友峰. It is  the sixth highest mountain in the world. Cho Oyu lies in the Himalayas and is 20 km west of Mount Everest, at the border between China and Nepal. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan.

We arrived in Tingri 定日 at 5pm and checked in to the hotel.  There was plenty of highland barley opposite to the hotel.  It was just lovely!

We walked around but New Tingri was a very small town and there was not much to see.  We ate our dinner in a nearby restaurant and then went back to the hotel.

This is a new town and there is no electricity supply!  So the hotel generates electricity on her own and thus the supply is limited.  There was no light and hot water until 7pm to midnight.

Day 9 - Aug 17, 2007 Friday Tingri 定日- Mt. Everest Base Camp 珠峰大本營

As we had to started our journey to Mt Everest Base Camp which was a 4 hour drive away, we had to wake up early.  As I said, the electricity was self-generated, there was no light nor hot water in the morning.  The hotel knocked on our door at 7am giving us a candle!

The road was super bumpy!  The photo shows the best part of it, the rest were all muddy and rocky!  Sitting on the back, I was like riding a bad roller-coaster, head & buttock got bumped a thousand times. 

It was all worth it!  By the time we got to Rongbuk Monastery 絨布寺, the highest temple in the world (at 4,980M), there was about 15-minute where the (8848M), revealed!  Other cars passed by and said that they were there at the base camp for 5 days and it had been too cloudy and they were unable to wait for the highest mountain in the world revealed!  We were so lucky. Mt. Everest, i.e. Mt. Qomolangma 珠穆朗瑪峰

The Mt. Everest is the dominant peak of Himalayas, the northern brae in Tingri County of Tibet and the southern in the Nepal. The area has 4 peaks above 8,000 m. (26,247 ft.) and 38 peaks above 7,000 m. (22,965 ft.), hence the laudatory title 'the Third Pole of the Earth'.

After arriving the 'base' of the 'base camp', we took horse carts to further go up a little bit.  It took almost an hour to go up the mountain by horses.  It was a funny ride. 

We finally arrived to the Base Camp but there was nothing there except a military person to register all visitors.

We walked around and most of the areas on the base camp were restricted.  To go further, you have to apply for a special license to climb the mountain. 

This was the notice, if you can understand it:

We left the base camp at around 2:30pm.  By 5:30pm, we stopped to have dinner (and we did not have 'formal' lunch that day).  The food was delicious (maybe we were hungry) and one thing I have not mentioned yet. 

Ronald has been doing a lot of charity thing to provide schooling to the poor kids in Chinese remote villages.  He brought a lot of pencils, pens & a lot of sweets to give out to the children there.  If you have ever traveled to poor areas, you know that usually the kids will surround tourist cars.  Some of them are curious and some of them know that they can possibly get something from the tourists.  Giving out money is not good at all and thus Ronald has been giving out useful things to the kids instead.  This was the 9th day of our journey and thus he decided to give out all of the things he had brought over, which attracted a large crowd of kids running from everywhere to the door step of the restaurant!

We finished dinner at around 7:30pm (yes the photo above was taken at 7pm and the sky was still very bright) and went back to the hotel to rest.

Day 11 - Aug 19, 2007 Sunday Shigatse 日喀則 - Lhasa 拉薩

We left in the morning for Lhasa.  It had been raining heavily since the night before again!  We were to try to go to Yamdrok Yumtso Lake 羊卓雍湖 this day.  Because of the rain, it was very cloudy.  We finally decided not to go to the lake.

By the time we were at Lhasa, it was around 2pm!  We had lunch in a restaurant on the 'Sun Island' in Lhasa. 

Most of the restaurants there made their own dried food, dried meat, dried chicken/duck etc.

We went to a local store to buy some eateries and stuff for souvenir

Our whole journey basically finished.  We had wanted to try some authentic local Tibetan meal, we asked our guide to arrange.  We went to a restaurant next to Potala Palace and had had a big fiesta with our driver and guide!  The men drank a lot of highland barley wine 青稞酒.  A lot of meat!  and a lot of local eateries!

It was a very nice dinner. Our driver was very high and sang with Ronald dancing!

Day 12 - Aug 20, 2007 Monday Lhasa 拉薩 - ??

It was quite a disastrous day. 

Our original flight to Guangzhou was leaving at 1:10pm.  We had plenty of time and thus we went to Jokhang Temple 大昭寺 again at around 9am to watch the actions. 

We checked out and left the hotel at 10:30am.  Arriving at the airport at noon, perfect time.

After we sat down in the waiting area, we heard an annoucement about the delay of our flight.  Our flight had a stop in Zhongdian (i.e. Shangri-La) and at that time, the flight had still not alighted from Zhongdian to Lhasa for some technical problem.  At around 2pm, we learnt that the flight was cancelled and airline could arrange us to stay in the hotel next to the airport.  Not knowing whether we could leave the next day (i.e. there would not be an extra flight and we would have to compete for availability with the original passengers the next day, if the flight would be okay the next day) so we decided to leave anyway that day.

After some frantic checking, there were availability in a flight leaving 4pm for Chengdu and then we could take another flight from Chengdu back to Shenzhen, ETA at around 8pm, perfect time again. 

The airport did not accept credit cards and we did not have enough money left for a new ticket (the old one could be refunded only through our travel agent) from Lhasa to Shenzhen which costed around RMB3200.  We then decided to buy just Lhasa to Chengdu which we had had enough cash and then we called our agent in Foshan and asked her to issued the rest sector for us.

So everything was set and we finally boarded the flight from Lhasa to Chengdu at 3:30pm.  Arriving in Chengdu at around 6:20pm (flight to Shenzhen departed at 7:20pm) and we only had limited time to grab our bags and checked in again with the tickets issued by our agent.  We were 'relieved' to find the flight from Chengdu to Shenzhen was delayed to 8:10pm so everything went well and perfect again, we thought!

The clock said that it was 8:30pm, still no sight of our plane and by 10:30pm, people were getting upset and a couple of men were shouting at the airline's ground staff.  At around 11pm, the boarding light eventually went on!  and around 20 people refused to board until a manager came out apologise. 

We didn't see that action but figured that the group was paid or compensated.  They finally got on at around 11:30pm and we finally took off!!!!!

We arrived in Shenzhen airport at 1:30am and there were no cars, buses etc... Ronald bargained and got us a private car (maybe part-time) to get the 5 of us plus 4 luggages and a few more backpacks into 1 sedan!!  Amazing. 

We were taken back to the border (24 hours) and we took our respective route of overnight bus back home.  We took the Tsuen Wan bus to my mom's place for the night.

Thus our 12-day Tibet trip basically had become a 13-day trip and ended here!