Potatoes on a stick!

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05-DEC-2007

So we all survived the night so Tahmeena and I headed to breakfast early to celebrate! We drove out of town at a humorous 10 km/hr, as motorbikes are passing us on either side of the jeep. Umm, is there a reason for this? Though we were the first jeep to leave out of 7, within 5 minutes, we were at the end of the pack as always.

We are surrounded by brown, dry rolling mountains and huge white peaks framing a turquoise lake. I can honestly say that I've never seen water that color before. Breathtaking. I attempt to take photos out the window but that very rarely is succesful. We stop at this mountain pass, where there are ladies shoving necklaces in everyone's face and following us to no end. The others hide in the jeep, but she can see you there and just shoves her merchandise up to and in the window. So I run away and hide on the other side of the jeep and point and laugh at the rest of them. There are also men with decorated brown wooly dogs- some of the ugliest animals I've ever seen. You could also sit on top of a yak for 5 Yuan, but no thank you. I will not give into your highly thought out tourist traps.

So I am having a near emergency bladder situation. I hold off as long as possible as I usually do, until the road bumps simply become too much to bear. We finally arrive at our final destination- Lhasa, for our last full group meeting. No more jeep rides for the time being. We'll be here for a few days so can now finally relax and let loose. Most of the group is either flying back to Kathmandu, elsewhere, or as what we'll be doing- jeeping it back via Everest base camp. But that's still 4 days off.

So time to let loose. Coco, Oliver, Tahmeena, Kayleidh, Steve and I aimlessly wander about the area and stop for drinks at this posh looking Chinese place. They just so happen to have the tastiest round little hard nuts of all time. Each nut alternates sweet and salty on either the inside or outside, with some excessively hard and others crumbly. Each was a surprise party in your mouth. Oliver and I took what we didn't finish there away for the road.

En route to the old town, we run across street vendors with spicy fried potatoes on a stick for only 1 Yuan- absolutely amazing and most definitely my favorite part of Tibet (hey, it had to be food). We stop for dinner at this traditionally Tibetan place, where Steve's meal arrived on fire and included a myriad of random meats such as yak tongue. And yes, it looked exactly like a tongue. I personally opted out of eating there since I couldn't distinguish the meaty from veg dishes on the menu.

We head out for drinks at this super smoky bi-level restaurant, but that's only because they haven't figured out how to work the ventilation around the wood stove. And yes, ok half of the table is smoking as well. So I join the non-smoker side of the table, but it's where the cool kids sit. I scarf down a quick veggie sandwich to fill my belly.

We learn of these traditional Tibetan dance and song performances called migmars, so we head to one for a while before getting our fill and turning into a dance club. Guys were writing text messages to me on their phones asking me to dance, but handed it over to Oliver because I didn't feel like managing it at the time. We head back a bit before sunrise, because we don't have to be anywhere in the morning. After playing Suzie straight-edge for the past few days, we realize that it is a holiday, after all. Why not?

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