Encounters with Monks, vultures and pilgrims

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Hello again from Lhasa!
I added a load of people to my subscribers list - I hope you don't mind. I'm totally failing to send any personal e-mails as the connection here is soooooo slow.
Anyway, Lhasa continues to be AMAZING. We're getting clear blue skies almost every day, so the mountain views are stunning. We've done all sorts - yesterday we went o a monastery where we saw monks "debating". This entails them all crowding into a tiny courtyard (we sat down the side)and pairing off. There is then a frenzy of hand clapping and stamping while one interrogates the other about their belief. They did this with such vigour that it looked like they were going to have a heart attack (and in some cases theier robes fell off - not that I was looking). We also saw pilgrims (dirty Tibetan peasants with gold teeth and prayer wheels and even dirtier children) going into raptures over scary sculptures of big blue-faced buddhas which look very angry.
Today we did a walk at 4500m - we saw a sky burial site (where Tibetans feed their dead to vultures) and there were ENORMOUS vultures circling above us. We were accompanied by a stray dog and a group of 10 mad Tibetan pilgrims who insisted that we did all the rituals e.g. hopping round rocks, rubbing head on rocks and enacting a sky burial - writhing round on floor pretending to die and be re-born. We didn't do all of them, but it was very entertaining anyway (shame I can't post some pics). The monks were also very nice and we had lots of conversations in which neither they nor us understood a word of what eachother said, but they were very nice anyway. Haven't seen any other tourists for ages. Have also not drunk alcohol or eaten meat for a VERY long time - London is going to be such a culture shock!
Next we're going to do the friendship highway - we're doing an 8 day cross country trail in a jeep, stopping at lots of random tiny villages, then climbing to Everest base camp (woo hoo!) and then descending into KATHMANDU - CUAS people =- this is why I've added you to the subscribers list. I can't wait to ride down that hill in a rickshaw again and to rock up at that hotel and see if they blacklisted us after the swimming pool antics on the last night.
Doubt that there'll be much internet access on the way to Kathmandu, but I'll definitely write again when we get there and say how different it is!
Back in London Easter Monday supposedly, but think FCO have made a very big mistake with my pay check, so I'm considering disappearing and not coming back ever (the mistake is big enough to travel for another year in Asia - ha ha ha!)
Keep in touch - feel free to post messages on here - especially any tips on Kathamndu from Liz and the people who've been there recently. The people who might be coming through China (Mattm, Gareth, Andy) - if you're still reading, make sure you ask me about how to get to Tibet. It's really cheap and easy if you do it the way we've done it (i.e. show up in Chengdu and then Lhasa and wing it!)
Til next time Jenny the intrepid explorer xxx

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