LinZhi

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Today was fraught with complications and answers - thankfully enough. We spent most of the day on the bus talking. Vincent had saved a seat for me and actually as it turned out the other group was staying in my same hotel so I wasn't alone there - which was good. We talked a lot on the way back. We had lunch at the same place as yesterday and afterwards I went up to the front of the bus to talk to the tour guide and the bus came upon some policemen. The tour guide freaked out, took my passport from me and insisted I put my touristy hat on and sit back down. I did what she waid but then it turned out they were looking for a fugitive who wasn't on our bus. Earlier in the morning we got to go to a tour stop settlement of Tibetan houses - the newer kind with beautiful doors and windows but no prayer flags on the roofs. For some reason I remember passing through the old style houses and them having pool tables outside playing pool in front of the house - or in case of Nam-tso in front of their tents.

At one point I decided to check my pass expiration date. Turns out it was the 14th. I freaked out for a bit after that and got really upset after being told the agency wasn't going to extend it. Unfortunately the tour bus was taking the new group to the same medicine shop and yak store I'd already been. At first I tried not getting off the bus like the British had done but they insisted if I didn't get off they would have to pay a fine for me not going in so I compromised and got off the bus but didn't go in. They made me contact the Dalian travel agency about getting a new pass for the two extra days so I had to text Michael to text Merry to call the agency. They had a bunch of stupid questions so there was a lot of texting and Merry even called me once - to later send a text that she was thrilled to be calling me at the closest place to the sun. Cam called to let me know I didn't have to register with the police while staying in Hunan but I texted Wayne who said it was optional and at the time I thought it would be best. After the tour places we went to dinner next to Potala Palace - for my 4th time eating there. I warned them they would be eating there a lot more. After dinner our tour guide was going to take all our bags to the hotels and drop us near Ba Jiao Jie - the shopping/bar area. So we went to Vincent and Ernest (the Malaysian guy) hotel and waited for 5 minutes. As soon as the tour guide got back on the bus the driver left in a huff with all of us thinking "um, what's going on?" Ernest called the tour guide and ended up having to take a taxi to meet us. When he asked the driver what happened the driver started a screaming match. It was a bit crazy.

We finally took 2 taxis to Ba Jiao Jie and I let them shop while I went to meet Mathieu. The 2 of us decided to get something to eat and told the others to meet us when they finished. Mathieu ordered French fries, Lhasa beer and Yak rolls and I ordered Yak cheese and honey pancakes - pretty decent actually. I told him that earlier Vincent was trying to describe the difference between Tibetan and Korean mountains and he described them like part of a woman's body with Tibetan mountains being more naked than Korean - as the trees are much shorter here in Tibet.

I keep remembering our tour guide tried to convince us the Dalai Lama and Panchem Lama ate beef and lamb but not yak - somehow I doubt it.

After a while one of Mathieu's friends - a French man with Tibetan wife and 4 kids came and sat next to us. All of them spoke good French that I could actually understand a bit of. After them Vincent, his Korean friend, Ernest and his Japanese friend came to meet us and we ended up leaving when the restaurant closed and all walking together to a disco Mathieu had heard of.

What an interesting place! We walked upstairs to the disco and discovered it was mostly Tibetans - in fact we were the only foreigners there. There was live slow music playing and people were ballroom dancing to it - girls with girls or guys with girls. The music was really neat - it kept changing from individual karaoke performances to 3 beautiful Tibetans in red who sang Tibetan translated Chinese songs to a live band with trumpet, percussion, keyboard and flute. The room was rather large with small clusters of couches around tables and a big stage in the center. I got to ballroom dance with Vincent but they left after 2 beers since they have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. Almost as soon as they left they started playing trance and the Tibetans all danced a little line dance that fit to any song 4 steps together then 2 glides to turn around and do the four steps again. Mathieu and I decided to dance. It was a lot of fun - some of the time we just sat and watched the Tibetans who seemed to be regulars to the place. They ranged from mid 20s to late 50s - it seemed. I got to relax with Mathieu as he had eased all my previous tensions of living in Lhasa with no permit - as that's what he's doing - and going to Cam's - as he's done it many times without registering and the one time he got caught they just warned him it was unsafe. Mathieu's a really cute guy. I like him a lot. Very tall and lanky French guy. I told him French was really sexy to me and he didn't agree but understood what I meant. In the end we ended up walking home later arm in arm. Unlike the tour guide said about being out later than 10:30 being dangerous I think it's more being out that late on the streets alone is dangerous, which is probably the case most anywhere in Asia.

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