Devilish

I slept well last night....but Suki seems to have a hard night. She has been having respiratory problems the past few days....possibly due to the thin air. When we woke up today at around 6am, dare not step into the toilet...was told it was a disaster inside...haha....Someone had quite a war there last night...ended up brushing my teeth by the window! After a hearty breakfast, had a slow walk to Rongphu Monastery. Initially, we thought we could be able to catch the Tibetan morning chants. Again, unfortunately, they cancelled it. One may think that we may be disappointed by not being able to get what we expected....but the beauty of this trip is that....we did not quite have any expectation...or rather I just went ahead with the trip and take everything in as it comes. It ... read more

We visited another monastery today. Tashilunpo Monastery in Shigatse. From afar, you could really see it's grandeur with "layers" of chapels by the foot of Tara Mountain. Inside Tashilunpo, there's this chapel called the Maitreya Chapel which houses the biggest Future Buddha statue! According to the Tibetan's belief, we are in the era of the Present Buddha which has the life span of 100 years. In the future, the Future Buddha will come and reign the world. In that time, human will be born short and small and has the lifespan of only 10 years. As such, Tibetans are praying hard to increase the lifespan of the Future Buddha and built such big Future Buddha statue for the same reason too. As we wander around the monastery, we realised that the monks were pretty busy...in fact ... read more

Wow! What a great day!!!! Our road trip started today and it was great fun! We also got to finally meet our guide for the rest of the trip. His name is Pubu and that literally mean Thursday in Tibetan! He has quite unique pair of eyes for an Asian. Instead of the usual dark brown iris, his has a light brown hue. You can say that it look quite like a tigers'. If not for his cheeky character and boyish face, I think he will look pretty fierce. From Lhasa, we travelled along Friendship Highway towards Gyantse where we stayed for the night. We left Lhasa around 9am and arrived in Gyantse around 7pm. Me and Suki get to share a jeep with Pubu, while Meng and Fungi shared the jeep with Tim. Though it ... read more

I managed to wake up at 430am this morning in time to catch the bus slightly after 5am. In fact, we were late! haha.... It rained pretty heavily last night and was still drizzling when we got out. We arrived at the foot of the hill where Drepung Monastery before 6am. We were told that we had to continue the journey on foot. We walked along tar road so the walk wasn't so bad. There weren't any street lightings and everything in front of us was pitch dark. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise....at least we didn't have to see and anticipate how much further we have to go. There were horses by the road side awating tourists wanting a ride up the hill instead of the long walk. Patsy and Elaine jump onto ... read more

You wouldn't believe what happened just now! Thinking back, I guess that it's just part and parcel of travelling where the unexpected do make travel even more adventure like.....do I make sense!!?? Anyway, Tim, our tour group I/C just posed us with the question of the year. We were to choose only one for tomorrow's itinerary: The Shotun Festival @Drepung Monastery or Potala Palace. Choose only one! uno! ohne! satu! yige! How to choose when we went to Tibet with the expectation of going to Shotun Festival tomorrow and the Potala Palace the day after. The festival being the focus of our trip and Potala being the very icon of Tibet's culture and identity??!! It's like been asked to pee or poo only for the day when everyone knows that you need to pee and poo ... read more

Yawn! Woke up at about 5.30pm today....the sky was still so dark. It's been a long time since I last woke up at this unmanly hour..... haha.. Had breakfast at Soma Hostel -- toast with butter and jam, hash browns, eggs and the best yoghurt cereal I've ever had!! The yoghurt was so fresh and tasty....thinking of it again now just makes me salivate. Flight was bound to fly at 7.40am on Air China again. Arrived Lhasa at about 10am. I was filled with anticipation....already we had breathtaking views of the mountains from the airplane. At Lhasa, we are already at 3650m above sea level! We will be staying at Snowland Hostel for the next 3 nights. The picture you see here is just the hostel section. The hotel section has a decent bathroom (very important!) ... read more