Still trying to get to Tibet, China

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Hi again,
After running away from the police I arrived to Landzou. It's the third time I arrive to this place, and this time is the first time I spend a night here.
I tried to get a ticket for the 24 hour train to Chengdu, and got the same answer over and over again - no sleeper tickets for the next few days. Apparently it's the summer vacation and all the Chinese are traveling as well, and it is impossible to get tickets. I got a nice lady from one of the travel agencies to write a letter in Chinese saying I really want to upgrade my ticket to a sleeper class, and I bought a hard seat for the train. When I got on the train I started to ask around for the upgrade. The answer was, how surprising, that the sleeper class is full. But I didn't believe it, and I went to look for the person in charge of the upgrades. I went all the way to the front of the train only to discover that most sleepers are empty, and that some rich Chinese buy a sleeper for 2-3 hours ride and get off the train, but the Chinese don't resell these benches in the station!
The conductor gave me a sleeper without a problem, and for the first time in china I felt like luck is smiling back at me. I had some faith, believed things would be OK, and they did!!!
I promised to take some pictures of the sleeper class (that was a few months ago) - and since this is the last train I was planning to take in China (the railroad to Tibet will only be open late in 2006) - I took these pictures here.
I arrived to Chengdu only to discover some more bad news. The Chinese decided to close Tibet for foreigners because of the 40 years anniversary of the
Chinese liberation of Tibet (A.K.A. the Chinese
occupation of Tibet, depends who you are asking). They
are afraid of demonstrations, and even more afraid of
tourists seeing that the population is not happy. They didn't want tourists to witness the way they handle uprisings like that. They announced it a day before my arrival to Chengdu, which means I was stuck here with no clue of what is going to be my next step.
I was really disappointed, but I didn't want to give up on Tibet. They said they would open it up again after two weeks, so I thought that the worst case would be a shorter visit to Tibet, but still a visit. I decided to wait. To have faith. To believe it will be OK. I rested in Chengdu for a few days doing almost nothing. I ate well, I slept, I caught up on the blog (which is always behind), and I watched countless of movies (Star Wars I+II+III, House of Flying Daggers, Ronin, Shrek 2, and many more). I even visited a temple...
A few days later I discovered that one travel agency here still sells flight tickets to Tibet. The solution revealed itself to me by chance.
The owner of my guesthouse explained to me that they probably "know the right people", meaning they probably know who to bribe.
I was a little afraid of it, knowing that I just ran away from the police a few days before, and that I already had my share of problems with the Chinese law, but I decided to give it a chance.
I bought a flight ticket right away, and hoped for the best.
I got the ticket, but without any permit. They said there is a group permit that they will bring to the airport, and that "it will
be OK". Before the flight I sent a mail to all of my friends telling them that if they don't hear from me - it means that I got in trouble with the
police again, and that they should come and visit me in jail, or at
least send me packages.
It was OK. I wasn't arrested in Lhasa, and I arrived to Tibet safely.
And all about that - next time,
R.

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Comments

[Terry Chou]

Nice article
you're so funny,especially the last paragraph