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Published: November 2nd 2008
We had a free day today so Mo and I slept in and had a leisurely breakfast. We went back to Bokhar Square, did some shopping and explored the area further. We walked for quite a while and finally stopped for tea and lunch. After lunch we went to the China Post bank to chnage some of our 100 yuan notes from the ATM to smaller bills. The security guard kept trying to get us to go to the actual post office and we had a hard time explaining why we were in line. He finally gave up. It was very crowded and we were in the slowest possible line. Finally, we were next when the woman behind us just pushed her way to the teller window. Mo said "excuse me - we were next", but the woman wasn't listening. We finally got our change after about a 30 minute wait. It's hard to use bigger bills and it will be even harder when we leave Lhasa tomorrow so it was worth the wait.
After the bank experience, we walked to the Rombuche Monastery, the second most important in Lhasa. At the ticket counter we met a monk who spoke a little English. He asked where I was from and I said US. He wasn't impessed, but when Mo said England, he responded with an enthusiastic "Beckham plays football"! He then had another monk walk us through the main portion of the monastery. As we entered a room, he turned on the light and as we were leaving he turned it off. The monatery didn't have many monks, but many of them (up to 90%) have been sent home for the time being. The same is true everywhere. There are some monks, but no where near as many as usual. The same is true for Western tourists which is nice for us, but very bad for the local businesses.
We're off to the countryside tomorrow on our way to My. Everest! We'll reach there on the afternoon of the 6th. There's no much between here and the Nepal border (except for Mt. Everest, of course) and almost no internet access so don't look to hear anything from me for about a week. I am very nrevous about when and how I will hear election results. There are two guys on the trip who are also huge Barack fans and they have an iPhone with access so hopefully that will work even in the middle of nowhere.
The weather has been fine here - clear and sunny so it's warm enough in the day time, but it really cools down at night. I'm trying not to layer too much on since it's only going to get colder for the next several days. I am a wimpy North Carolina girl and it's colder here than it's been there this year! I have enough clothes if I can get them all on at once!
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Greta
non-member comment
hi
i am a girl from Chongqing. i went to Tibet last summer and i love it. it seems like u didn't went to namtso lake?that 's the most beautiful place in Tibet to me, i wil definitly go there again. this is the first article of yours i read,now,i am going to the second one!