A little more Tibet

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Thursaday 6th contined...... We drove over three passes all nearing 5000m.....incredible views when driving over snow topped mountains. Our tour guide actually walked over these mountains to get into India to study Buddhism in Dharamasala, he had to walk over the mountains as the government would not grant him a visa to leave Tibet....he walked at night and slept hidden in the day.

At the top of the first pass we stopped in the most spectacular place, a massive lake formed in a valley between two joining mountains at about 4800m....so unbelievable it was perfect completely untouched, its called The Yamdrok-tso lake.

Friday 7th - We visited the Pelkor Chode Monestary this was massive and had had alot of it destroyed during the cultural reveloution. We also visited Gyantse Dzong...this was an old fort situated ontop of a mountaion overlooking Gyantze. To get to this we drove up a dodgy road in our land cruisers, but as we neared the top there was lots of ice on the road........as we turned opne of the corners we lost traction and started slidding backwards....the driver tried to brake but no luck we kept slidding. Then he stalled.....we carried on slidding Rox and Catherine were now screaming that the wanted to get out as we were decidedley close to the edge of the cliff. Rox was on the verge of tears and Peter was on the verge of soiling himself , we jumped out and saw the others in our group out of there cars looking and one of there drivers running to the car with a big rock to put under our tyre. We only actually stopped from going off the edge due to a small concrete block that our rear tyre had bumped into......... SCARY. Our first and hopefully only near death experience. We drove to Shigatse where Peter started to feel awful.....he spent the whole night being sick and shitting (his words) for fun.

Saturday 8th - Rox went to Tashilhunpo Monestary on her own as Peter was still ill, this was a large wealthy monestary with over 500hundered monks.... Rox got to see them chanting which was a great experience.

Sunday 9th - We drove to Sakya.... on the way we decided to get altitude sickness medicine this was herbal and cost 3pounds. On arrival to Sakya we visited the local monestary which was huge... the chinese government fund this one as part of chinese heritage. We got to see the monks praying due to it being an anniversary for a previous Lama. Had an awful dinner in which none of us were served at the same time, the rice wasnt cooked and tasted disgusting, the Naan was cold and came way before anyone had any curry. Due to the lack of shope and restaurants everyone went to bed really hungry.

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