Lhasa to Shigatse

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Day 9 - Lhasa to Shigatse

Today was a long driving day along the Friendship Highway. The plus points were that the roads were mainly tarmac, but how they got a wagon up there to do it was beyond us!

We stopped for lunch at an interesting restaurant, which was to be the first of many where the rice is cold when you get it, the tea is lukewarm, and the menu leaves you wondering what you have actually ordered!

Along the way we passed through Gyantse and stopped to see the Kumbum Temple and monestary. The monestary still has a population of monks. Kumbum means place of 100,000 images, and there are a number of small cells spread over four floors in there, and each one has images of different aspects of Buddhism, with murals, statues etc. Once again, there were lots of pilgrims in there, each one taking the time to go into each room and leave a small offering of a few cents. Up on the hill is the old fortress the Dzong built in the 14th century, but it is now deserted.

Further along the road, we passed the Yamdrok-tso Lake, which is the most amazing turquoise colour and despite protests from the 10th Pachen Lama, the Chinese have dammed it up and are using it to generate hydro-electric power. The lake seemed to go on for miles - and it did - behind the mountains and reappearing again further along.

We finally arrived in Shigatse, where the hotel was basic with the main issue being a lack of hot water for a shower. We met our guide later for dinner, as he was going to take us out of the hotel, as the food was reportedly "not up to much“。We went to a restaurant which had a number of other foreigners in it, and the food was okay. This was also where we were going to have breakfast in the morning, so i had one eye on that menu as well.

Unlike Kathmandu, the towns in Tibet close at 7pm, and so essentially there really is nothing to do. We asked our guide whether there was anywhere we could blog from. He took us to the local internet cafe, which we would never have found by ourselves. They had over 50 terminals, by clearly didn't cater for westerners, and so we were a bit of a novelty. Surprisingly they all seemed to be playing fantasy role playing games and singing along to Kylie - and that was just the boys! So this made blogging quite an experience.

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Photos

Yamdrok Lake
(Beautiful turquoise water)

Buddha
(or Marge Simpson you decide)