Beijing to Kathmandu-Day 11

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This morning we left our hotel at 5am to catch our flight to Lhasa.Joe and I have exactly the same liquids in our hand luggage as we had leaving Dublin and leaving Heathrow - so we don't anticipate any problems.It's a 2 hour domestic flight with Air China.However they won't let us bring our all important mosquito repellant through!!We end up checking in another bag though so it's not a problem.Mam had given us a bottle of holy water as well to bring with us and when the security man held it up wondering what it was, my heart sank.Once I blessed myself about 5 times while gesturing at it, he seemed to get the message and let us keep it.We arrived at our hotel in Lhasa anyway with not too much action.It's very cold but with searing sunshine so we're constantly taking on and off our jumpers and you just KNOW we're all going to catch a cold.We have 5 nights in Lhasa to acclimatise to the altitude so everyone's pretty relaxed.We dump our bags and go for a walk around.Our guide Zshoka is in her element here because she studied Tibet in college and really loves the place.When we're walking around we realise that there is a serious Chinese army presence in the place.Even Zshoka is surprised.It's a little intimidating actually but everything seems pretty peaceful so............The Tibetan people are fabulous.There is not half of the aggression as there is in the markets in China and everyone just keeps smiling and shouting hello at us.There are a good few groups of Westerners around - mostly Europeans it seems but some Americans also.

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Comments

[Crystal 007]

Tibetan people
Do you find there are some children around the Barkhor Street and Potala Palace, some of them will ask you for money with the excuse of worship.

[Wish you were here]

Tibetan People
We absolutely found that! We ignored it as much as possible. What else can you do?