After trying in Geermu to get on the train, I had to settle for flying to Lhasa, Tibet from Chengdu, but I was just excited to be able to get in, as the Olympics and demonstrations earlier in the year have made it quite hard for foreigners to get into Tibet. Currently, you have to enter with a tour group, have a guide for the entire trip, submit your entire itinerary, and you can still only visit a very limited part of the massive province. Luckily, our hostel had some good connections with the agencies, so we got our permits without a problem, and I joined up with an Israeli couple in their 40s or 50s, and one other amazing 77 year old Israeli man travelling alone. As a group, we saved a bit of money, and it also provided some interesting adventures along the way, particularly with some of the antics and comments muttered by David, the wily old man of the group. One of my "favorites" was him complaining to me that all he can see in the viewfinder of his older camera (hence a weak LCD) is his own face. He kept telling me this over and over, so I eventually tried to explain to him that he could try to shield the light to prevent such a strong reflection, but he's one of those people that doesn't actually want your help. Even so, he was a very interesting roommate.
Our two hour flight to Lhasa was a beautiful one, flying over innumerable rows of brown mountains, a few of them snow-capped, split by the occasional river. After we landed, we took a very scenic ride in our Land Cruiser back alongside some mountains, yellowing trees and a wide river into the town itself. Our first day at high altitude, we were instructed to just take it easy, basically napping, hanging around the immediate area and not exerting ourselves. This sounded fine to me, after just a few hours of sleep the previous night. We also had some pills to take to help fight the altitude sickness experienced by some travellers, though you really can't tell if someone will be affected until you actually get to the high elevations.
On our second day in town, we visited the iconic Potala Palace, the massive monastery that sits on a hilltop overlooking the entire town. Built in the 14th or 15th century, this huge red and white structure is a beautiful sight and drew me back to the square for pictures many times.
(Our plane, backed by the ubiquitous mountains of Tibet.)
(Potala Palace. We started at the bottom, climbed hundreds of stairs and eventually got to the top, looked around at the rooms inside, and then finally climbed back out the back entrance.)
(Me and the palace, ready to start climbing.)
(The ominous looking door handle to one of the many doors blocking our route.)
(Near the top, we reached this courtyard. Just to the right of this picture are some highly-touted toilets with a great view of the North side of town and a massive drop from the toilet hole to the ground below. Nice.)
(This is the view of Northern Lhasa from atop Potala Palace. As with most days, it started off clear and clouds came in late in the day.)
(It actually cost 2 Yuan ($0.25) to get to this viewpoint, but I think it was worth it. I believe they say the palace itself is 13 stories tall.)
(Another view of the palace from the square, with a strategically placed Chinese flag in the foreground. Those Chinese and their propaganda.)
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