Tibet or Bust

Finally arrived in Tibet. It has been a long trip with a bit of fooling around in Shanghai. I have had a bit of an adventure since my last entry. The night I had got back from Suzhou I met a couple of Dutch people. They were heading to a nightclub and asked me if I wanted to go with them. I thought this would be interesting so I said yes. We went to a place called Fusion. Foreigners that go to these places do not have to pay for anything. All drinks are free and no entry fee either. I guess they want foreigners to come to the bars because it brings in the Chinese crowd. Well it was a fun night! The place was totally packed. People bouncing around everywhere knocking into you. Impossible to walk through the crowd without getting soaked

with booze. I stayed until about 3 and then caught a cab back to the hostel. Dutch crowd headed to another nightclub until it ended at 6. Crazy place this Shanghai. Next day was a work day for me. Needed to get my Tibet permit printed and a few passport pictures taken. Didn't really get going until about noon, but soon found what I needed to do was going to be difficult. All the print shops were closed for the holiday. Very few people have color printers, so my quick and easy trip to a printer turned into a nightmare. Spent all afternoon and evening trying to get someone to print my permit in color. I asked everyone I could think of. Some tried to help, but couldn't because when I sent them my emails to print, the permit info wouldn't go through. I couldn't figure it out and I was starting to get very frustrated. Finally at 7:00pm I tried a China Unicom place. They had a color printer and for a price would do it for me. I agreed and away they went, but again they couldn't open to print. The girl helping me

said she thought my VPN was changing the document so it couldn't be opened. I thought I can email it home with the VPN turned off and have Amalia send it straight to this girl. Amalia did it and the girl could open it. After a long frustrating day we finally had success. On the way back I saw a photo shop open so I ducked and got some passport pictures for future visas. They had them ready for me in a half hour. Things were going my way! Had to change hostels the next day, so once again I packed up and headed to the new place. I decided to walk since I had lots of time. Took me an hour , but I arrived at 2pm and checked in. Just hung out at the hostel for the rest of the day. Leaving on my 47 hour train ride to Tibet the next evening. Took my time getting going in the morning. Didn't have to catch my train until the evening. Checked out at 11:30 and then sat down to do the annual Rose Hockey Pool with the girls. Amalia had it all arranged, but I think my VPN was causing issues with the website. We figured out how to make it work and spent an hour doing

our fantasy hockey pool. Crazy how technology and communication have made it so easy to do things. Wasted the afternoon playing games and charging my Ipad. Decided I had lots of time, so I walked to the train station. Everything went perfect and I boarded the train for Lhasa, Tibet at 8:10. Luckily, my cabin had two young Chinese girls that could speak English and they wanted to talk. The first 24 hours went very fast. The landscape was typical lush green rugged mountainous terrain that is typical of central China. Been there, done that! Woke up on the last morning to a totally changed landscape. We were now on a high desert plain. At one point we reached 4800 metres. I wasn't having any issues with the higher altitude, but the two Chinese girls had headaches and ended up, laying down trying to sleep the whole second day. We changed trains after the first 24 hours to a train with oxygen. So every cabin had oxygen connectors you could plug into if it was needed. Didn't see any one using them, but I thought the Chinese girls may do it. As we got closer to Lhasa the terrain got more rugged and mountainous. Not many snow capped mountains, but most were over 6000 metres or higher. Made it to Lhasa on time and immediately went to the hotel. Had a shower and went to bed. Have a roommate so I don't have to pay extra for a single room and he is heading to Kathmandu to hike as well. Who knows, maybe I have a hiking partner! Anyway doing temples in Lhasa tomorrow, so a relatively slack day! Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I am extremely excited about being in Tibet!