Well, we missed our connection in Tokyo by fifteen minutes because the plane was grounded in Guangzhou for mechanical problems, and thus, we were issued new plane tickets for a new flight as well as a meal voucher, so we treated ourselves to some pretty respectable sushi at the airport.

 

While I'm on downer subjects, earlier this week we had our Wally World moment when we drove two hours off the main road to visit Sakya monastery only for the majority of it to be completely closed for construction repairs.  We were bummed.  We toured what was left in less than an hour.  I was pretty grumpy about it, but then I realized that the pilgrims who endured many more hardships to get there than I did were also dissapointed, and that put it into perspective a little bit.  Plus there was not a sporting good store nearby, and no one to stick up except some friendly monks who seemed pretty excited about the restoration of their monastery.

 

The rest of our road trip was wonderful.  We saw so many great things at each of the monasteries we went to.  The toughest one to visit was the cave monastery because I could barely breathe and there was so much to climb.  I took a few looks and each time I said I couldn't make it to the top, but John kept prodding me until we finally did.  We took breaks about every eight stairs, but we finally made it, and the cave monasteries were completely worth the trouble.  The statues were really amazing, and we were shown around by a spunky monk with a twinkle in his eye.  My favorite monastery that we visited in the four days we were riding around was Tashilhunpo, which was in Shigaste.  They had quite a few big and beautiful statues, and the complex was fairly big and pretty to look at.  The complex that was prettiest to walk around was at Reting monastery.  It was full of juniper trees and on a hillside, and there were all kinds of nuns and monks wandering the paths as well.  The most pleasant surprise on the trip was going to Dorje Drak, which our guide sneaked in at the end since it was on the way home.  It had spectacular scenery right on the river.  We didn't stay too long, though, since we were eager to get back to Lhasa and the monks were heading in for dinner.

 

The day and  half we spent in Guangzhou was pretty fun.  We went to two Buddhist temples just for comparison's sake.  The city itself reminded me a lot of Bangkok.  We also spent a lot of time in the hotel room watching movies, which was time well spent since we were pretty tired from the previous two weeks.

 

Well, I'm nearly out of time and I want to go figure out the fancy vending machines they have here at the airport.

 

Love,

Trina

 

I totally forgot to write about Tibetan breakfast number 4!  It came on three different plates: one plate had a buckwheat pancake, another plate had something that looked and tasted like tsampa (barley flour mixed with a bit of tea or water to make a paste) but I don't think was technically tsampa, and soft yak cheese coasted in sugar. Of course, being me, I ate all of these items separately; however, John noticed mid-meal that the guy behind me was stacking all these items on top of each other (think Stacks and Merryann's, UIUC grads).  So I promptly stacked them on top of each other, and it was much more delicious.  The cheese didn't taste so strong, and the tsampa didn't taste so boring, and the buckwheat pancake was warm and delicious.  It was much better stacked then separate.

 

I also totally forgot to write about the Tide laundry bar.  It's brilliant.  The reason I know is because our hotel provides free laundry service, but they refuse socks and underwear.  So John and I spent part of an afternoon last week washing our socks and underwear in the sink.  On one of our outings, we passed a place selling Tide laundry bar, which is essentially a less concentrated version of their detergent in bar soap form.  It got everything so clean, and then our room smelled like Tide instead of like feet, which was nice for a change.

 

Last, but not least, everday we pass a place that has the greatest supply of paper products I've ever seen.  Toliet paper and napkins as far as the eye can see.  There are so many different varities of maxi pads, it made me blush a little.  Nevertheless, this place is a pants-wiper's paradise, and I long to return to a place where napkins are as big as my head instead of as small as my palm and where people blow their nose into Kleenex instead of onto the sidewalk.  :)

 

Love,

Trina

There was a comment that we should write more about the food.  The food as been varied in quality and price.  One of our best meals consisted of scrumptious dumplings and breadsticks and was 7 yuan (~1 dollar) for four people.  One of our worst meals was this pork and vegetable stirfry thing for 80 yuan.  While on the road we ate a lot of dishes that were pork and veggies or yak and veggies or just plain veggies.  We also ate a lot of spicy noodles, which seems to be the primary breakfast of champions out here.  When we were in the cities, we ate more Western food, which has also been varied in quality.  A week ago, I had a few bites of a truly hideous pizza, but last night, I had yummy tomato soup and garlic bread.

 

While we've mostly eaten Chinese food, we have had an opportunity to eat some Tibetan-style meals as well.  I'm particularly in love with a fried potato dish that has a mix of spices in it--primarily curry.  Our Dutch travelling mates scarfed down quite a stack of pork ribs which had a good spice rub on them.  Momos are good, but really all potsticker type things are good.  :)

 

I learned that yogurt and muesli makes a wonderful breakfast.  We think the yogurt is from yaks as well because it has a distinctly stronger, more sour, flavor.  It's good, but usually needs a little extra honey.  We've also been enjoying varieties of tea: green, jasmine, chrysanthemum.  It's amazing what one can do with some dried leaves and hot water.  We've also enjoyed yak butter tea much more than the average joe, although I think it would be much better in the morning.  It's much too salty for savoring in the afternoon when it's warm out.

 

I have finally conquered acclimitasation (sp.) only to have to start battling a new problem: dry skin.  My skin is so dry, it's rubbed raw by the seams on my pants.  For the last couple of days, I have been aggressively moisturizing, which has helped heal most parts.  I also have funny red spots on my face, which John insisted on pointing out to a salesgirl in order to get the proper face creme, but really I just had to point at the Oil of Olay.  We've also had a problem with stinky feet with no Dr. Scholl's powder in sight.  We tried to buy a Chinese equivalent, but it turned out to be some sort of baby creme--John thinks it's lotion, I think it's diaper rash creme.  FInally we gave up and settled on baby powder since Johnson & Johnson's is the only thing we recognize, and it's been difficult miming stinky feet to the poor store clerks.

 

Off to Tashilhunpo.

Love,

Trina (and John)

So I wrote a big long post about what we have been doing but my stupid internet time ran out and it booted me off before I could post.  Stupid Internet.

 

So here is the summary since it is late and we have to get up early tomorrow.

 

We have been taking it easy.  We did a lot of shopping.  We bought a rug.  We went to the Potala Palace.

 

We will be gone for teh next few days on a variety of trips.  Here is the itinerary:

 

Sunday - Reting, Taklung, Drak Yerpa Monasteries

Monday and Tuesday - Gyanste, Shigatse, and Sakya

Wednesday - Samye, Mindroling, and Yumbulang Monasteries

 

The good news is that we posted pictures in the past blogs.

 

More later.

 

John and Trina

 

PS - We have seen the comments to the blog posts and will try to reply in the next post.

 

After a week in the Landcruiser, we are now in Lhasa.  As we have found with most of our travels Trina and I seem to enjoy the major cities more more than the message borders and LP authors do.  Lhasa has been a welcome relief from the smaller cities that we stopped in along the way.  We very much enjoyed the trip out here but we also very much enjoy being in Lhasa finally.

 

So far we have walked around the Barkhor area, which is similar to the old town in Zhongdian just bigger with more people.  It also has a muchmore authentic feel to it.  Today, we took pictures outside of the Potala Palace.  We are hoping to get tickets to go inside the Potala but that seems to be easier said than day as tickets need to be purchased a day in advance and the line starts forming before 7 AM.  Today, we also visited the Jokhang and Sera monasteries.  Jokhang was another one of those great travel moments.  The Jokhang experiece was practically a religious awakening and as you know I am not really a religious person.  The statues were stunning.  The pilgrims that were there outnumbered the tourists at least 10 to 1 and there sheer dedication to being there was inspiring.  In all of my travels to various religious sites, I have never seen anything like I saw today.  It was a moment that I will forever remember.

   

Sera was nothing to scoff at either.  It is one of the Buddhist colleges and it was also quite impressive.  The highlight was probably watching the Monks debate various buddhist philosophies and ideas.  They are quite animated, which is a big dfference from how they act the rest of the day.

 

  

 

That's all for now as I am running out of Internet time.

 

John

 

Today, Trina and I made the trek down to Tiger Leaping Gorge.  It was a wonderful experience and we are both delighted that we decided to make the trip down there.  Admittedly, Trina has been pushing to go Tiger Leaping Gorge since we started planning the trip.  I had been resistant not because I didn't think that it was going to be amazing but because I was not overly excited about the 3 hour trip down there and was concerned about overpacking the itinerary.  Having been down there now, I have to say that I am glad that Trina insisted on going there.  Tiger Leaping Gorge is nothing short of breathtaking.  It was one of those moments where you say to yourself, "This is it.  This is why it is worth sitting on a plane for 14 hours to get here."

 

 

To get to Tiger Leaping Gorge, we took a bus from Zhongdian to Qiaotao.  The LP stated this bus ride would take around 3 hours.  However, with the new roads it took around 2 hours and 15 minutes so that was nice.  Once we got there, we hired a mini-van to drive us up the road to see the Gorge.  Through suggestions at one of the local eateries, we decided to do a short three hour hike into the Gorge.  What we didn't know, was that the "short" hike was actually a 1000 ft decent down to the base of the canyon.  Of course, a 1000 ft descent also means a 1000 ft ascent.  Needless to say, this was a physically strenuos activity.  The ascent included the option to take the famous (infamous?) sky ladder.  This is a rickety rebar ladder that goes straight up the face of cliff.  It easily was 50 feet long.  We ended up being deterred by the sign that had an arrow pointing at the ladder saying "Dangerous Ladder" and another arrowing pointing up a path that said "Safe Path."  We opted for "Safe Path."  We thought it was what our mothers would have wanted us to do.  :) 

  

 

However, it was worth all the sweat.  At the bottom of the canyon, we had a tremdous view of a waterfall that fell the depth of the canyon.  It was amazing.  Words and the dozen pictures that we took cannot adequately describe the experience.  It was a moment that I will surely remember for a very long time.  The entire TLP is really quiet impressive.  I would write more about it but I just don't think that I can do it justice.  We took 200 pictures today and hopefully at least one of them will capture the moment.

 

 

 

For the trip back, we ended up meeting 4 people from Israel and we managed to flag down an empty coach bus that was headed up to Zhongdian.  After a little bartering, we were able to secure a ride and we had the entire bus to ourselves.  It made for a nice trip back after a long day of hiking.  For dinner, we found this great restaurant, Lhasa Restaurant, that serves Tibetan hotpots.  The food was excellent and we both stuffed ourselves.

 

Tomorrow, we are going to go check out the two monastaries that are just outside of town.  For those that watch Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations," we will be visiting one of the temples that he stopped at in the Shangri La episode.  Then for dinner we are meeting our Dutch travel companions Martin and Ria.  Thursday, we start our trip to Lhasa.

 

Also, on a side note, we forget to mention in last nights blog that we found the jacket that had gone missing.  It was packed in one of the bags.  Sigh.

 

Well, I am off to bed for a well deserved rest.

 

Wishing everyone the safe path,

John and Trina

 

 

We have arrived.  The plane flights out here were long.  Especially, the four and half hour leg from Narita to Guangzhou.  That flight was miserable.  One of the worst we've been on in a while.  Something to note for future reference is that when traveling to large countries the temperature can vary.  Touchdown in Guangzhou revealed that the temperature was 32 degrees....Celsius.  That's right 90 degrees at midnight.  That would make it almost 50 degrees warmer than Tibet.  Luckily, we were  not there very long, so the lack of summer clothes was not a big deal.

 

We are currently in Zhongdian.  It is very pretty here.  The old town is amazing, and it is finally syncing in that we are here after a year of planning.  The altitude here is 10581 ft.  Shoutout to Gary for lending us his watch with altimeter.  Now we know at any moment how high we are.  Although, John's body temp is so high that it's been throwing the temperature gauge off.   

 

Needless to say considering how high up we are, altitude sickness has been a factor.  Trina has been hit harder than me so far but I am sure that my time is coming soon enough.  (Trina spent the entire afternoon with a headache shivering in her sleeping bag before it finally occurred to her that we brought Diamox for just this sort of thing.)  The medication that the UW Travel Clinic gave us worked quite well and it is reassuring to know that. 

 

After two days of airline food, we finally got to eat something that was not in a little tray and actually tasted like something.  First we had breakfast at a place recommended in the LP.  Tonight Trina and I went to a local dumpling shop.  30 dumplings. $2 US. 

 

We have a couple of days here to hang out before we set off for Tibet on Thursday.  The original plan was to go see Tiger Leaping Gorge, but we've been hearing that it's rained there for two weeks straight and has been closed for the last few days.  We're going to check in with someone tomorrow, and if it is closed, we may head out to a nearby town that is supposed to have spectacular views and many limestone formations.  We'll see.  We are a little bummed, but our other options sound nice as well.

 

I think that is all for now.  Time for a cup of tea before we head back to our guesthouse.

 

Please forgive all typos and errors in grammar.  The keyboard is a little funky, and we're a little wiped out.  :)

 

Love,

Trina and John

 

 

 

After what seems like ages of travel planning, we are nearly on our way.  We leave Seattle at 2:40 p.m. on Saturday and arrive at 11 p.m. on Sunday in Guangzhou, China.  From Guanzhou we shall fly to Zhongdian (Shangri-La), China in Yunnan province.  While in Zhongdian we will travel a bit to hike around Tiger Leaping Gorge and wait for our permits to be arranged.  Then we shall get in a 4x4 with our new Dutchie friends, Ria and Martin, and head to Lhasa.  Along the way we'll be seeing gorgeous mountains and monasteries, some hot springs, lakes, and a Catholic church.  Our overland tour is arranged through China Minority Travel; you can see our route (overland Yunnan) here.

 

All our belongings fit miraculously in the same bags we brought with us to Thailand.  John kept pulling all sorts of items out of the closet that I always knew we had but didn't realize why we had them until we started packing.  I was joking with him that it's like he's been secretly preparing for this trip since he moved to Seattle, to which he responded he had. 

 

I had been concerned that with all my winter layers on, I would feel like Ralphie's kid brother from a Christmas Story, but I tried them on the other day and successfully put my arms down, so I feel ready to go.  We've both spent part of the summer breaking in our hiking boots.  We have selected what books we're going to travel with:  I shall be bringing Tortilla Flat and the Winter of Our Discontent; John shall be bringing Bourne Identity and a Paul Theroux novel the name of which I can't remember at the moment.  We're nearly stocked up on memory cards for the camera.  I think tonight we may taste water treated with iodine tablets.  Refreshing!

 

Last night we went to a Tibetan restaurant called Tibet First.  We ate some really tasty dishes--let's hope they're just as good in Tibet.

 

I'd like to give a shoutout to our friends Meggan, Esther, and Kory.  They are taking care of our crazy dog Teagan while we're gone.  Just remember, guys, she's really cute!

 

Love,

Trina (and John)