Day 5: Onwards to Lhasa...

It was an early start, we even got a wake up call at 5am. I didn’t manage breakfast as I was feeling a bit rough from the night before. And it wasn`t booze related...

We set off to the airport at 6.10am, arriving just before 7. As our cases had already made it to the airport the night before, all we had to do was clear security. Our passports were checked and we went to the gate. It was another China Eastern flight which was on-time with no delays. The flight to Tibet was 3 hours, I didn’t have any food on the plane as I was still feeling under the weather; not great considering we were about to arrive in the highest capital in the world and altitude sickness can be terrible.

As we got off the flight, we were told to take things really slowly, not to drink alcohol but drink plenty of water. It was really cold and there were mountains surrounding us everywhere, it felt a bit like Scotland! We got on the next bus but due to strict rules about tourists, we had to split up into two buses. It took an hour to get into Lhasa where our passports and invitation letter was checked before we could get into the city.



Our first stop was a local restaurant but I was still feeling unwell so missed out on the yak meat, curried vegetables, pizza(!) and traditional soup; Iain kept telling me how good it was, not quite what I wanted to hear. I did manage some naan bread, not sure what it is called here but it was delicious.

After lunch we left to go to the hotel; we were already warned that the facilities are not as high as the standards in the rest of China but its perfectly comfortable and clean! There is even a duck humidifier in the room as the air is so dry here, they try to moisten it. We were given our tour guide Tony`s room number in case of emergencies; there are canisters of oxygen down at reception but touch-wood we have both been fine so far.



I was so tired, I ended sleeping half the night and missing dinner; not really a problem since it has been non-stop eating for the whole trip. It’s now 11pm so I better get back to sleep as we have a long day tomorrow and lots of steps to climb apparently (by the way, there is only 14% oxygen here compared to sea level!).

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