Altitude sickness should not be made light of. I've had a pounding headache for 5 days now. My body better acclimate quickly and start producing more red blood cells or my head is going to explode.
Other than the splitting headaches, Tibet is a great place. We came at a really good time...the rain season is over and it's not too hot. It's also nice and sunny. We've seen several monasteries and temples here. It's amazing to see how devout the Tibetans are. I think we've seen the tombs of all the Dalai Lamas. It's also interesting how the Tibetans maintain their culture with Chinese influence/control. I'm really relieved to be able to communicate here with Mandarin Chinese. It has made this trip a whole lot easier. They're usually surprised when I speak to them in Chinese. However, the further from Lhasa you go the less Chinese the Tibetans speak.
On our way to Gyantze yesterday, our guide and driver decided to take a short cut from Lake Yamtso Yamdrop. They told us this road would be more scenic and we wouldn't have to double back to the big road and would save us some time. Well, whenever the word "short cut" is used on a road trip...it usually ends up to take longer than the "long cut" road. SO the catch to taking this road was that it is new and still under construction. No one is allowed to be on this road. Wee thought we'd take a gamble and take the short cut. Soon enough there was a road block by the Chinese army. We had to turn off onto another road and wait out the officials. But they were on to us and stopped us at the next opening. After 20 min of arguing and some greasing of the palms we proceeded on our way. Not more than 20 min later we were confronted with tar trucks paving the road. This usually happens when a road is being built. We laughed about it and pulled off to the side to wait for them to pass us. I had to go use nature's bathroom twice while waiting. It wasn't so funny after more than 4 hours passed by, with the temperatures dropping, the advil wearing off, and the headache coming back. We were now at 4500 meters (about 13,500 feet).
When we finally were able to get onto the newly tarred road, we thought we were home free. Wrong...there was a lot of off road driving on unpaved roads, trucks, tractors, and herds of sheep in the way. We finally got to the hotel 8 hours later. We were so worn out with our heads pounding that we did not attempt to go out into the city.
