Our alarms rudely awakened us at 4:00 am, giving us just enough time to finish our packing, check out of our guesthouse and board the shuttle bus to the airport.  A trip to Tibet requires purchasing an expensive permit in addition to a valid Chinese visa, as Chinese authorities strictly monitor all passage to the Tibetan plateau - another controversial issue in the historically turbulent Chinese-Tibetan 'forced' relationship.

Our 8am flight was near capacity, filled with a mixture of Chinese, Tibetans and tourists.  The two-hour flight took us from Chengdu - altitude 500 meters - to the capital of the Tibet, Lhasa - altitude 3,700 meters. 

The Himalayas peaked out through the clouds as we approached Lhasa.

From the Lhasa airport a one-hour bus ride took us to downtown Lhasa where we managed to find a room at the YAK Hotel.  Lhasa is a sprawling city pouring outwards from a central tree-lined boulevard and ringed with snow-capped mountaintops.  The Chinese influence amongst the population of 200,000 is very apparent, with 2 Chinese businesses for every Tibetan one, a ratio similar to the population make-up.

Golden Yaks proudly survey the central boulevard.

Rickshaws and cars pass colorful shops selling a variety of goods...including blenders!

Our first few hours were spent exploring the streets surrounding our hotel before we were forced to return to our room to sleep off the early signs of altitude sickness.  At altitude the body does not absorb oxygen efficiently causing mild symptoms such as: exhaustion, headaches, shortness of breath, sleeping disorders and nausea; relaxing for the first few days and drinking plenty of water can help dissipate these symptoms.  To combat AMS (Altitude Mountain Sickness) you must remain at the same altitude whilst your body adjusts, ignoring the mild symptoms and ascending to higher altitudes too quickly can have serious consequences.  Luckily we both only suffered minor symptoms - light headaches and fatigue, which were easily cured by a good nights sleep and drinking plenty of water.

The most famous attraction in Lhasa is the Potala - which has served as a government building, monastery, fortress and most importantly, home to several Dalai Lamas.  Perched on the top of the 'Red Mountain', the palace rises a dramatic 13 stories high and creates an imposing landmark in the middle of the city.  In the morning, pilgrims from all over ethnic Tibet can be seen prostrating themselves in prayer and making offerings in front of the revered building.

The Potala looms over the city rooftops. 

The Potala is an overwhelming architectural sight. 

Outside the Potala, many locals asked us to pose in photographs with their children....the curse of having blonde hair and blue eyes!!

In an attempt to counterbalance the authoritative presence of the Tibetan palace, the Chinese government erected a monument to mark 'Tibetan Liberation' opposite, a statement probably resented by the Tibetans..... since British rule has merely been toppled and replaced with Chinese rule, the Tibetans feel far from liberated.

The 'Tibetan Liberation' monument stands against an amazing backdrop of mountains. 

We also paid a visit to the Sera monastery - one of the last great, functioning monasteries; previously home to 5,000 monks, now only a few hundred are permitted to reside within its walls today.  By chance, whilst exploring the darkened corridors of the monastery’s primary temple, we stumbled across a ceremony attended by several monks and pilgrims.  The worshippers were saying prayers and lighting yak-butter candles in front of colorful and intricate representations of Buddhist gods. 

The monks quarters inside the monastery were decorated with colorful paintings.

Outside the temple, devout Tibetans spun prayer wheels and burned incense.

Upon exiting the temple, we entered a walled, shady courtyard, where we witnessed dozens of monks assembled in small-animated groups.  This fevered activity was the result of monks debating religious theory which involved much posturing, clapping and raising of voices as they drove their points across.

The debating ensues...

A monk listens carefully to his colleague's arguments.

Our sightseeing ended with a tour around Barkhor Square - a highly Tibetan enclave of the city.  The square is laid out in front of the Jokhang Temple - considered to be the holiest temple in the Tibetan Buddhist world - which provides a magnificent route for the visiting pilgrims to march through. 

The Jokhang Temple awaits pilgrims at the end of the square.

An elderly Tibetan woman prays at the temple gates. 

Surrounding the square and the temple are a maze of picturesque cobblestone alleyways, each lined with stalls selling everything from fruit to saddles, jewelry, carpets and religious artifacts.  Wandering the streets the senses are bombarded with flashes of colorful clothing, the sounds of prayers outside the temple and the smell of yak-buttered tea wafting out of local teahouses.  This was truly the most authentic Tibetan experience we could find in Lhasa. 

The streets of Barkhor are lined with colorful stalls and prayer flags.

Dried fruits and spices are for sale alongside spinning prayer wheels.

Tomorrow morning we depart for Mount Everest!!!  Our route will take us across the Tibetan plateau over the course of the next seven days.  We have organized to travel in a jeep with a Belgian couple we met in Lhasa.  Today will be spent stocking up on essentials such as woolly hats, sleeping bags, gloves as well as food and water.

A 17-hour sleeper train journey brought us to the city of Xian.

Xian
Location: Capital of the Shaanxi province; central China.
Famous for: Terracotta Warriors.

Our primary reason for stopping in Xian was to see the world famous Terracotta Warriors, while the city itself was also great to explore.  Still in existance today is the original city wall first built when Xian was the imperial capital of the Chinese empire; these city walls are some of the best preserved in the world and provide an impressive 14km ring around the center of the city.

We rode bikes along the top of the city wall.

The following day we got up early to visit the Terracotta Warriors.  Our day started at 7:20am when we sat patiently waiting for a tour bus to pick us up at our hotel.  After 45 minutes we were led by the hotel manager two blocks down the street in the pouring rain where we waited for a further 15 minutes before the bus finally arrived.  We had departed later than expected but at last we were on our way.... or so we thought.  Our optimism was quickly crushed when 10 minutes later we pulled up alongside a dozen other tour buses.  A barrage of shouting ensued between the Chinese tourists, and we were shuffled between three different buses utterly confused as to what was going on.  After two hours of going no-where we had had enough and demanded our money back, then hopped into a taxi with two American college students (also in the same bewildered state) and headed off on our own. 

The Terracotta Warriors proved to be an impressive sight!  The rows upon rows of soldiers lined up side by side were discovered in 1974 by a peasant digging a well and are still being excavated to this day along with an entire 'modelled' city rumored to be somewhere under the soil.  The ranks of soldiers - which were designed never to be seen - guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China.

The scale of the army of soldiers that has been excavated is breathtaking.

The figures remain amazingly intact, each soldier measures 1.80 metres tall.

The soldiers bodies were mass-produced... while each head and pair of hands were individually modelled - giving rise to the theory that they reflect the characteristics of each of the Emperor's actual soldiers. 

Our departure from Xian was trickier than expected as all beds and seats on out going trains were sold out, leaving us only with the option of a 'no seat' ticket - which would have meant spending the 10-hour overnight journey standing in the corridors of the train.  Instead we opted for a long-distance bus ride to the city of Lanzhou.

Eric waits patiently for our bus.

The bus journey started off well, albeit 30 minutes late, but rapidly went downhill.  The driving was shared by two men both of whom had their own vice; the first seemed unable to drive for more than two minutes without honking the exceedingly loud horn for no apparent reason; the second was far better with his restraint at using the horn but found it hard to travel further than 10 km without leaning out of the window to clear his throat and lungs by releasing a massive gobule of spit (a widespread habit amongst the Chinese).  Three hours into the journey and half-way up a mountain, we were forced to turn back due to a head-on collision between two buses further up the road which had effectively blocked the route over the mountains.  The news of such an accident came as no real surprise to us given that both of our drivers appeared happy to perform overtaking maneouvers on blind hair-pin bends at speeds of 90 km an hour, and the news of the accident certainly didn't curb this practice.  Our drivers announced that they would have to go the long way around, adding a further 5 hours to our journey time and that this would cost each passenger an additonal $5 (which no doubt went straight into their pockets).

Twelve hours later we finally made it to Lanzhou where we crawled into bed at a nearby hotel.  Our stop in Lanzhou was only temporary as it was a springboard to our next destination, Xiahe.

Xiahe
Location: A small town on the edge of the Tibetan plateau in the southern Gansu province.
Famous for: the Labrang monastary, the most important monastary outside of Tibet.

A 6-hour bus journey took us from Lanzhou along windy mountain roads to the tiny rural town of Xiahe, 3000 meters up amongst the rugged Gansu mountains. 

The narrow roads snaked perilously through the mountain range.

The town is a mixture of Budhist monks, nomadic herdsman and Tibetan pilgrams.  The town seemed to be split in two; the eastern end being very Chinese in terms of advertising, people and commercial preoperty; the west, in stark contrast, was more Tibetan and had a poorer and far more rural feel; in the middle was the Labrang monasary, home to some 2,000 Yellow-Hat monks who dominated the streets on both sides with their bright red and yellow robes. 

Xiahe was a contrasting mix of old and new.

We spent the day walking amongst the monks and local artisans enjoying the fresh mountain air and the strange feeling of having left the China that we had been experiencing up until now. 

A group of young monks play football in the alleyways.

The next day we explored the monastary following pilgrams as they spun the prayer wheels that surround the vast complex of temples and monks dormitories; and exploring the religious buildings and skyline-dominating pagodas. 

The Labrang Monastary. 

Mountains and prayer wheels circle the monastary.

Views of the monastary compound.

Monk robes don't hinder young boys from playing on the monastary walls. 

After our second night in Xiahe we took the bus back to Lanzhou with the aim of boarding the train to Chengdu the following morning.

Chengdu
Location: Capital of Sichuan province, southwest China.
Famous for: Giant Panda Bears and spicy cuisine.

An exhausting 22-hour train ride brought us to Chengdu, our final city in China before we depart to Tibet.  After securing a room at the best guesthouse we have found in China, we soon organized our trip to see the Giant Pandas the following day.

The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base (or the 'Panda brothel' as Eric calls it) was a great setting in which to view these amazing animals.  There are less than 1,000 pandas left in the world, so their protection and reproduction is a high priority and one which the Chinese government seems to be taking very seriously.  We arrived at the center early to see the Pandas enjoying their breakfast of bamboo and were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a one-month old baby as well as watching many of the adults enjoy the expanse of the park.

Giant Panda munches on his favourite dish.

The park provided plently of room for the pandas to play.

The pandas seemed to be very social animals.

The best way to escape school kids on field-trips!!

The center is also home to the Red Panda - which looks like a very mischeivous cross between a panda and a raccoon.

The red pandas were extremely cute and always on the lookout for spare cookies from tourists.

The rest of our time in Chengdu has been spent organizing our trip to Tibet, buying thermals and other essentials.  Our acting skills have improved greatly over the course of our travels, to the point where we can now successfully mime 'decongestant' to amused chemists - a bid to rid ourselves of a lingering cold before heading to the freezing heights of 5,000 meters in the Himalayas in 2 days time.

Our plan is to cross the Himalayas over the course of two weeks from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu, Nepal.