Between the trip from Lagos, the stopover in Doha and the trip from Doha to Beijing, we had been traveling about 24 hours when we arrived in Beijing. We went by cab to the hotel to pick up our train tickets and then by cab to the train station. After a couple hours wait, we boarded the train to Lhasa - a 48 hour ride from Beijing to Lhasa. (One thing we hadn't counted on was going 3 days without a shower.) We could have stayed overnight in Beijing and then boarded the train. Hindsight is such a great teacher! Fortunately it was cold. We had soft sleepers, lower berth which we learned means two bunk beds with about 18" between. We shared our sleeper with a man and his son from Denmark. Each sleeper car has its own dining car so plenty spacious there and you could order food and/or drink any time of day. The entire trip we were at 12,000 to over 18,000 ft high. There was an interesting small contraption just above my bed that was for oxygen. The first morning we woke up, it was blowing full blast!
On arrival in Lhasa, we were met by our guide and driver and taken immediately to our hotel. The hotel was an A+ hotel, very large but with very few guests; expected since it was the off season. We learned after a couple of days and quite a few phone calls that they turn the heat on at 6 p.m. and turned it off at 6 a.m. That was a challenge. Also, the hotels restaurants were closed but they did serve a buffet breakfast. We found an internet cafe two doors down from the hotel that had great food. We were there every day and it was our only source of internet. Our daily outings with the guide and driver were usually 3 to 4 hours because it was so unbelievably cold. One day, we went high into the mountains to visit a glacier lake. It was colder (if possible) and windy. It was incredibly beautiful but we only stayed a few minutes even though it took 2 hours to get up there and another 2 hours to return.
The most touching thing we saw were the hundreds of Tibetans who had come from afar, some had traveled 3 to 6 months by foot to get there, and for most it would be their one-time pilgrimage to the holy city. It made me feel rather insignificant as a tourist who had traveled there in comfort and stayed in a hotel instead of sleeping in the streets, or outside the temples. The temples were incredible but some we had to climb so many steps, I felt like we were on one of those mountains we saw. It was a wonderful trip and we will never forget it.
We had a little walhalla over the train tickets the night before we were to leave Lhasa. The local agent said he had the tickets. Chris said "fine, bring them to the hotel." He said he couldn't do that but would meet us at the train station the following morning. Chris told him we absolutely would not accept anything less than lower berth sleepers. Next morning, we arrived at train station with guide and driver and waited. About 15 minutes before our departure, the agent arrived and came to the car window. Chris rolled down the window and looked at the tickets and of course, they were not what we had requested. Chris gave him a piece of his mind and then told the driver to go to the airport. There was some haggling back and forth but we finally convinced the driver to take us to the airport. Our original agent got involved in this and was furious at the local agent. When we arrived at the airport, we quickly learned that there is only one flight per day to Beijing. It was full and leaving in 10 minutes.
Shortly we received a call from our agent who had booked the trip who told us he had booked a trip for us to Chengdu where we could stay overnight in a beautiful hotel in China town. (It was a huge city with only about a two block Chinese section in the downtown area.) He also made the local agent in Lhasa buy the tickets and bring our boarding passes to the airport.
Bottom line, we had an afternoon and most of the next day in a delightful place and the agent had recommended the Panda Park for the next day. We had great food, a great old Chinese hotel and the Pandas were the most fun of all. After the Panda Park, we returned to our hotel, retrieved our things and returned to the airport. Jasper would love that Panda Park!
Since we still got back to Beijing one day early, we got to have 5 days in Beijing instead of 4. We did no tours. We just did what we wanted when we wanted and played a lot of mahjong on the entire trip. In Beijing, we ate at Food Street which is a huge tourist, as well as local attraction, and a few other places as well. And of course, we hit shopping street and the pearl market where Chris bought me a Chinese I-phone. All in all, it was a great trip.
All photos may be viewed at http://picasaweb.google.com/donniedayp
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