Tibet

{ June, 2014 }

Yeap, during the June holidays, I spent 12 days in Tibet! So firstly, before my trip I was totally in the holiday mood and didn't actually bother about what was gonna happen at Tibet + things to take note of until like 1 day before the trip ( I was just being crazy over k dramas, been watching them really often nowadays ). Well but of course I still looked forward to know whats gonna happen there!

1st:
My sister and I (my mom too) actually had quite a bad encounter with the flight attendants of Air China on the plane. It was an international flight from SG to Beijing first then a domestic flight from Beijing to Lanzhou. On the way to Beijing, the flight attendants were so horrible and rude to us compared to the domestic flight attendants, or even restaurant waitresses! My sister actually got told off by them because she forgot to ask for ice before she was served the drink. Shouldn't you be asking if she wants ice first?! What in the world, and when I asked for ice she didn't even bother to add them in! Ugh. Lucky the domestic flight air stewardesses were much more friendlier. 

When we finally reached Lanzhou, we had to take the coach to Xining. I guess we travelled a lot, but we checked into the hotel really early so that we could rest early after all that travelling.


Qinghai Lake 青海湖
The next morning we travelled to Qinghai Lake, the largest lake in China at 4,500 square kilometers and apparently the size of 7 Singapores!? Sort of. The lake was already 3,200 meters above sea level! We took a cruise and went around the lake, it was quite cold because of strong winds.





When we came back from the cruise there was this sorta fence thingy even it was just some ordinary thing but with the blue sky and the green grass it gave a really countryside feel aka INSTA WORTHY TOO.

Selfie.


Actually even though the temperature was quite low the sun was really bright up there. And the UV rays were stronger so definitely needed to apply lots of sunblock + put on sunglasses. I usually don't like the sun cuz in sg I will feel so warm and start sweating buckets but here, NAH I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PERSPIRING LOL.

We didn't actually spend lots of time in Xining because the main thing is Tibet! So of course, the next day we took the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to Lhasa, in Tibet!


Qinghai-Tibet Railway 青藏铁路
I actually heard from my parents' friend who travels a lot, he said that this railway to Tibet is much better than the Ghan in Australia. (i took the ghan too when i was in northern territory) I pretty much had some high expectations of this Qinghai-Tibet Railway lol, decided to trust his words but maybe after the whole ride I had quite a different view.

Ayyyy fml I took this picture in such a rush it's so blurry and disgusting. Yep, from the ticket you can see that I'm in cabin 4, bed 20 which is the bottom bunk.

The train. Taking a 24hour ride to Lhasa.

Pardon me I was actually carrying an extremely stuffed and heavy backpack plus definitely needed a thick jacket (in that paperbag LOL). Needed tons of stuff for that 24hour ride. 


Apparently we were supposed to get the 4 bunk room, but the military occupied them (they've got priority), so we got the 6 bunk room. That means on one side theres a top, middle and bottom bunk... And even though my ticket says bottom, as the youngest in my room, I definitely had to sleep on the top one -__- (along with mi sis)

Had some difficulty climbing to the top (at first) cuz I don't usually sleep on bunk beds...

Crowded hallway. Everyone was really busy trying to find ways to stuff their luggages cuz one room is really very small!

There's literally nothing to do for the 24 hour journey so I took lots of naps. When I'm bored, I eat. Of course, the common hallway will be too crowded so I went to another cabin with my sister. It was meant for people who didn't buy the tickets that have bunks but they haven't boarded yet so we could stay there for a while. We also brought our books there to read.


Dinner at another carriage.

It was just simple dishes with rice lol, erm I mean, can't expect so much for this railway thing anyway.

As we were gradually travelling up to higher altitude the tibits look like they were gonna explode any time. It was definitely much harder to climb to my bed; I would stop at the second bed and be panting slightly already!


The sleeping part (or is it the morning after?) was probably the worst point in time of the train journey for everyone. Many people also started to have altitude sickness (acute mountain sickness), it was really HORRID cuz a lot of them would be vomitting into the common sinks, and the sinks were all clogged up with vomit. i was so disgusted that I went to another cabin to brush my teeth.

We asked the train waitress about the altitude we were at, we were actually at the peak of our journey, 5072m ABOVE SEA LEVEL, WHEN WE WERE HAVING BREAKFAST! I was quite shocked because I totally had 0 symptoms of this altitude sickness thingy. I wasn't dizzy, didn't vomit, nope. I guess it's a good thing!

We arrived at Lhasa station the next day! We're officially in the administrative capital of Tibet!



Lhasa 拉萨
We did not have any activities when we arrived because we needed to have sufficient rest. (i guess i needed it, i was sneezing badly for most of my sleep on the train) We went back to the hotel, so some doctors came to our room to check on our oxygen levels in our blood. 

Apparently 90 was the cut off and I got 80, my sister got 89. He says that young people are more likely to have lower than 90. Wow so we had to go on a drip (iv therapy or sth??) to get some 'anti-altitude sickness' medicine into our blood. If i'm not wrong it strengthens our immune system so we wouldn't get ill at such high altitudes, because even a small cold is very dangerous (makes you more prone to altitude sickness and that's definitely not wanted)


My first time on a drip...in a foreign country...in a hotel room...at an altitude of 3600m haha!


Must have a good rest so that I would be energised for the tour of Tibet the next day!


Chengguan, Lhasa 城关区, 拉萨
We stopped over at Chengguan in Lhasa the next day for a while. Starting to see some nice sceneries! There was this huge field of canola flowers aka 油菜花!




The whole field of canola flowers really damn niceeeee it's damn instagram worthy. 


Saw yaks too. 牦牛

There was this sort of sheep race thing held LOL, quite lame.



Namtso Lake 纳木错自然风景区(纳木错圣湖)
Now, the main highlight of the day, Namtso Lake! It's 4718m above sea level and the largest saltwater lake in Tibet! Actually it wasn't the lake that was attractive (oops sorry) but the whole place surrounding the lake! 自然风景区 okay, there were horses at the place, with snowy mountains, blue skies and fluffy white clouds as the background! Really one of the nicest place in Tibet!





This is the lake itself.

Yak! I feel quite sad cuz it's just there dragged around by the owner to take pictures, getting sit on by tourists.

THIS PICTURE IS THE BOMBZ. I'm just really amazed by the crystal clear reflection by this huge puddle of water near the lake! IT'S NOT EVEN THE LAKE!


What's with me..


So it was actually a slope downwards to the lake. Walking down the slope was simple but climbing back up was tough! It was challenging since we're at such a high altitude with little oxygen. The air was also very thin and dusty, plus the extremely bright sun were not helping! I took quite long to reach the top of the small slope because it was really very tiring, I was panting crazily and I perspired quite a lot too O_o


Jokhang Temple 大昭寺
The next day I went to the 1,350-year-old Jokhang Temple, which is very sacred and important to most Tibetans. There are many Tibetans praying outside the temple, and surrounding the areas are also people doing 3 Steps 1 Bow (三步一拜) , 取经ing. 


People praying outside the temple.


3 step 1 bow, 三步一拜



Barkhor Street 八角街
Walked round Barkhor Street in the clockwise direction!



So hot definitely the cap + shades weather.





Potala Palace 布达拉宫
The Potala Palace is a must go when you come to Lhasa. It was the chief residence of the Dalai Lama. (until 14th Dalai Lama fled to India)



The whole palace looks gr8!! Can't believe I was actually there LOL I look photoshopped in this photo.

Anyway, in order to get into the White and Red Palace, I had to climb these flights of steps, about 12 storeys. This was really tough job, at 3600+m above sea level! The tour guide Jordan asked us to take deep breaths and climb in a zig zag way as it is less tiring. 


The view!

The White Palace. Couldn't take any pictures after entering.

I also visited the Red Palace and when we had to leave, it was raining! Omg it was a bad choice to wear converse sneakers because the steps were extremely slippery from the rain. I had lots of trouble trying to get to the bottom. So climbing up was as equally challenging as climbing down TT.


Yamdrok Tso Lake 羊卓雍错湖
Went to around 4,400m above sea level to see Yamdrok Tso Lake. It was really high up some of the clouds were lower than us!

The view on the way up.



Me with the lake behind hehe. It was extremely cold.

On the other side the clouds were like...trying to make a natural white background.


So we had a picnic by the lake.




Kharola Glacier 卡若拉冰川
Went even higher up to see the glacier and it's my first time seeing a glacier! This close too! Jordan said that it used to be the whole mountain covered by the ice but because of global warming most of it melted :-( i'm feeling sad..one day it would melt completely...i guess i'm lucky to see the glacier anyway!



Oops the aperture.. never adjust LOL.


Tibetan Mastiff Park 藏獒园
I was slightly looking forward to see the Tibetan mastiff aka 藏獒! Always saw it in texts but finally got to see it. If I remembered correctly the text said 'As big as a donkey, looks like a dog and roars as loud as a lion'. Yeah it sure is, I saw one of the 1 year old Tibetan mastiff, it's HUGE and already weighs around 200kg!  



The whole park was filled with the barking noises of the Tibetan mastiffs. and they're really loud.

A 1 month old Tibetan mastiff! There are really cute ones too.



Shigatse 日喀则: Tashilhunpo Monastery 扎什伦布寺
Tashilunpo Monastery, the final resting place for Panchen Lama and one of the six major monasteries of the yellow sect. I also got to see a gigantic statue of the Maitreya Buddha statue there, it's 26m tall! There were many paintings of Buddhas there and I learnt quite a lot there!






A painting of 六道轮回 on the walls.


There was this wild boar in front of our bus door, probaby hungry. The boar wiped its nose on my sister's pants LOLOL she was really disgusted. Uncle Peter fed it a piece of bread and more little pigs started to come but we left them aha





Basong Lake 巴松措



Loved the water, it was very blue!

Yeah and had to selfie with the water too.

Selfie with mi sis!

And there was this dog posing.



Nyingchi 林芝
That night we arrived at Nyingchi, and I got to try Tibetan Stone Chicken, 石锅鸡! I thought it was some sort of claypot chicken rice but instead it was chicken soup. There were 菌类, mushrooms inside too and the soup was delicious! 


Anyway saw this sign at the hotel, the typo is really super-duper-epic-fail! Can you even understand it?



Bomi 波密
Went to a more rural part of Tibet, Bomi, so we had no choice to stay at the best 2star hotel there. Many people might be thinking that the standard probably sucks really bad, but actually it wasn't that bad! We used cards to get into the hotel room, there were slippers, tv and hair dryer. There's no elevator though, so we had to climb the stairs to our room (3rd level). I think that the bathroom just seems a little old, it was quite dim inside and the doorknob was about to fall off already. I still had a good sleep, and got to see nice sceneries the next day!


油菜花, canola flower~ (that yellow patch in the field)



Ranwu Lake 睡美人湖 / 然乌错(然乌湖)
So we drove to Ranwu and got to see Ranwu Lake, also known as sleeping beauty lake. Kinda sad cuz there was a slight drizzle and the lake obviously became a bit murky. But the sceneries around were still fantastic.


I took a panorama!



It is believed that stacking rocks will bring you luck. In this pic you could see the stacked rocks. 







Midui Glacier 米堆冰川
So we went to this place where we had to walk by the stream deep inside to view Midui Glacier. The clouds were really low though and the glacier blended in with the white clouds...sigh :-(



Well the clouds moved a little and I adjusted my aperture so the tip of the glacier could be seen here. Ain't that bad right haha!

The path where we had to walk it looked like this. Really quite deep inside.


Went back to Bomi for dinner. We walked in the streets of Bomi to our restaurant from the hotel, kinda of a good experience. I guess? The streets are not crowded..





Zhamu Town 扎木镇
Our 2nd last day in Tibet, and we were going back to Nyingchi from Bomi. It was a long journey and we had a really really short stopover (like 5minutes) at Zhamu Town just for pictures... That day the clouds were really low and some of the clouds were like just hovering over the farm fields. I was on the bus when I saw it, it was really cool BUT I DIDN'T TAKE PICTURES. Anyway here's Zhamu Town. It's only 1,100m above sea level! (I took this from a viewing platform)

The low clouds could still be seen I guess..







Journey back to Nyingchi
I probably didn't even mention about the long bus trip to Bomi from Nyingchi. Anyway, it's about 7hours(?) in total. We have to go through lots of rocky and muddy roads on this sort of mountain thing. The rockiest and most uneven being the 通麦天险, a very death-threatening road. It really is! It's just a 1-way road and most of the time there would be lots of fallen rocks from the mountains in the middle. When we were going back, we had to wait for workers to explode this huge rock which was apparently blocking the way...this road (is it even considered one) is really dangerous cuz 1 wrong turn and you'll end up going down the mountain into the fast flowing river below! 

We had to cross this bridge, Jordan said it collapsed last year cuz of overweight vehicles so now there are really strict rules, only 1 vehicle crosses it at a time. 


This was the state of our bus after all the muddy and rocky roads. Apparently caused by SUVs.

Terrible..






We finally reached the smooth roads, and got to see a man herding his yaks!




Visiting a Tibetan's house
Well, it was our 2nd last day and we had nothing much to do when we go back to Nyingchi so Jordan brought us up a hill to view one of the Tibetan's house! It was already my 11th day in Tibet I probably got used to the low oxygen, climbing up the hill was not much of a problem! ^^




Actually we didn't go into the house we just walked around the area, looking at the owner's animals, all the plants and stuff. Apparently the owner was staying here because it's the summer. During the winter when it is colder she would move to the town area. But are you kidding me the summer is already considered chilly to me...:(



I guess this is really a new experience for me, to get to close to a local Tibetan's (temporary) house, close to animals, plants...all the greenery... it's something you DEFINITELY CAN'T SEE AND CAN'T DO in Singapore!!!!


All the flowers around were really pretty too!





Must selfie with the cow before leaving AHAHA!



Last meal in Tibet
Our last meal in Tibet, a dinner of Tibetan traditional roast pig, 藏香猪! It's damn expensive okay, RMB1800 for 1 pig. So divided by 30 people is still S$12 for each person man...


Maybe should talk about the funny thing. Firstly the roast pig was served for us to take picture first. Then we were like okay let the person go chop up and split to the different tables. So there was this plate of roast duck. We thought it was roast duck because the meat seriously tasted like roast duck. Everyone at my table didn't really bother and we just kept saying that the whole thing had so many bones we gave away the leftovers to another table. After 30minutes we were like 'wheres the freaking pig we pay RMB60 each person for the pig where is it where the hell is it'. And my mom started saying that the bones of the 'roast duck' were too big to belong to a duck! Then a woman from another table told us that it was the first dish served! WOW. MUCH AMAZING. WE ATE THE ROAST PIG THINKING IT WAS DUCK. LOL. I feel sad for myself because I only ate 2 pieces of the pig...:( and that's $12. HAHAHA EPIC FAIL MAN OUR WHOLE TABLE LITERALLY SHOCKED. 


Chengdu 成都市
Yeap, so the next day we had to leave Tibet :( We took a morning flight to Chengdu first and spent some free time there cuz our flight back to Singapore was at 8pm.

Bye Tibet :(


It's damn cool cuz the airport at Nyingchi is around 2900m above sea level, so the clouds were really low! And when we took off it took only a few seconds before we were above the clouds!


Okay so lastly, to conclude my trip, I seriously GAINED A LOT from this whole Tibet trip that words probably can't explain it. I didn't mention this but if you didn't know, there are no toilet bowls there (except hotel, really!), and there are no flushing systems too. 

So most of the time, it's just a hole there, and you pee into it. Pee into it or leave it, even though the stench is horrible you have no choice. You can see all that shit piling up below you, but you have no choice. I guess it was just survival there, but it really got me into thinking how fortunate we are in Singapore to have toilet bowls. or maybe just flushing systems. 

Look. It's a toilet for tourists.

As I'm writing this 1 week after my trip, I got to see the changes in me. Maybe it was my friend who helped me to realise it, but I think it's good that I actually changed. I was just entering the school toilet and my friend after entering immediately went out and went to another toilet. So after that I asked her why, she said that it was smelly. I didn't actually realise it was smelly? or how to say, the smell didn't affect me! Hahah! I was like "oh i've been to worse toilets". I guess that's one thing that really changed me, I didn't actually mind the smelly toilet. I think that it's good I actually changed, I wouldn't mind about bad conditions, because, what if a hole is your only available toilet? 

This is probably one 1 of the many things I experienced in Tibet that you can't in sg, I got soooo close to nature. Going to a countryside (sort of) house, seeing all the plants and animals around. Enjoying fresh air (although less oxygen) instead of the usual heavily polluted city air. I really don't regret coming here, and I wouldn't mind going back again. 

虽然在西藏 厕所,食物,还是其他的生活条件可能不能达到多数人的要求,但是这让我想到我们在新加坡是多么幸福的。我也接近了大自然,近距离地看到了牦牛,小羊,山猪,野狗或其他动物等,享受新鲜的空气(虽然是缺氧的哈哈!)。这些东西是在城市里不能看到的,做不了的,体验不到的。能够来到西藏体验在这里的生活,我真的不后悔。我也不介意再来多一次!



Jean, 6/7/2014

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