From Europe to Tibet

Last time I wrote I was in Prague. I have now travelled from Prague to Vienna Austria. The tour ended with an amazing Mozart Concert at a Palace in Vienna.
The next day I booked another plane to go to Beijing, China. It was a long journey as I flew from Vienna to Cairo Egypt to Bankock Thailand and finally arrived in Beijing 21 hours later. The tour that I am on had already started and the group had seen the Great Wall but we started with Tiamen Square. It is funny, I felt very comfortable here at Tiament Square, I guess it was because I have been here before.
After a day in Beijing, we (they are only 3 other people on the tour beside me not including the tour leader). I went to see the famous water dome and Bird's nest.





The water cube



The Bird's Nest

It is amazing, we can do some much more with a small group. We boarded a train from Beijing West Train Station to go to Lasa (yes you Canadian would spell it with an "H" however true Tibetean spell it the other way). The train ride took 48 hours, yes 2 days and we slepted on the train. The accommodations were really good compared to the trains in Egypt. We slept in a room that was called a "hard sleeper." That means that they are six in a room and not a lot of room for the luggage. However there was little fold down chairs to sit outside the sleeping rooms.
The scency was amazing that we saw. It is so untouched. I must have taken about 300 scency pictures.







On the way to Tibet

We stopped in several different places on the way up to Lasa, Tibet just to let people get off and on the train. We climbed over many mountain passages on the way up. It is amazing that they could bring a railway that could climb over passes that are at 5800 feet.
When we arrived it was dark and we had not had a shower. We were taken to our hotel which is on the main street in Lasa but is amazing close to the local shopping district and the Potala Palace.


Potala Palace

We are living at 3900 feet about sea level at the moment.
Today is Saturday, October 25 and we did a lot of things today. We went and visited the Potala Palace, Ganden Monestary which is at 4500 feet above sea level and went to an amazing Tibeaten culture show tonight.




The main square in Lasa



Ganden Monestary



Me with the local at Ganden Monestary







One of the Tibetean men in his traditional clothing at the cultural show with me




Some traditional Tibetain women dancers


Scency between Lasa and Ganden Monestery


One of the local Yaks


It is just plain incredible up here in the mountains.