Asia Blog: Update 2

I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe in the second largest city in Tibet, Shigatse. We are here for the night then tommorrow we are going to visit a couple of large monasteries which will be good.

Things are great out here. We've done so much since we left Beijing.

We caught a train to Xi'an which is the city the terracotta warriors are located in. They were quite a sight but the museum place was all a bit atmospherically cold. It was packed with Chinese tourists and you could only get close to about 4 warriors. The rest are set down in the pits they were excavated from. I'm glad we went, but it's not one of favourite places. Probably because it is just a museum.

Chengdu was our next stop after Xi'an. We got another over night train there and stayed at a very cool guesthouse: Sims Cosy Guesthouse. It was quite a unique place and all the people were great. We had a couple of days checking things out in the city (including going to the panda centre which was really cool). The highlight of our stay there was the opportunity to go on a 5 day trip to some Tibetan villages situated outside the area classified as Tibet. The trip was lovely. We set off in an 11 seater minibus with Sim (the very chilled out guesthouse owner), his 2 daughters, another boy, the babysitter/maid, a French guy, 2 Canadians, 2 Danish girls and the driver. The drive was certainly a squeeze, and ir took 11 and a half hours to reach Danba. Danba is a small town running along a river. Its home to mixture of Tibetans and Chinese. We used it as a base to go up to the villages in the hills nearby. We did a fair bit of hiking up to the villages, and around the hills and it was all really photogenic. For 2 of the nights we stayed in a large Tibetan guesthouse which was basic but that didn't really matter. The food was good, the staff/residents were friendly and we could just walk out and explore the hills. On our first night there we all lay on the roof and gazed at the stars which was cool.

We were quite sad to say goodbye to everyone when we had to leave Chengdu, it would have been great if some of them had been coming with us to Tibet.

The train from Chengdu to Lhasa took just under 48hours. We got the best tickets on all the trains which meant we got a 4-berth cabin and they were pretty comfy, fine to spend a night or 2. It was great watching all the scenery change, far more interesting than the plane.

Lhasa is a very nice city. Its far more relaxed and friendly than the Chinese cities, possibly because its more geared up for travellers. We visited the Potala Palace and 2 of the monasteries and spent ages wandering around the streets of stalls in the centre, seeking out cool things to bring back. Normally there are more things to see in and around the city but 3 of the key monasteries are closed at the moment, which was a shame though it did mean we had more time just to wander.

Our guide and driver are cool and it makes things a lot simpler having a private tour. We have 6 more days here, and many more great things to see. I'll try and get some more pictures uploaded soon but for now I'll leave you with that classic one from Chengdu.