Back to Shigatse

Published on July 11, 2007 in Tibet

Once again we woke up early and ate breakfast. The weather was overall quite cold, surprisingly. After breakfast we walked up a secret back passageway up the fort, and got almost the entire way up before being stopped. Finally somebody asked us to buy tickets if we wanted to continue, yet the price wasn't right, so we took our photos of the valley and headed back down the hill. Around the corner we walked to the monastery, yet being unimpressed, we left without exploring too deeply.

We inquired at the bus station for the next bus back to Shigatse, and when our truck arrived, we haggled a bit and were on our way. Half way back to Shigatse the driver asked me to duck down in the back because a checkpoint was ahead. Covered in blankets I could feel his car slow down, nobody talking, then pull away. I was free. For now.

Back in Shigatse we bought our bus tickets back to Lhasa and were on our way The bus, a full length touring bus, drove as crazy as the small mini-buses we had taken so far. Almost into Lhasa another checkpoint was passed, yet we just closed the windows and I put on a sweatshirt. To feed our cravings we found a small Muslim lamb place – the type outside and basically in the street. We asked him how much it would be and he replied 5rmb per stick. That equates to about 70US cents a piece, which is quite hefty. We knew for whatever reason he was trying to have us, decided haggling for our food wasn't worth it, and left unsatisfied. Around the corner we found another guy just packing up for the night, yet he was all too eager to help us. We sat down for about two hours eating more and more of the spicy food, even buying some beer at a local market. It was yum.

Feeling warm from the lamb we wandered back to the hotel, played some more bridge, and by 22:00, fell asleep.

Tagged as: bus | culture | palace

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