I Came So You Don't Have To

We arrived in Lhasa,Tibet on Wednesday, September 12 at 5.30 pm. After leaving UB at 4.30 pm Tuesday we got to Beijing at 9.30 pm, had a good spaghetti dinner (don’t forget Marco Polo), and a quick overnight stay because we had to leave at 7.30 am for the flight to Lhasa, stopping for an hour in Chengdu.

I am relieved to see all these oldie tourists (as well as the backpackers I expected) on the plane especially after the flight attendant's parting words- take care of the high altitude of Lhasa, move slowly and take deep breaths. J. is on vacation but a government official is at the airport to pick us up anyway. By the time we get to our hotel we are both breathless but headache-less. We leave the car and walk through some alleys too small for the vehicle to get to it. The House of Shambala - a NY Times recommended hotel -turns out to be too funky for either of us:
http://houseofshambhala.com/

Okay, I survived the Lake Jipe trip (the time we got stuck in the mud in Tanzania and had to sleep in the car surrounded by the locals looking in) but we’re not staying in a hotel that looks like an opium lord’s den. I can’t see into the corners of the room and the shower is a scary dark cave that I wouldn’t go into if you paid me. Unfortunately by now I can’t catch my breath (there’s oxygen available to buy, though) and I have a nosebleed. We’ll change hotels in the morning.

We make it through the night by sleeping in our clothes. The next morning our first stop turns out to be the Potala Palace which sits on top of a hill in the middle of Lhasa. The climb is not pleasant when you can’t breathe and I am glad when that is over. We move to the Tibet Hotel which if nothing else is much brighter and has a toilet and shower that work. And a big oxygen tank and the internet.