Off to Tibet

Bright and early this morning, we headed back to Beijing Capital International Airport for our flight to Chendou and Lhasa, Tibet. Tickets all f**ked up as usual. We barely made the plane. Beijing airport is an architectural wonder. Built for the Olympics, it is without a single doubt the most impressive and largest airport in the world. The design is so unique that I can't begin to describe it.

Two hour flight to Chendou, in the center of China. The smog we missed in Beijing? Jesus! Chendou was awful. The city has over 30 million people (that's right). It is the grubby manufacturing center of China. It is dirty and smoggy and pretty nasty. Glad we only spend an hour there. Two hour flight out of Chendou to Lhasa, Tibet, and back two hundred years!

The airport is at 12,500 feet. Big deal, right? Until you walk up the jetway (tiny airport in the midst of mountains with no trees) and find yourself gasping for breath and light-headed. Boarded a small van and headed the 65 km into Lhasa, a city of 250,000. The right into town was an eye-opener. Yaks! Oh yeah, there they were. People dressed in bright, traditional colors along the sides of the road, some washing clothes in the river, some carting bundles of sticks. Cows everywhere. People living essentially in mud houses, the same as 100 generations ago.

Tibetans are physically unique. Very high-cheek bones, but not Mongolian. Took some pix. I'll post them later. Stopped at a huge Buddha carved into the rock on the side of a mountain. Prayer flags everywhere. (Still gasping and light headed!).

Then, we drove into Lhasa proper. The Chinese have spent over $600 million in Tibet just in the last year (a country with 2 million people). The city is bustling and full of new construction. We came straight to the hotel, where I'm sitting now. Been here an hour, and already three pretty big earthquakes. Just a normal day in Tibet.

The hotel we are staying in here is brand new and amazing. It's like staying in a museum. It's called the Brahma Putra Hotel, and go online to see pix of this place. My room is off the charts. Anyway, the plan is to take it easy here for three days to get used to the altitude. Going to Dalai Lama's winter palace tomorrow. Then, a 400 mile trek across the Tibetan plateau to Everest. Four days on dirt roads. Pretty intimidating.

OK, going to join the crowd for a glass of whatever. More later!