Day 187: Travel to Tibet
Even though our first flight of the day wasn’t until 10AM, we insisted on leaving the hostel at 5AM – it’s officially Golden Week and we didn’t want to take any chances. Check-in and security were a breeze in the wee hours of the morning, and we had several hours of leisure time at the Executive Lounge – better to be early and relaxed!
We had a tight transfer in Chengdu, where we had to present the original copy of our Tibet travel visa before the gate agent would let us enter the terminal. We made it to our gate with minutes to spare, so of course we ducked into the second lounge of the day to grab some free sodas and snacks before boarding (what we thought would be) a meal-less flight.
We have 2.5hrs in the Executive Lounge in Guilin before our first flight to Chengdu – just enough time for Igor to circumvent Chinese firewalls around Facebook – MWAHAHAHA!
We have been flying Air China for a month now, and can honestly say it is one of the least hospitable airlines we’ve used during our travels – even though it is the most expensive airline in China, the quality is on par with what we would expect from a budget airline like Ryan Air or Frontier – no entertainment and no snacks or beverage service (usually we just get handed a small bottle of water as we board). Therefore, we were *shocked* when we actually got fed on our flight from Chengdu to Lhasa – a pretty tasty lunch of rice and veggies! I guess China instantly improves once you leave the mainland.
Since foreigners are not permitted to travel freely in Tibet, Igor had booked a 15-day tour with Tibet Highland Tours. Our guide, Samdup, met us at the airport and took us straight to our hotel. At 12,000ft above sea level, Lhasa one of the highest cities in the world – as such, we were at serious risk of altitude sickness if we weren’t careful. Samdup bought us two 1.5L bottles of water and warned us to drink up, take a rest, and to avoid taking a shower for at least a day (getting wet and catching a cold can aggravate altitude sickness). We obeyed our orders, taking it easy, and only venturing out for a quick dinner before calling it a night.
When we meet our guide, Samdup, at the airport we are presented with khatas (traditional Tibetan white scarves). We present our Tibet permits for the 4th time as we exit the terminal, and finally step foot onto the “Roof of the World”
Samdup drops us off at the hotel, and warns us to drink water, take it easy, and to NOT take a shower for a good 24hr – altitude sickness is very common for people who fly to Lhasa and we don’t want to ruin the rest of our trip by pushing it on the first day
We venture out into the city around 8PM, in search of dinner. Lindsay’s guidebook recommended a restaurant that supposedly has fantastic Indian food, so we found our way to the Snowland Restaurant. When we *eventually* got our food, it was indeed, delicious. However, the restaurant was so busy that we not only had to wipe down our own table, flag down a waitress after being ignored for 15min, write down our own order on the server’s clipboard, Igor still had to tell off the manager when we still only had half our dishes, 40min into the meal! Dude, you can serve me the best friggin’ naan in the world, but it’s not going to make me forget the missing palak paneer and rice!
Heading back to our hotel at 9:22PM – next time we’re checking TripAdvisor before picking a dinner spot