Impressive Shigatse

For God sake, at last my busy work in Hongkong with my new colleagues finished on the first step, so it was the time to have a relax and join in Lily and Wenson tour there in Tibet, which we talked before and arranged the date, flight hotel thr. Online China tours agency by Lily, no problems need me to worry about, so I flied to Lhasa directly,and found Wenson and Lily were already there and the driver , tour guide were waiting! I was starting to realize that Wenson is often early. So we started off on trip to Shigatse with a stop at the Yamdrok Tso Lake on the way. The tour guide displayed some of the most beautiful scenery and stark landscapes I have never seen. We stopped for a few photo opps along the way, and the lake was an amazing shade of blue on one end and green on the other. I had high hopes for Shigatse after seeing this. We stopped at a village that pretty much existed to feed tour groups, and we had a good lunch of traditional Tibetian food. There were no Chinese groups in the restaurant. In fact, at first, it was just me and Lily, then a handful of westerners came in. We saw lots of herds of sheep, a few goats, and a few yaks on our drive to Shigatse. These are really interesting animals, I must say. Long hair and horns, short, sturdy legs, and very docile. They are perfectly suited to the climate of Tibet. When we finally arrived in Shigatse Ugh. We checked into the Yak hotel then left to see Tashi Lhun Po Monastery. It was interesting, but not so different from Jokhang, and each monastery seems to have some reason why it is important to the Buddhists. We started to enter one room of the temple and Lily said she was going to wait outside. So on the way in with our tour guide, there was a Chinese tour group blocking the door. We pushed past, and then Wenson stopped suddenly to listen to the Chinese guide. He made a face and I asked him what she was saying. He said she was telling all those tourists that the 9th Penchan Lhama had traveled to Beijing and told the government how happy all the Tibetians were to be Chinese.
We went to dinner at another place serving good Indian food where the guides eat for free, and then we walked back to the hotel. This city felt less Tibetian than Lhasa and supposedly it has a smaller Chinese population. Time for a shower and bed. I was exhausted after that long car ride on bumpy roads and no shocks,


Rick