The moment you all have been waiting for.. maybe only Peter!

Stairs leading up to the Potala Enterance


Tyson and his dream!

Tashi de la (Hello in Tibetan)

So today we slept in, it was nice.. (oh and we slept in yesterday Tyson was sure to point that out!) Anyways what i find funny is that whenever i am like lets go rest or take a break Tyson is like no i don't want to lets go for another walk.. and then i get him back to the guest house and who is first to fall asleep??? TYSON!!!! See he needs me so that he doesn't burn out! I just thought that you would all like to know that he he.

Yesterday we walked in the blistering sun to go and find me a yak sweater.. after searching far and wide (the entire bahkora) and after a little frustration, we could not find one :(. I thought for sure stuff would be made out of yak everywhere here but its really not, we have only found one thing so far and i can't tell you because i got a friend a present of one and i dont want her to know what it is. We also picked up other souvienours and many hours of barginning. I could not handle the sun anymore (i know who knew that would ever happen to me.. what am i to do in Greece? Oooo right there is water there!!!) Only near the end of all of this shopping did we feel that we were starting to bargin efficiently and get decent prices, but who knows we probably still over paid for everything. So after me complaining of the sun we decided to just bite the bullet and walk all the way to the tourist bureau to get us some train tickets to Golmud. This was an adventure in itself. At first we could not find the bureau after walking back and forth a couple times and asking numerous people who pointed in all 4 directions we finally found it. In the back corner of the government controlled courtyard with a big fancy hotel (What is that anyways a hotel? Do those exist?) Anyways, back to my story.. so Tyson went to ask the lady how much it was for the tickets.. she looked at him as if he were crazy... and well we didnt have any money to get the tickets right then .. so we decided to make a game plan. Me being the quarterback i took charge, sent Tyson to the bank, and i went to find me a chinese man who could speak some english.. or at least understand what i wanted from him. I got him to write in chinese that we wanted 2 tickets to golmud. TOUCH DOWN!!! It was a success.. well we hadn't got the tickets by that time, but we eventually did and we were not going to argue what type of seat or the time we wanted because we didn't know how to. So we ended up saving 200 Yuan from not using the travel agent and are on the last train out 10am on May 24, hard sleeper, or so we think. We are not really sure.... and i have never been on a train so i guess this is another experience. Since the sun was still beaming hot , Tyson got burned because he wasn't wearing sunscreen tisk tisk! He is starting to look a little Tibetan. Especially with drinking barley beer at 8 am. We ended up taking a rick shaw ride back and i felt terrible for making that man carry us on his bike in the sun.. i think those guys should be in the olympics for biking. We then were exhuasted and hungry so it was to my favorite resaturant the Dunya for some pizza (again).. then to bed.

Today we went to the Potala. I think we probably have about 30 pictures of this place... and i think Tyson might build a house looking similar to the Potala he is obsessed! The government staggers when people go in, as to limit huge crowds, and we probably had one of the worst times, 1pm, middle of the heat. So all was good, we were with some Americans who i thought were Chinese.. but they were from America and i ended up saying something stupid about americans.. whoops i learned my lesson!! Anyways these guys had just gotten off the plane i felt a little bad for them... but they did not bad. Of course Tyson was in such an excitement to just get up the stairs and get into the place. The stairs were not as bad as i thought they would be.. but thats not the whole story. So our guide took us 3 quarters of the way up to the ticket booth and then said i'll meet you at the exit when you are done because apparently she can't come in because if she did then we would only have an hour inside and we wanted more. So we asked if we needed anything and she said nope so we were like ok cool. So we trotted along and then got to the ticket booth and well no tickets for us!!! Why? Because we needed the time stamp and some papers which our guide had .. all the way back down the stairs at the exit. So after trying to call the travel agent with zero success, and the Americans were trying to explain the situation in Chinese to the people at the ticket booth.. but it was a no deal. So being a trooper Tyson was not going to wait any longer so down the stairs he went (there are alot of stairs) followed by one of the younger americans to help Tyson out if he needed him to speak chinese.. so i waited at the top with the other guy. Finally, they returned with our guide and the papers. The people at the ticket booth were not happy because we were late it was like 2:00 by the time we got in and we were suppose to be in by 1:00. But after some explaining and talking we got our tickets.

Most of the rooms in the white palace were closed off (this is the administrative center) but in the red palace there were alot more chapels and rooms to see. The red palace is where the D.L lived and studied during the winters. It was pretty amazing to see the exact place where this occurred. While going through the Red palace there is a strict no pictures/and security cameras everywhere. Follwed by a windy path through the rooms which you follow behind after tour group, after tour group, after tour group.. and some pilgrims (not as many as there are in other monasteries). (Tyson says that you couldn't escape the groups not my slowing down, speeding up, stopping, nothing, one after the other like the waves in the ocean. While the path through the red palace led through many amazing rooms, in was a 4 foot wide path with no escape. That was my only problem with the place. Otherwise the detail, size, and grandour of the place is impossible to describe to any effect. Imagine 9.5 meter high gold stumpas 7.5 meters wide for burial chambers all done with intricate designs and layered with many jewels and surrounded by gold and silver statues of buddhas and gods, and then surrouned by 1000's of scripts written in gold on selves on the wall, and the walls all painted with murals of buddhas and gods, and the the main light source being the yak butter tea lamps.) I do not think i will ever forget the smell of yak butter.. in fact i might have ate some on my toast the other day who knows really? Like Tyson described already the place was amazing. It was less crowded then all the other monasteries we went to which was nice. In almost all the chapels there were little statues about thousands of them that where along the walls that had such detail to them, we couldn't get over that and how ancient they were as long as how many hours went into making them. We really can't explain everything on here its just to much. I guess you will have to just come to see the Potala yourself (Peter). That was pretty much the day for us. Went for dinner at you guessed it, the same restaurant.... im a creature of habit i can't help that. But we had momos and they were the best momos we have had since being here, so very good they tasted more like a samosa this time with a little spice to it.

Right now it is threatening to rain outside. Sara thinks it would be amazing to see some thunder and lightening here, and I agree. On another note, I've never seen so much ping pong (table tennis) on TV. We've found CCTV 5 (I know of at least 16 CCTV channels) which is the sports channel, and if it isn't some football (soccer) match China is playing in Bangkok right now, or the NBA playoffs (only the Spurs vs. Suns though) it is pingpong. We are not complaining it feels a little like home when Tyson is watching Tv and i am napping. Don't worry we dont waste the day just watching CCTV 5.. just when we are taking a break.

Well tomorrow we are off to Nam'sto lake for one night, and Tyson will be really grumpy if this strom does not pass through and leaves us with rain for tomorrow that will disrupt the views of the mountains. We will then return to Lhasa for our last adventures in Tibet. I think Tyson just cried a little. His eyes are watery.. now hes laughing. We will post when we get back in 2 days. I hear we are stopping at a hot springs along the way.. thats kind of exciting.

Bye for now!
Sara and Tyson