Last night was the finishing party in Lhasa. Guy, our resident Buddhist Israeli and all around character had booked out the top floor of some restaurant in the old town. The afternoon before was spent walking around the Jokhang and exploring the markets stalls of the eager vendors before taking a long sit and reminisce in the little coffee shop until 8.30pm.

About thirty five of the forty five on the tour turned up and there was drinking and dancing and cards (playing some ridiculous rules) which went on until the early hours of the morning. There was plenty of fun.

Unfortunately there were two upsets on the last day – one being that Sonya lost her entire travel documents and monies in the back of a cab and Nicholas was mugged (although not hurt) near the Potala.

This morning was a 5.30 start again, this time a trip to the airport. The flight takes you back to Kathmandu over the lofty peaks of the Himalaya and very close to Everest so you can have a good look.

Despite asking the lady at check-in for a seat on the right hand side of the plane with a window, she put me on bog-duty and so sat on the last seat of the plane in the aisle. Brilliant.

It didn’t matter in the end as no one else sat next to me so I shifted over to the window seat and as Matt had the same setup the other side I was able to get a good view of the mountains as we passed.

I also managed to get a Chinese (Tibetan) stamp in my passport (they don’t usually do this).

At the far end, I was able to whistle through customs, but everyone else got held up due to the visa regulations and it took about an hour and a half to get sorted fully before catching a (free) taxi back to the Potala Guesthouse in Thamel.

Tomorrow we go to Chitwan national park for safaris and the like.

I am so fed up of Yak with everything.

I’m in a cafe that resembles a Starbucks – an unusual find in Tibet which is mostly full of noodle houses and yak butter tea cafes.

Lhasa is very Chinese in look and feel, and after writing the last entry we headed over the road for some noodles. We were starving, and so went into the first place we found which was an unusually posh and large Chinese resteraunt. The four of us hearded ourselves over to a table in the vast eating room and quickly noticed we were the only people in there, except for the staff. And there were a hell of a lot of staff.

The far wall was a glass construction allowing us to view directly what the 15 chefs were up to. 15 chefs all washing down the huge panes and stainless steel surfaces until they all stopped to watch the strange group of foreigners sit down and ask for the menu.

It soon became apparent that none of the 10 waiting staff could speak any english, and even when they wheeled out a reluctant girl from the back, the best we could get was a string of apologies, “Sorry, so sorry.”

It became even more difficult when we started to try to explain what we wanted. The number of staff had now increased further, all wanting a look at their new patrons, but as equally as confused as to what was meant to be going on. Our food descriptions (four chow mein) didn’t seem to work, and we nearly resorted to drawing things before they whisked the menus away, claiming they now knew what we wanted.

Three minutes later a waiter re-appeared and summoned me into the glass-fronted kitchen. Clearly the kitchen staff were even more amazed when I entered, where I discovered another pocket of four or five waiters who were just sitting and talking. I was shown a washed and peeled potato, and although my knowledeg of chinese cuisine is not the greatest, I assumed they hadn’t understood the noodle request. I said “chips”, they said “yes”, I said “no; four chow mein”, they said “ah, ok, sorry, sorry”, and back I went.

And amongst a whole lot of laughter and misunderstanding, the 14 chefs produced four small bowls of noodles.

The next day we visited the Potala. Despite forgetting our passports, they let us in for a 1 hour express tour of the Dalai Lama’s former residence. Poor weather made it a bit drab, but after visiting the Sera monastry (the monks who discovered the Dalai Lama) we went back to take photos in the square when the clouds had cleared and there was a clear view of the mountains.

This morning was a similar start, this time off to the Dreupang Monastary, one of largest in Tibet. Once home to 7,700 monks, it now has just 700. After some sightseeing, photos and souvenier shopping we were taken back to the old town.

This afternoon is the last here in Tibet. There is loads to write up in full at a later time, but that will have to wait until I am back in Kathmandu tomorrow.

Tibet’s capital city, Lhasa is actually one of the lowest points we have been for the past few days.

Like everywhere in Tibet, there is a strong Chinese influence in the architecture, but moreso here than out in the country and up on the plataeu from where we have come from.

Last night we found a great place for Yak burgers before turning in early at our nice, but very cold hotel. This morning we had to be leaving by 7am to get on the road up to the lakes and after our driver finally turned up (half an hour late) the convoy of 11 land cruisers moved off.

It was more beautiful snow-capped mountain scenery, and after some initial cloud and snow, the skies cleared and we stopped at several lakes and viewpoints along the eight-hour journey to the capital.

The driver was passing out tsampa barley the whole journey (to eat like popcorn), and making the most of his newest toy. Our driver has pretty much pimped out the jeep to look like a police car – we have blue and red flashing lights on the bullbars and his newest addition – a siren and PA through the horn to make announcements to fellow drivers. We probably have the coolest driver.

The hotel tonight has warm hot water and so I managed to get a bath in – the first wash in three days. Some of the girls have been going spare (not from our group though – we don’t grumble as much as some people). Each move makes the group anticipate the next set of a facilities, as so far standards have been very basic. Getting out of bed at 2am in sub-5-degree temperatures, tredding on icy floors and to go and relieve yourself outside makes you learn how to hold it in for a few hours longer.

Headaches from altitude are all but gone and we’re going to the Potala tomorrow.

Surprisingly, internet cafes don’t appear that hard to some by in the larger towns in Tibet so it has been easier to type up than I expected, although they don’t seem to be able to, or won’t allow, the upload of photos here.

Last night we stayed in relative luxury in beds with matresses and lighting. Matt and I shared a room – and we were both woken with a start at 4am when something very loud fell to the floor.

After not being able to establish what it was, we went back to bed. In the morning I found some nasty yellow muck on the desk in the room and outside the bathroom door. Five minutes later and we were investigating the top of the twitching curtains. A quick peek revealed a very frightened ferret-looking creature who shot down the window, across the floor and let out a deafening squeal before going back again.

Matt soon discovered that it had made it’s way through a large part of the huge carrier bag full of unshelled peanuts he had left on the desk. Eventually we coaxed it out of the window.

After a basic breakfast (egg, bread and jam as always) we took the trucks to Gyantse via a small water-powered tsampa mill (tsampa being a barley dough, edible with any liquid, but mostly drunk with yak butter tea).

Another hotel tonight, the hot water is turned on at 6pm, so we’re all waiting for the first warm shower this week.

The weather turned this afternoon, but it cleared quickly. We walked around the local monastary and stuupa before taking a taxi-trike upto the old fort for the highest view for miles around.

Tommorow we go to Lhasa, the capital.

(Also, happy belated birthday for yesterday Dad. I had problems posting the message yesterday and I didn’t actually realise it was showing up.)

So here I am, about 5000m above sea level and on the ‘rooftop of the world’.

We set of early Saturday morning at 5.30am, taking the long drive back out towards Last Resort where we had rafted the day before.

After a brief stop when the other bus managed to get a puncture, we made it to the Tibetan border, the ‘friendship bridge’ and got our passports checked and temperatures measured (SARS is still a concern) before being hearded into Toyota Land Crusiers to take the hazardous mountain pass and start gaining real altitude (ours houses Jen, Matt, Sam and myself with a driver who speaks no English and only has one cassette which happens to be particularly awful techo-chinese music).

By this time the clear weather had faded and it was really bucketing it down. In one of the breaks at customs we made our way into a small kitchen and all ordered large bowls of noodles until the convoy was ready to move off.

Immediately the change of country is noticable. The first thing is the language – no one out of the fifty of us here speaks any manderin, and certainly not any Tibetan, so meal times are often complicated as simple gesturing seems to confuse more than compound.

We arrived in Nagalam late evening, by which time it was freezing cold. Tibet really is basic; the charpies (asian toliets) are no more than a hole over a pit, and there is no warm water or heating. Thick Yak blankets are very effective though, but didn’t do much to calm the AMS (acute mountain sickness), which gives you a bad headache, make your drowsy or dizzy and affect breathing.

Paracetamol is staple of our diet at the moment.

Still, the views are stunning. We rose early yesterday to see the huge snow-capped mountains and a clear blue sky above us, perfect weather for seeing the Himalaya. We bundled back into the 4×4s and made our way several hundred km across the vast plataeus and over the passes stopping for photographs and food.

Our final travel stop was at a small restaurant (in the most basic sense of the word) overlooking Mt Everest. It’s hard to put across how spectacular the views are generally, and as soon as I get to a place where they allow you to plug in your camera, I’ll put some photos up.

Last night we stayed in dormitories again – primitive once more, but we got to hustle some street-pool with the local kids which was enjoyable.

Today we have arrived in Xingtze (?) where we are now have showers and western toilets. One of the vehicles rolled off the road this morning; thankfully no one was hurt, but it did bring about how desolate this place is and it was good we were all still close together as the distance between seeing people and their Yaks is vast.

We have picked up a few Tibetan phrases. Hello is ‘Tashi Delli’ while our driver told us dog is ‘key’, goat is ‘ra’, cat is ‘shimmi’ and yak is ‘ya’. We are becoming pros.

This afternoon we explored the local monastary, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama. We then browsed the local area, shared some card tricks and generally did non-energetic things to avoid bringing on the AMS any heavier.

More to follow…

An early start this morning wasn’t complimented by a bumpy ride up to Last Resort, a point 12 miles from the Tibetan border. Unfortunately we have to repeat the journey first thing tomorrow.

That said, Sam, Iwan, Anna, other Sam and myself had a fantastic time whitewater rafting down the rapids for three hours. More exciting than my first and only other attempt at this sport in the Rockies, I know feel utterly exhausted.

No help that we have to be outside the travel agents at 5.30am in the morning for the bus to Tibet.

Last night I discovered I had a cut on my head. That can be explained by walking into that low doorframe in Bhaktapur yesterday.

This morning we got up at 8am to catch the local bus to the orphanage outside of Kathmandu. The area is a lot more rural than where we are staying in the city (although more developed than some of the area around Nagakot).

First stop was Sam’s old host family. The youngest, Krris, turned three today so we had picked up a cake en route and stashed it in the fridge before heading over to Jen’s host family for my first experience at true Nepalese home cooking.

Dahl Baht is eaten from a metal plate and using your right hand as a shovel and your thumb as a push-to-mouth. The dahl is a yellow curry mix, which you pour over the baht (the rice and a selection of curried vegetables and nuts). Despite struggling to each much the past few days, I managed the whole portion (just as well; leaving food is considered very disrespectful).

After breakfast we went to the orphange, a short walk away. Most of the kids were at school, so Jen, Sam and myself went for a walk up into the hills for views of the villages and fields from above.

When we arrived back we met the kids up on the field ready for a short talent show organised by one of the other volunteers. There was singing, dancing, display of paintwork (one kid, Albin was particularly good and we are planning on taking him to visit the artist we met yesterday), acting and other entertainments before it descended into general playtime for the rest of the afternoon.

Dealing with 45 kids is a challenging job, and as their supplies are strictly limited and their expectations must not be raised for various reasons, we have to strict rules regarding handing out presents/sweets and what we can say to them – although they are more than willing to play, fight and take photos on your camera.

I could talk at length about these children who were all very curious, raucous, playful and funny, but I can hardly remember any of their names (they all look alike apart from their t-shirts) and the conditions they live in. Although good by Nepali standards, the state of the building is nowhere near what you might expect in a western children’s home, and health and safety is not even heard of. I plan on writing something a bit more comprehensive about this at a later date as it was a very cool experience.

We went back to Sam’s host family for an evening meal (this time with spoons and everything!), and being a birthday they had laid on a special selection of chicken, pickles and pilleau rice (as opposed to the usual twice-a-day, mono-thematic dahl baht).

We danced for an hour in the living room to some of the latest hindi dance tracks (twin girls, two older sisters, the hyperactive Krris, a older brother, another couple of visiting boys, Rob, Jen, Sam and myself made the whole place a little packed) before sharing out the cake (which had a strong taste of nail polish remover for some reason).

Sam had to make her goodbyes before we left to catch a taxi back to Themal. There was one final issue of taking out the huge cockroach crawling around the bathroom, but once that was sorted we went back to the art shop at 9pm to pick up the work that had been done overnight.

A busy day. Tomorrow we go rafting, then on Saturday, Tibet. I’m unsure what internet access will be like for the next 8 days.