In going through the video we took in Tibet I forgot to tell you my favorite thing about the Tibetan people. They spontaneously burst into song. Like all the time. Anytime there's a lull, they just start singing and it's kind of awesome. This of course comes from someone who was pretty immersed in collegiate acappella so I'm very fond of people who burst into song but still. We first noticed it flying to Tibet on the airplane. The guy next to Ted and I sang every time the turbulence got bad. I thought it was just to calm his nerves but it turns out they are a nation of singers. Namgil was always singing, and in the restaurant part of the video (the first part) you can hear our waitress singing as she drops something off at the table. Seriously though, wouldn't the world be a better place if we all went around singing all the time? I think it would be...
After the Potala Palace we decided to rickshaw it back to our hotel. Rickshaw rides in Tibet are for adrenaline junkies. Car vs bike is always interesting.
Then we hit a little restaurant near our hotel for some lunch. We had some kind of Yak meat stir fry which was amazing and the kids had Hawaiian Pizza (?)
We also got a Yak mean pie. It was SOOOO Good! Thin flaky pastry with tender yak meat in the middle with spices. Jeff and I were stoked.
And so were the kids. Because this crazy cat pretty much owned the restaurant. He was hysterical and spent the first part of our meal attacking some Chinese tourists. Then he came and attacked my bags. He was full-on. He would hide behind couches and leap out and attack people and actually made one woman run away screaming. He is heavily featured in the video at the top of this post....
After lunch we headed back to Barkor square just because there was so much to see and do there and we loved it. We did a couple of laps, took some time to chat and barter with the locals and just kept looking at everything and listening to the singing.
For dinner the boys got Yak burgers!
And then we headed back to the hotel for our last night in Lhasa. Jeff and I shared some Lhasa beer as we packed.
One thing we really wanted to do was go on a hike but we had to leave it until our last morning for 2 reasons. The first was that with Jeff and the kids suffering from the altitude the longer we waited, the more acclimatized they got and we knew that hiking was out of the question the first few days. We barely made it up the steps of the Potala Palace! The second was that the Chinese military had the trail heads around Lhasa heavily supervised and Namgil said it would not be good for us to try to hike on any of those trails. So we got up early on our last day and went for a hike on our way to the airport. We found a trail that went up out of a little village and started up!
The village from below:
We passed all these broken stones that had writing etched into them. They were really cool and I never found out what they were.
Across from the hill we were climbing was a monastery perched on a hillside. You can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance behind it. It was really beautiful.
We spotted a bunch of prayer flags high on the hill above the village and decided that it was as good a destination as any. Also there was sure to be a trail there as each village has a spot like this where they climb up frequently to hang new prayer flags. The higher they put them the more the wind blows the flags, so this is why you find them up high. We found a trail that seemed to lead up there from the village and started climbing.
About mid-way up we found this little thing with prayer flags attached:
The climbing was HARD! We got up to 13,000ft which is definitely the highest the kids have ever hiked. So breathing was tough but they never gave up. At one point Jeff suggested that he and the kids might hang back if I wanted to finish the climb myself but Teddy said "I want to go all the way up there to that thing with you... because I think when we get up there it's gonna be cool!" Love that!
We made it up and this crazy structure had prayer flags all over it in various states of disrepair. I'd love to know how old the ones buried deep in the center of it are. It was really cool. We had Fiber One bars at the Top so the kids were STOKED!
I love this pic because you can see that little monastery through the flags....
My burly hiker!
On the way down Teddy and Namgil took off like a pair of mountain goats even thought it was really steep. I think they were trying to get out of earshot so I they would no longer hear my pleas for them to "be careful!" Jeff, Sasha and I took a much longer time picking our way down the steep section and when we caught up I took this picture of Teddy and Namgil having a chat on a little hill. It was such a beautiful scene and it made me so sad knowing that we had to leave this place in less than 2 hours. But we truly used every minute of our time in Tibet - we got to the airport in the nick of time with dirt in our shoes! I hope we can go back there someday and see more of the country. And I hope that when we do go back that life has gotten better for the Tibetan people.
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