Well what an excellent past few weeks!

After staying in Xining for a few days suffering from altitude sickness i managed to get a train ticket to Lhasa/Tibet after some hagaling! The train ride is the highest in the world at 5000mts up and what a train ride it was. The scernery throught Tibet a excellent! huge mountains, wild rivers and very high peaks. Not to mention the Yaks, thousand of them roaming around. When i arrived at Lhasa after the 24hr train ride i was greeted by my Tibetan guild Passand. Excellent chap who spoke Very good english. The first thing i noticed about Tibet was the amount of armed police and chinese army in the capital! Hundreds of them in milatry posts, armed vehicals, check points and even on house roof tops keeping watch! Not a nice sight but something your NOT aloud to talk about or take pictures of when in Tibet my guide told me.

Tibet is certainly somwhere everyone should go! The people are Very nice and Lhasa is so differant from China! Its has so much buddist history and charachter. Deffinatly a place to visit again! So in tibet your not aloud to go to ANY religious or tibetan cultural sights without a guide. Something which you have to put up with sadly but can be a bonus due to the guild speaking engligh/tibetan so you understand what you looking at/visiting.

So after Lhasa i visited alot of monastaries, temples and the holy Lake Namtso, but the highlight of the year so far and i think will not be beaten is Mount Everest Base Camp!!!! Absolutly stunning and truly something you have so see. It was a very hard and tought to get to! 12hrs on dirt roads winding there way through very steep paths and shere drops throught the mountains, but without a doubt a must for anyone!!! You get to base camp around 4.30pm before sunset. The view is epic! On the day i went it was a perfect day and there were very little clousds. Pefect. Ive taken some excellent photos and deffinatly a place to remember. In the evening you stay in a tent, but this is no ordinarly tent. Its huge, with a fire, seats, store and kitchen where we had Yak meat and beer! Lhasa beer on top of the world! Excellent!

In the night time it gets very cold. Around 2c but the fire is kept walm and you are walm with the blankets they provide you. In the moring you wake ealry to a massive head ace. I think its to do with the lack of air in the night but my head was certanly hurting. I only two beers aswell! After breakfast and a rest its back on the bus. The base camp is very strict with times. You have to enter on one day and exit on a certain day. No exceptions but it was worth it.

After the long ride back to Lhasa you stay for one more night then back on the train. You have to exit tibet on the day your permit says or else!!!! I caught the train with an aussie chap i made friends with all the way to Chengdu! 42hrs on a train....Nice. We got pissed with the locals and had a good time, even if we dont speak much chinese.

After chengdu ive been on a Yanksi river crusie for a few days which can only be described as interesting! We joined a "chinese" tour group (were told there was an english guide) down the river to see alot of sights on the way and finally ending up at the Three Gorges Dam Project. The tour was only in Chinese and me and the aussie were the only forigners! Mmmm. Not very nice. Didnt understand a word they said but got some good photos of the smog which is everywhere! You cannot see the other side of the dam due to the smog and pollution! I dont think any one knows what the sun looks like but i got some good pictures of the errrrrrr concreate.......................................(Its the experence that counts)

Next im heading to Guilin. This is where the famous rice fields and the fishing with Cormorant are. Should be good fun hopefully (if its in ENGLISH) We shall see.

Andy