Lhasa to Gyantse It's been a pretty good day, though a long one driving. 6 of us are crammed into a landcruiser and...well the roads are better in Tibet than I expected at least! We left about 9:30 from the hotel, but had to get some groceries (and cans of emergency oxygen! awesome!) and recharge mobiles, etc so it ended up being about 10:30 before we were on the road. The first cloudy day in Tibet - good and bad as it meant our days in Lhasa were beautiful a...

Rant Right. China. By the time I arrived in Lhasa I had really had my fill of China. You get used to the spitting, the umbrellas, the bad fashion socks, the pollution, the MSG, the fact that everyone's out for themselves and bu*gger you if you're in the way, etc etc. It's exhausting, it's disheartening, it's annoying and you end up kicking small children* and uttering f**k every 3 minutes to deal with it. But deal with it, you do. *OK it was Chengdu, I had bee...

Executive Summary - Lhasa, Tibet Saw: Jokhang Monastery, Ramoche Temple, Potala Palace, Monument to the People's Liberation of Tibet 1959 (**gag**), Norbulingka Summer Palace (including the 14th Dalai Lama's toilet!), Ganden Monastery, Sera Monastery and monks debating. Did: Circumambulated the Barkhor Square and the Potala Palace, slagged off the Chinese government with fellow travellers, acclimatised to 3500 meters / 11,480 feet (not too bad so ...

Executive Summary - Sichuan Province (Chengdu) Saw: Pandas! Pandas eating! Pandas playing! Pandas sleeping! Baby Pandas! Pandas in trees! Teenage Pandas! Red (not as cute) Pandas! Panda facts! Panda movie! Panda museum! Panda insemination (well, photos of)! Ahem...moving on... Tibetan section of Chengdu, "Newly Built Old-Style Jiu Street" (sounds as horrible as it is), Foreign Languages Bookstore, whose sign was entirely in Chinese an...

Executive Summary - Yunnan Province (Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge) Saw: Kunming city centre, Dali Old Town, Torch festival, Lijiang canals & wells, Tiger Leaping Gorge, waterfalls and bamboo forests along the trek, fields of corn & sunflowers, 4.5 million stray dogs & cats, a chicken's head being cut off (dinner!), marijuana growing freely around the gorge Did: Found Lonely Planet Tibet!, took a wild rickshaw ride fr...