7 June - Tibet -Lhasa The mystery tour continues .. We get collected for a day trip & meet the rest of our group.... So now we are 8 and will together until the 12 June. Great people & one guy in particular, Perret, has covered the globe & been to places I have never heard of. The focus of today was the Potala Palace ... The iconic monastery that is in every brochure advertising Tibet. It's so popular that they only allow 1000 individuals & 10...

Ray's Report! The one thing that has interested me here is the different mechanical equipment. The first one is the small tractor with a large flywheel painted in Massey Ferguson Red! This is attached to a small trailer and seen hauling goods, equipment, people, blocks of stone, sand etc. Seen in the farming areas. Then there are the 1/2 motorbike and trailer on one chassis - which looks like the mechanical equivalent of a centaur. Useful for mobile vendors. S...

6 June - Tibet - lake Namatso - Lhasa Lets just say that last night was a long night - it was pretty cold & a thick eiderdown & blankets were provided but they were so heavy that it felt you were sleeping under a yak. Plus of course, we were forever tangled up in our sleeping sheets & really felt the lack of oxygen. However, things always look better in the morning. After a breakfast of yak yogurt for me, R chose the soft option of a fried egg, we...

5 June - Tibet- Lhasa to lake Namatso to Lhasa We have a new guide today - not quite as good, friendly or able to speak english as Dorjee. We have been spoilt! The road to the lake travels alongside the rail track so we are able to see the countryside that we saw from the train. It's a five hour drive with the weirdest speed control system I've ever seen. As mentioned before there a numerous police checkpoints - well, along certain busy tourist routes the driv...

4 June- Tibet- Tsetang to Samye monastery - Lhasa We leave @ 9.30 am & climb up the mountain pass & down the other side on some of the scariest hairpin bends that I have ever seen. It' s a good road & we have a good driver. The scenery is amazing, soaring barren peaks with a blue/grey river winding its wy along flanked by sand dunes. To try & prevent the severe erosion getting any worse the government has poured loads of money into planting t...