Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Oct 19: Putting all our eggs in one basket (again)!
I'm going to temporarily suspend this blog and direct you to our own site once again... Hopefully the technical difficulties are all over for now and we can keep blogging on www.peteandayse.com. Still, keep this site bookmarked in case our home blog fails again!
thanks for reading!
Ayse and Pete (in Kathmandu)
thanks for reading!
Ayse and Pete (in Kathmandu)
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Oct 14: Happy Birthday Alexis!
Today was a slow day. We woke up in Gyantse, visited the monastery there (what else?) and took a bizzillion pictures at the Gyantse Kumbum (means 100,000 images). Lots and lots of murals from the 14th century. Today's drive was only 90km long and we arrived in Shigatse around noon. After a visit to the Tashilhunpo monastery (the only monastery that was not destroyed during the Cultural Revolution) we were free!
It's a Sunday, even the monks have the day off, so we could not find much to do. So here we all are, at a smoked, dirty and loud internet cafe, tending to our blogging and photo editing duties... Pete and John have been shooting photos non-stop so their job will take longer than mine...
My eyes are watering and my nose is burning from the smoke, so much for the fresh air of the mountains...
It's a Sunday, even the monks have the day off, so we could not find much to do. So here we all are, at a smoked, dirty and loud internet cafe, tending to our blogging and photo editing duties... Pete and John have been shooting photos non-stop so their job will take longer than mine...
My eyes are watering and my nose is burning from the smoke, so much for the fresh air of the mountains...
Oct 13: Give the poor man a brake (cylinder)!
Today was our best day on this trip yet, full of amazing sights, some new friends and a little bit of adventure...
We left Tsetang early in the morning to had back east (towards Lhasa) to join the Friendship highway which we will be following south until Nepal border. Our first stop today was at Yamdrok-tso lake. We had to climb and climb and climb a mountain to see this lake. Most of the other cars on the road were other Land-cruisers, filled with tourists. But that's a good thing! 80% of the way up, the driver stopped the car to find out that our alternator belt was broken. He dug through the trunk to find another one, but when this one turned out to be too long, he just stopped a few Land Cruisers passing by and luckily one of them happened to have a spare for us! After this small break, we continued to the top of the mountain pass where we were greeted with the amazing turquoise waters of Yamdrok-tso. It was so beautiful. I am no camper, but I would love to trek and even camp around this lake on my next visit to Tibet! The sad news according to LP is that they are draining this lake to produce hydroelectricity and the lake may "die" within 20 years. How sad...
After taking tons of pictures at the top and chatting with a British guy who just biked up the whole mountain, we set off to our next destination, Gyantse. The road was quite beautiful, following the river in a very steep canyon. Pete and John were hanging out the window, taking photos. We stopped in some dirty little restaurant for lunch, had our noodles and coke, and then started waited by the parking lot for the driver. While I was happily befriending some kids and teaching them new fabulous English songs, Pete was watching the commotion going on around one of the other Land Cruisers in the parking lot. We don't know what was exactly going on of course, but it seemed that their solution to get a ceased rear axle moving was to jack up the backside of the car and bang on it with hammers... Next, they decided to take apart and lube the parts in the brake cylinder and we were happy to find out that our driver was the man they went to for help. He sat there with his WD40 and his cigarette and fixed the whole thing!
The merits of our driver doesn't end here, we took a short-cut to Gyantse and he drove it like a rally driver. We were up and down and dunes (who knew it was desert-y in the middle of Tibet?), past villages with mud houses, and many herds of goats, sheep, and cow. If you want to see towns where time has not affected, take the short-cut!
We had a nice hotel in Gyantze (our first queen bed to date) and a very nice meal at the Gyantse kitchen.
We left Tsetang early in the morning to had back east (towards Lhasa) to join the Friendship highway which we will be following south until Nepal border. Our first stop today was at Yamdrok-tso lake. We had to climb and climb and climb a mountain to see this lake. Most of the other cars on the road were other Land-cruisers, filled with tourists. But that's a good thing! 80% of the way up, the driver stopped the car to find out that our alternator belt was broken. He dug through the trunk to find another one, but when this one turned out to be too long, he just stopped a few Land Cruisers passing by and luckily one of them happened to have a spare for us! After this small break, we continued to the top of the mountain pass where we were greeted with the amazing turquoise waters of Yamdrok-tso. It was so beautiful. I am no camper, but I would love to trek and even camp around this lake on my next visit to Tibet! The sad news according to LP is that they are draining this lake to produce hydroelectricity and the lake may "die" within 20 years. How sad...
After taking tons of pictures at the top and chatting with a British guy who just biked up the whole mountain, we set off to our next destination, Gyantse. The road was quite beautiful, following the river in a very steep canyon. Pete and John were hanging out the window, taking photos. We stopped in some dirty little restaurant for lunch, had our noodles and coke, and then started waited by the parking lot for the driver. While I was happily befriending some kids and teaching them new fabulous English songs, Pete was watching the commotion going on around one of the other Land Cruisers in the parking lot. We don't know what was exactly going on of course, but it seemed that their solution to get a ceased rear axle moving was to jack up the backside of the car and bang on it with hammers... Next, they decided to take apart and lube the parts in the brake cylinder and we were happy to find out that our driver was the man they went to for help. He sat there with his WD40 and his cigarette and fixed the whole thing!
The merits of our driver doesn't end here, we took a short-cut to Gyantse and he drove it like a rally driver. We were up and down and dunes (who knew it was desert-y in the middle of Tibet?), past villages with mud houses, and many herds of goats, sheep, and cow. If you want to see towns where time has not affected, take the short-cut!
We had a nice hotel in Gyantze (our first queen bed to date) and a very nice meal at the Gyantse kitchen.
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