chrissuderman
Lhasa Streets
City streets of Lhasa (Tibet). This photo was taken from the roof of my Hotel. Potala Palace on the mountain in the background.
Tibet Blog - Day 1
I have access to my own oxygen bar, sucking back air from a tube is quite a fun experience I did not expect to encounter. Luckily I didn’t actually have to experience this pleasantry for my siblings got to do that for me. I slept.
The flight from Beijing to Lhasa left at 7am on August 6th 2009. That means in order to get your lifeless body to the airport in time to make the flight, you needed to wake up at the ghastly hour of 4am. Or maybe it was actually closer to 5am. All I know is that I never fully woke up.
Halfway through the flight I felt myself becoming incredibly tired. It was as though I had awoke at 4am. And not just that one morning, but every morning previous for as long as I could remember. Needless to say, I fell asleep. This brought me one disadvantage, I missed all offerings of water during the flight which meant my mouth was about as dry as a mouthful of instant coffee. (The kind of coffee one has when they wake up at 4am and are not awake enough to realize that these instant coffee grounds need water. Or maybe that’s what they really mean by “instant”. No water.) I was parched to say the least, but worse yet, I was not feeling too well.
Lhasa, “The Roof of The World” (many probably claim this title) sits at about 3600 meters above sea level. There are over 3000 hours of annual sunshine, magnified due to the high altitude. For the average bloke like me, these statistics mean trouble. There is essentially no air for one to breathe, and your skin roasts the moment it encounters a ray of sun. Sunscreen is a good idea even though it is akin to rubbing yourself down with yak butter or other oils (depending on where you are from) 15 minutes prior to any outdoor activity.
This high altitude means altitude sickness. Somehow I managed to get it while I was on the plane. I had never heard of pre-altitude sickness before (neither has Microsoft Word) but apparently I had it. Before departing Beijing I took Diamox. It is a drug that is supposed to help one adjust to altitude sickness. I just took it because my mom said so, and you always listen to your mother right? Anyways, this drug has a countless number of side effects, all of which I experienced on route to Lhasa. Headache, nausea, extreme tiredness and lack of energy, tingly fingers and toes, the list goes on. So I slept.
I woke up in time to see the flight attendant walk down the isle carrying everyone’s empty water cups. How I craved water then. More interesting and captivating at the time was that I could see in front of the plane! The pilot had turned on a camera underneath the plane so we could see all the mountains and rivers below. Everything looked so green until I looked out of the window. Brown. Not a lot of rain this year at the right time so none of the green things were able to develop properly.
Soon enough we were there! I would have been much more excited had I not felt like an almost lifeless form, one still with enough life in him to wait at the baggage pickup before shuffling over to the awaiting van. I couldn’t wait to find a pillow to lay my head on! The trip from the airport to the hotel took much longer than I would have liked. I was grateful for the new road built which shortened the trip from 100km to 60km. Still, the new road very quickly turned into the old bad road. When your head hits the roof more than once you know the road is bad. I shouldn’t have sat in the back. Nausea was one of the side effects of the drug and this didn’t help.
Things were looking up for me once I took a 4-hour nap at the hotel. For supper we ventured across the street to eat because we were all to weak to go much further. We ended up at a bar/restaurant. I thought it best not to have alcohol due to my slight reaction to the anti-altitude drugs and the altitude itself. I compromised by drinking my ice tea out of a shot glass. We ordered a light Tibetan meal to accompany our drink. Noodles, yak curry with rice, and cucumbers. The food was probably more of a Chinese/Tibetan fusion, but tasty just the same. Following dinner two of the waitresses sang two Tibetan songs for us. One was about love, and the other about a father passing on. Personalized entertainment is the best. Though sleep is better, at least it was then, so that’s what I did. Slept.
Lhasa Streets
City streets of Lhasa (Tibet). This photo was taken from the roof of my Hotel. Potala Palace on the mountain in the background.
Tibet Blog - Day 1
I have access to my own oxygen bar, sucking back air from a tube is quite a fun experience I did not expect to encounter. Luckily I didn’t actually have to experience this pleasantry for my siblings got to do that for me. I slept.
The flight from Beijing to Lhasa left at 7am on August 6th 2009. That means in order to get your lifeless body to the airport in time to make the flight, you needed to wake up at the ghastly hour of 4am. Or maybe it was actually closer to 5am. All I know is that I never fully woke up.
Halfway through the flight I felt myself becoming incredibly tired. It was as though I had awoke at 4am. And not just that one morning, but every morning previous for as long as I could remember. Needless to say, I fell asleep. This brought me one disadvantage, I missed all offerings of water during the flight which meant my mouth was about as dry as a mouthful of instant coffee. (The kind of coffee one has when they wake up at 4am and are not awake enough to realize that these instant coffee grounds need water. Or maybe that’s what they really mean by “instant”. No water.) I was parched to say the least, but worse yet, I was not feeling too well.
Lhasa, “The Roof of The World” (many probably claim this title) sits at about 3600 meters above sea level. There are over 3000 hours of annual sunshine, magnified due to the high altitude. For the average bloke like me, these statistics mean trouble. There is essentially no air for one to breathe, and your skin roasts the moment it encounters a ray of sun. Sunscreen is a good idea even though it is akin to rubbing yourself down with yak butter or other oils (depending on where you are from) 15 minutes prior to any outdoor activity.
This high altitude means altitude sickness. Somehow I managed to get it while I was on the plane. I had never heard of pre-altitude sickness before (neither has Microsoft Word) but apparently I had it. Before departing Beijing I took Diamox. It is a drug that is supposed to help one adjust to altitude sickness. I just took it because my mom said so, and you always listen to your mother right? Anyways, this drug has a countless number of side effects, all of which I experienced on route to Lhasa. Headache, nausea, extreme tiredness and lack of energy, tingly fingers and toes, the list goes on. So I slept.
I woke up in time to see the flight attendant walk down the isle carrying everyone’s empty water cups. How I craved water then. More interesting and captivating at the time was that I could see in front of the plane! The pilot had turned on a camera underneath the plane so we could see all the mountains and rivers below. Everything looked so green until I looked out of the window. Brown. Not a lot of rain this year at the right time so none of the green things were able to develop properly.
Soon enough we were there! I would have been much more excited had I not felt like an almost lifeless form, one still with enough life in him to wait at the baggage pickup before shuffling over to the awaiting van. I couldn’t wait to find a pillow to lay my head on! The trip from the airport to the hotel took much longer than I would have liked. I was grateful for the new road built which shortened the trip from 100km to 60km. Still, the new road very quickly turned into the old bad road. When your head hits the roof more than once you know the road is bad. I shouldn’t have sat in the back. Nausea was one of the side effects of the drug and this didn’t help.
Things were looking up for me once I took a 4-hour nap at the hotel. For supper we ventured across the street to eat because we were all to weak to go much further. We ended up at a bar/restaurant. I thought it best not to have alcohol due to my slight reaction to the anti-altitude drugs and the altitude itself. I compromised by drinking my ice tea out of a shot glass. We ordered a light Tibetan meal to accompany our drink. Noodles, yak curry with rice, and cucumbers. The food was probably more of a Chinese/Tibetan fusion, but tasty just the same. Following dinner two of the waitresses sang two Tibetan songs for us. One was about love, and the other about a father passing on. Personalized entertainment is the best. Though sleep is better, at least it was then, so that’s what I did. Slept.