A few words about my visit to Tibet, now that I have access again to my blog (from Sapa in northern Vietnam).
It seems that the Chinese authorities prevent any access to the blogger or blogspot websites (for reasons that I'm sure we will never really know). Facebook is tolerated though, and I've made a few notes there in my blog absence.
First of all I'm disappointed to report no obvious yeti activity. Maybe it was the wrong season, or maybe we just didn't get high enough. At any rate the Tibetans seem to be much less interested in their (possible) fellow inhabitants than the Nepalis.
In fact most of what we saw of Tibet is really high level desert which is hardly capable of supporting any kind of life. It is a gigantic place though and we only saw a fraction. There are some more fertile valleys towards Lhasa and beyond, especially around the Bramha Putra river. The views across the plateau to the Himalayas and other surrounding mountains are fantastic.
The Tibetan people have a very different identity to their Chinese colonisers, but they seem to more or less coexist happily enough these days. Maybe it is something to do with the very obvious military presence.
Lhasa is, of course, something very special, with the Potala palace/fort/temple complex dominating the town, and many ancient monastaries nearby. Shigatse and Gyantse were our other significant stops, also with very impressive cultural histories. At Gyantse is seems that the British have still not been forgiven for an attack in 1904!
As a PS I have now managed to upload a few photographs - but I know these don't do the experience justice. The people at the bottom are some monks in their debating hour, and our whole group at a Lhasa monastery.
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