Day 6 (2/2) - Arriving At The Hotel

Half way to Lhasa, we stopped at the first of the many religious artifacts we would encounter in Tibet. Other groups also stopped here, it appears all the travel groups stop here from the airport. IIRC, this statue etched in the hill was said to be hundreds of years old. Although not apparent in the picture, the statue was 50 ft tall, give or take 10 ft.

There were many white scarf called khata left on and around the statue. The khatas were given to guest as gesture of welcome. We all received one from our tour guide.


I took this picture looking up the sky at the site of the statue. Again, many khatas were left on the hill and the traditional Tibetan flags. The cloud had now thinned and the sun and the blue sky revealed themselves. The view was pristine.



This was our first trip to a outside toilet in Tibet. Personally, it was bearable. Many toilets to come were a lot worse, pretty much port-a-potty without the chemical to mitigate the smell. It cost 0.5RMB each to use this toilet. BYOT! (That's bring your own tissue)

Our first view of Potala Palace at the center of Lhasa on our way to the hotel! The city has mixed traditional Tibetan buildings and new construction. West side of the city had more traditional feel whereas the east side has more new buildings.

It took awhile, but we finally arrived at our Hotel - House of Shambala. It was a small boutique hotel with only 10 rooms.


The picture on top explained the origin of Shambala. Tibetan Prayer wheel was present at the entrance. Tibetan believes spinning the prayer wheel will release the mantra and its effect to the cosmos.



Picture on the top is the courtyard of the hotel with the lady staff. The hotel staffs were friendly, much better than five-star hotel we stayed earlier in Beijing. The picture on the bottom is the window of the hotel rooms.



A view of sky from the courtyard of the hotel.



Room of the door - we got a tradition key - no modern reprogrammable keys.




Picture of the room. It felt very exotic to us, though according to our guide, this was not Tibetan. It did not diminish the sense of arriving at an exotic location world away from America.



Pictures of the bathroom. Hot water was not a problem (Yes - gotta check this while looking for hotel in Tibet).

Our room was next to the street, it got pretty noisy between 7am - 10pm. It was very quite at night. Though not luxurious (not expected in most hotels in Tibet), the staffs were very helpful. The room rate was about USD $70 a night per room, no additional tax or service charge.




At this point, I was feeling light headed already from getting up the stairs to my room. We dined at the hotel restaurant. The menu had choices of Tibetan, Nepalese, Chinese, and Indian food.



We got a little too excited when the food arrived, the picture was taken half way through the meal. We ordered vegetable and chiken tikas (fried) with rice, naan, samosa, and Tibetan noodle.



We also had hot water and masala tea - opting for the familiar instead of the Tibetan tea made of fermented milk. The milk used in masala tea had much stronger smell compared to the ones I have had in th US - I thought it was Yak milk, but it was regular milk alright. We were told to drink lots of hot water to ease the AMS effect. I felt de-hydrated anyway, so hot water was in order.




With the little amount of energy left, I climbed to the roof of the hotel to take some more picture. As the sign says, "Welcome to the rooftop of the world", could not have said it better myself.



Feeling pretty sick at this point, I returned to my room and pretty much rolling and sleeping through the night. My symptom was severe headache in addition to shortness of breathe. Between the four of us, my mother-in-law and I felt uncomfortable and had severe headache whereas Levi and my father-in-law did not. Activities that were easy at sea level was no longer a gimmick here. Definitely do things at much slower pace. I learn this the hard way.

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