Shigatse City, Tibet

(These next entries were written on the road with no access to internet).

We left Lhasa and drove to a beautiful lake just outside. The view was spectacular.




The bathrooms are also spectacular. A whole different kind of spectacular. Never in my life have I experienced anything like this, which is saying quite a bit since I've lived in China for more than 2 years. There are no words.



Our drive to Shigatse took about 6 hours, and it was worth the sore butt. There were multiple PRC checkpoints along the way which we later learned were speed traps. The first group of officers record the time you depart (by hand of course) and if you make it to the next checkpoint too quickly, they presume you were speeding and issue a ticket. We had several unscheduled photo ops to burn time.




Along the way our guide proposed that we visit a local farmer's house. The farmers agreed to let us in for a price (50 RMB), and we brought candy and 1 RMB notes for the kids. The homes are frequently 2 stories. On the first story of the family's home we visited was a family room with a nice TV and some couches. The other rooms on the first floor were for the animals.





Upstairs was a bedroom with another large TV, a number of cots and a colorful Tibetan piece of furniture. There were 2 storage rooms and a second bedroom with more cots, a stove in the center of the room with yak dung stacked beside it ready to go in. It is their fuel source which I knew about after reading 3 Cups of Tea. In one corner was a large tub full of water with three brass spoons for drinking. Beside that was a yak butter churn.





There are 2.5 million people in Tibet. 35% of them are nomads who spend the summer months with their herds in the grasslands of Tibet. They are wealthy because of their 100 head of yak at a market price of between 3000 to 4000 RMB a pop. Their living conditions are particularly severe.




Lhasa is the largest city in Tibet with 200,000 people. It plays host to 1.5 million tourists each year primarily from May to August. Shigatse is the 2nd largest city with around 100,000 people. It is not a tourist hub.

From our lovely hotel, we had this view: