India

As it turns out India has quite a lot of people also. We used the lonely planet guide book to find our hotel and when we arrived we were not impressed. The conditions of the hotel were about the exact opposite of the book's description. We now know from talking with many people that while usually very good the 2005 India lonely planet may be less than accurate. One of our freinds calls it the crap book. We agree. Delhi was a little much for us so we decided to get out after a few days and head to the Andaman Islands far off the east coast. We booked a flight to Calcutta spent the night in an overpriced hotel that tried to rip us off and then flew to Port Blair the next morning.

Qsingtao

Keg Beer for sale on the sidewalks all over Qsingtao they give it to you in a plastic bag.





This is the beer garden near the Qsingtao factory I could only finish one beer.











This Fujia the cop who saved us. Thanks Fujia!



The internet connections have been few and far between lately so just to let everyone know we just arrived in Tanzania last night. I did want to bring the blog up to date though so I will try to start off where we went off course. China. We arrived in Beijing and we knew that it would be pretty tough to get train tickets to Tibet since the train has only been running for one year so we made that a priority. We didn't know that it takes ten days of waiting and paying the ticket scalpers a hefty commission for the tickets but we still wanted to go that route so we did it. After site seeing in and around Beijing we still had a few days to kill so we took the bullet train over to QsingTao on the east coast. The town is renowned for its international beer Tsingtao. Once a German colonial town the city looks as if it could be part of Europe.


The part with many Chinese people.





We arrived late at night and went for some food at one of the nearby seafood shacks on the boardwalk. After eating we received our bill and it was about ten times what it should have been. We argued over the price but ended up paying the bill and leaving. All night I plotted on how to destroy the shack and the owner and did little sleeping. The next day I told Elle about the excellent plans that I had devised for revenge but somehow we came to the conclusion that going to the police might be our best option. We were both pretty sceptical about the success of this maneuver but we figured it was our only choice. The Qsingtao police turned out to be the best police force in the world. Instead of laughing at us they brought in a translator from a nearby hostel and we went over the story and then went and confronted the store owner. It was a fantastic scene because it was lunch hour rush and the place was full. We marched in with three police officers and they made the owner give us our money back and then apologize. Sweeeeeet justice!





After the ordeal the officer who helped us the most (Fujia) invited us out to dinner and brought us gifts!!!!!! L.A.P.D. if you're reading this take note.





After that we returned to Beijing and then left for Tibet. In Tibet we contemplated going over land across the border to Nepal because we were so close and then continuing on to Delhi our next stop. However this turned out to be fairly expensive and since we already had air tickets out of Shanghai we decided to take an even longer train back to Shanghai 51 hours. We spent a few days in Shanghai but it was a week long national holiday and very hard to do anything. I don't know how busy Shanghai normally is but it was hard to breathe there were so many people. Luckily we only had a couple of days there and then we were off to uncrowded India!

More China

These are some of the delicious kabobs you can get on the streets of Beijing. The second one is our favorite restaurant down the street from our hotel in Beijing. It's decorated in dark wood and the walls are stained yellow from all the cigarette smoke. It looks like a place that would be in an old western movie so Elle and I did our best old western poses.

The Mao portrait is at one of the old Beijing gates and is the entrance to the Forbidden City which is also pictured.

Mt. Everest

Pictures Tibet

Elle 's B-day cooking class!





Tibetan high mountain lake seen from 17,000ft pass

Summer Palace Sigatse Tibet






One of the many windy roads on route to Mt. Everest

Everest

Yak it's what's for dinner.

This is our awesome crew Ben (London), Tam (whales) Hester (Holland),

Jitske (Holland), Roman (Austria), and Richard (USA) we travelled with Hester the hockey star and Jitske the photographer in the same land cruiser and met up periodically with the international man gang at various locations. Their catch phrases included "yak shaggers" and "dude!" and we mostly stuck to "Better than nothing!" The guys continued on to Nepal and we headed back after two fun airless nights at base camp with all the Yak butter tea we could handle.

Tibet and Everest

Views from the train.








Elle celebrated her birthday in Lhasa and was treated by a local chef to a cooking lesson. She leared how to make a Tibetan momo which is a Yak meat dumling that tastes alot like a tiny taco to me. Delicious! After a few days in Lhasa we answered a note to go on a six day land cruiser trip around Tibet ending up at the Mt Everest base camp. As we were reading the post two girls came up see who was reading there message and we all started talking and we sealed the deal. The trip was through some large mountains staying in a couple of small towns along the way and eventually camping in tents at the Everest base camp. The roads were spectacular and the envy of any w.r.c. driver and the monastaries were beautiful but the highlight for us was staying at the base camp.

Train to Tibet

Going to Tibet was high on our list of China adventures so we really wanted to make it happen and luckily we did. Although you can buy an air ticket pretty easily from a few places in western China there was no resisting a chance to take the world's highest train from Beijing to Lhasa. We opted for the soft sleeper car which has four comfortable bunk beds and is pretty luxurious for Chinese standards. The train ride was pretty incredible especially the second half travelling up through the mountains and gorges on our way to Tibetan plateau. For the most part the journey is very relaxing even though the quarters are very close. As the air gets thinner oxygen is pumped into the cars via a central system.

Although the train is billed as non-smoking in the cars and completely non-smoking during the latter half of the trip when major elevation gains are in effect there was no enforcement whatsoever during any part of the trip. I would not recommend this trip for somebody with allergies. On the other hand if you have always dreamed of becoming a smoker China could be your dream destination.
Train stats:
highest point on trip 16,737 ft
Beijing-Lhasa 2519 miles
47.5 hours