The highest lake in the world, and more!

No, i'm not (yet) in jail for barking vainly at the chinese!

Since i had a few days to wait for my VISA to Nepal, i thought i'd better use my time checking some countryside..

Nam-tso lake seems to be the place to see for a couple of days excursion out of town, so saturday morning i wake up at 5 to look for a bus -which i'm not sure even exists- to Damxung, the nearest town. (the traditional option is to rent a shared land cruiser, but i'm just too cheap!)
The taxi tours all the bus stations in Lhasa (there's at least 4 that he took me to!) to finally find one where a bus will leave an hour later.. so far so good, i didn't miss it!
The 200km bus ride to Damxung costs me 30yuans but there's no public transport to the lake, so it'll cost me a 100yuans in a shared cab to cover the last 40km!
But i'm there! And the view is breathtaking -the guide didn't lie.. this one definitely comes second after the Baikal in the world lake competition!
Now the altitude is pretty breathtaking too! Lying at 4700 meters, Nam-tso lake is advertised as being the highest in the world, and at that altitude, walking uphill a couple of hundred meters to check out the sunset is quite an exercise!

some views of the lake.. to give you a remote idea!

With Chen, my tent mate..

After such an incredible sunset, of course, i had to check out the sunrise too! So after a terrible sleepless night, my chinese tentmate and i wake up at 6 and rush -as fast as we possibly can without fainting- up and to the end of the hill.. We get there just on time for the rise, totally breathless, but it was worth it! Is this beautiful or what?!

We get back down around 9 and i'm more than ready to crash back to bed.. when my tentmate goes "hey, we got a 20 yuan ride back to Damxung and there's a horse festival there! hurry, we leave right now!"

Aaaaarggghhh!

A couple of hours later we're in the nomad camp of Damxung.. the biggest concentration of nomads i've seen so far.. fantastic tents, beautiful people, incredible traditional clothing.. just so many colors i think my film is going to burn!

The horse festival is probably exactly like all the ones i missed all over Sichuan! But this time i get to see it! and it even seems like i'm the only foreigner there! (i've stopped counting the chinese tourists).. Several disciplines include grabbing scarfs laying on the ground, shooting a bow and arrow and shooting some kind of crazy old style rifle, all at full galop... very impressive!

Later in the afternoon, there's traditional dance festival.. great costumes! as you can -or not- see on the picture below!

With Ci Ren Djoma, my sweet tibetan guide in Damxung!

I'm back in Lhasa for a couple of days.. i'll pick up my VISA tomorrow and then try to figure out how to make it to the border.. again the most popular option is to form a group and rent a jeep, like i did in Mongolia.. but this time i'd rather try to stay autonomous and go with public transport... i just hope it's possible and that the permits and other "closed to foreigners" bullshit will not get in my way again..

We landed on the roof!

On the roof of the world i meant..

Just got to Lhasa today...
Via the official way and after having properly paid for my invisible permit to the Chinese government..
Sorry but the more i'm here and the more i feel sick about this tibetan mess... i don't mind the Chinese in China! But all over Sichuan and Tibet, when i see them parading in expensive cars like they own the place it gives me the creeps..
The whole world knows about this and.. or does it? I realize i didn't know much about it myself before reading some ("The mountains of Buddha" by Xavier de Moro) and getting here...
So as a quick reminder, in 1950 China entered Tibet and decided it was theirs.. in the process they tortured and killed thousands of monks, destroyed temples and monasteries and settled massively..
The Dalai Lama being an extremely influent figure, they tried everything from buying him to killing him and he's now a refugee in India.. He's been calling for help to the world community for years but everyone is more interested in keeping China's huge market (possibly including tibet!) than helping non-consumer contemplating monks..
Since then chinese school children are tought that Tibet is a province of China and when you ask chinese people what they think about the Tibet situation, they go "what situation? Tibet is just another province!".. the scary thing is that they apparently really have no clue... really makes you think about what you were yourself taught in school as the "true" history of your country! There's always an official way to look at things..

I know; one half of you will tell me that this is also a very simplified version of the story, while the other half will argue that there's much worse going on in the world... both are probably true but being here i'm obviously more sensitive to it, and it's just been itching for a while...

anyway.. here are some pics from the sky.. just to change the mood!

and the imposing Potala palace.. first thing you see when you get here!

No elephants yet...

..Sorry Albin!
But some cute pandas instead...
Did you know there were only 1500 giant pandas left on the planet? So you should feel lucky that braved all the dangers to go out in the wilderness of Chengdu's panda breeding center and bring you these rare images!

i even found out there were red pandas... you'd think they're giant racoons but they're not!

i also got you a peacock while i was there... you can't say i'm not trying my best!

Other than that, Chengdu is nice city... for a big chinese city i mean... nothing like the tibetan countryside but nice atmosphere... and there's even a funny huge boat parked on the sidewalk.. what else would you want?