Tibet: Lin Zhi ying bing hotel

The trip to 林芝 turned out to be more treacherous and troublesome than I had imagined. It is, after all, not easy to travel by oneself away from the assistance of a local tour guide. Before I go on ranting about the problems, I must note here that the scenery and landscapes along the way from Lhasa to Lin Zhi were simply out of this world. It solidified my desire to return to Tibet for a second visit. Indeed, any section of the scenes we saw today could easily be a fantastic tourist attraction if it were in other places on this planet. I started to think the high altitude and the plateau have preserved all this beauty from pollution and human interference. And the beauty is the greatest rewards for those who come the long way to see this part of the world.

Alright, first, in the morning it was not easy to find a car to bring us to Lin Zhi. After exploring the city for a while, we finally found a parking lot near the rear entrance of the Potala Palace. A chauffer named 敦诸 agreed to drive us seven people if we pay him 2000 yuan. Then we embarked on our trip. The highway was in between the two big mountains: 念青唐古拉山 and 喜马拉雅山 and there was a river that appeared from time to time beside the highway. We saw bare mountains just outside of Lhasa, but the farther we went, the more plants we saw on those mountains from grass to bushes to trees. Animals were certainly ample along the way.

I commented that once we raise the curtains, a beautiful landscape will jump into our car. But we quickly got tired of the beautiful scenes. Half way through, we stopped by a creek to have lunch. We brought boxed lunches from a restaurant our tour guide booked for us in Lhasa. It turned out to be fun. I dipped my fingers into the running creek and took a few sips of the water. It was icy cold. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised as all this water comes from melting snow, swept down thousands of metres from the snow capped mountains. It was so crystal clear. Then we drove more to take pictures at 中流砥柱 and then we took a detour to see 巴松错。 巴松错 had green, calm water that looked more like a mirror that engulfs and reflects all the trees and mountains around it. On the ferry boat there, we had a clear view of the snow-capped mountains afar. It was the most sacred view I was ever presented.

Finding a place to stay and a place to eat was not pleasant. It’s hard to move the crowd especially because 庄小虎 was simply a dumb ass. But that’s all a matter of little annoyance and I can certainly cope with this slight disappointment. Tomorrow we will head back to Lhasa and I will see 杨小可 again. Peace.