Boys' Day Out
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Our last day in Tibet! ☹ We got up early to meet Fran and Mirjam for breakfast. They were leaving for the airport at 8:30. It was tough to say goodbye to these girls. I’d been working with them since early June. John and Ethan have grown to love them in our short time traveling together. It is amazing how well the whole group has gotten along in Tibet. There has been no drama, and we’ve talked about reuniting for future trips together. Top ideas are a cheese-throwing or tomato-throwing festival in Italy, the Running of the Bulls, or a safari in Africa. We all love food, and getting to know the many ways to eat yak has been a pleasure. At 1pm, Tse Tan picked us up to take us to Norbulinka, the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace. Several different Dalai Lamas built houses on these grounds, and we saw the home where the current Dalai Lama lived before 1959, when he fled from Norbulinka to India. The grounds are also a popular park for locals, and there were performances of Tibetan opera happening in some of the squares. After Norbulinka, we went to a massage house for back and foot massages, though I declined to have my feet massaged. It tickles too much. The hot rock portion of the massage was amazing, and my Tibetan female masseuse was tough; three days later I’m still sore where she dug her elbows into my back. We asked Tse Tan to take us to a local Tibetan restaurant for dinner, so at the base of Potala Palace, we ate in a cave. Five of us had milk tea, dumplings, fried rice, and noodles for a total of RMB 32 ($4.70.) When we returned to the hotel, we packed our bags while we watched Dreamgirls on HBO.
Our last day in Tibet! ☹ We got up early to meet Fran and Mirjam for breakfast. They were leaving for the airport at 8:30. It was tough to say goodbye to these girls. I’d been working with them since early June. John and Ethan have grown to love them in our short time traveling together. It is amazing how well the whole group has gotten along in Tibet. There has been no drama, and we’ve talked about reuniting for future trips together. Top ideas are a cheese-throwing or tomato-throwing festival in Italy, the Running of the Bulls, or a safari in Africa. We all love food, and getting to know the many ways to eat yak has been a pleasure. At 1pm, Tse Tan picked us up to take us to Norbulinka, the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace. Several different Dalai Lamas built houses on these grounds, and we saw the home where the current Dalai Lama lived before 1959, when he fled from Norbulinka to India. The grounds are also a popular park for locals, and there were performances of Tibetan opera happening in some of the squares. After Norbulinka, we went to a massage house for back and foot massages, though I declined to have my feet massaged. It tickles too much. The hot rock portion of the massage was amazing, and my Tibetan female masseuse was tough; three days later I’m still sore where she dug her elbows into my back. We asked Tse Tan to take us to a local Tibetan restaurant for dinner, so at the base of Potala Palace, we ate in a cave. Five of us had milk tea, dumplings, fried rice, and noodles for a total of RMB 32 ($4.70.) When we returned to the hotel, we packed our bags while we watched Dreamgirls on HBO.
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