Update & a series of the Potala palace

So no updates for a long time now, because of very poor internet connections here in Nepal and the fact that I've been sick for over three of the past four weeks. First I got some kind of foodpoisoning just the evening before going to Pokhara. Recovered in about a week. Then I actually felt quite good for about a week. Then two days after coming back to Kathmandu to see Ile fly back to Finland I got somekind of bacterial infection, which after about a week of fever made me decide to go to a hospital. After making me sign relief of legal responsibility they started treating me with antibiotics. Was in the hospital for four days. Well the antibiotics killed the evil bacteria, but was a bit too much for my liver, so my eyes turned yellow. Was about a week after the hospital I started to be able to eat again. So I had vitamins, drank glucos and struggled every evening with a pack of noodles.
Now I've felt helthy for two days. HOORAY!
Booked a flight to Bangkok for the third of January.
I'll try to make a flashier entry from there. Here's my next series of pictures:

What Lhasa was basicly about for me: the Potala palace. So here´s a series of the palace I'd wondered so much about from when I was a kid.. The pics of the palace just might tell you more about Lhasa, Tibet and it's present status as a part of China than my winding letters:










they were renovating the palace whitewashing it(probably for the olympics) in a not so delicate manner:

here you can see them in action:






Lhasa was´nt really that astonishing in itself. Lots of beggars around and greedy chinese businessmen. Simplest of the frazes we´re probably the "Hello, money money!"´s. But finding Oh Dan Hotel after out first nights sleep turned out great. We met this dutch chick Josefina again and got a good deal(30Y) for a bed in nice doubles. On top of it all we spent great times on top of the roof of the hotel admiring the view, sunbathing and streching during the day and sometimes drinking a bit of rice wine in good company in the evenings. Also these two Canadian guys Bryce and Colin we met in Xi'an followed our footsteps and moved to our hotel. All of the others were headed towards India, so thats how plans started to change. Ile was going to fly home, so he liked the idea of going west. A group was formed. I managed to haggle down the price of a six day drive through to the Nepalese border for 5000Y for the whole truck driver and permits included. What a Blast that proved to be! More of that in my next entry though..
Take Care y´all!
-and please comment if you read it!

The 36 hour ride to Lhasa

So this is the series of pictures I took from the train from Xi'an to Lhasa. I'm publishing this late, because it became exessively difficult to upload anything since somebody in China decided to deny access to my blog.. Not that I said anything critical or anything.. Must be local customs ;)
At the moment of writing this I'm in Katmandu, Nepal. So there is unrestricted internet access again. But more of that later. Back to the train ride.
And what an astonishing ride it was. Some of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen! I bet the pictures tell you more than my words could ever describe. The first pictures are'nt really of that good quality, but I decided to show them anyway if only to give a picture of how the landscape changes along the way..
Hope you enjoy the pic's!

Xi'an

The Beijing west trainstation is quite impressive:

We decided to go westwards and Xi'an seemed to be a nice place to stop and relax for a while -besides I wanted to see the city wall. Sleeping in the train on the top bunk of a hard sleeper was'nt really my cup of tea though. I like to be abler to sit up once in a while.. Amazingly Buri and Irene, who we had met at Manlai's guesthouse were in the same wagon as we were and actually going to the same guesthouse! =D

The guesthouse proved to be a nice one although the cheapest dorms were underground and the space was a bit moist, so eventually I bargained for a nicer room for ourselves.

The days flew past quickly in Xi'an doing some shopping, arranging permits to Tibet, relaxing and eating well. I grew a liking on Kamomille tea and drank quite a bit of it daily.



The south gate at night:

We decided to skip the terracotta warriors, since everyone was telling how much of a tourist trap it had changed into. They'd even built an "International terracotta plaza" through which you had to walk for a over half an hour to even get to the pits constantly being harassed by salespeople of various kinds. No thanks. I'm trying to relax. The city wall was impressive though and that's mostly where the pictures below are from:We decided to skip the terracotta warriors, since everyone was telling how much of a tourist trap it had changed into. They'd even built an "International terracotta plaza" through which you had to walk for a over half an hour to even get to the pits constantly being harassed by salespeople of various kinds. No thanks. I'm trying to relax. The city wall was impressive though and that's mostly where the pictures below are from:








The Drumtower roundabout:

Tried out some strange booze at the hostel one night. Strangely enough Ile's new camera captures only quicktime, so I had no way of editing the two clips together:



Buri and Irene decided to head towards different directions, so Buri took the train with us to Lhasa, where we are stationed at the moment. We also met Josefine, this Dutch girl, and two canadian guys Bryce and Colin in Lhasa who we'd met at the hostel in Xi'an. We've got a merry group hanging out at the roof of our hotel. We might change plans with Ile and head towards Nepal, since everyone else is heading towards that direction.. But that's a whole different story again.. I'll try to upload some nice pictures from the trainride from Xi'an to Lhasa soon.