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Dad again. We’re in Lhasa at the Tibet hotel. The girls have been in bed awhile. The altitude hit Tricia pretty hard, and she had to crash as soon as we got in. She tried to go to dinner with us, but felt so bad she went back to the room.

We flew out on Air China. It was a nicer, more organized airline than the other two we flew. We were seated together on a large plane 2-4-2 seating configuration. The flight left on time, but had a stop in Chengdu. It was raining hard there and we were a little late getting out. It took about 2 hours for each leg of the flight. Didn’t do much but read and relax, try to nap a bit. Jensen got some more mileage out of her PSP.

Flying into Tibet was pretty neat. We didn’t have a window seat but we still peaked out the windows to see the huge mountains we passed over. Then you approach Lhasa airport down this valley with tall mountains on both sides of you, kind of neat.

We got our bags and our guide met us there. His name is “Dop Je” (sp?) and he is Tibetan. Our driver is Chinese. Dop Je’s english is pretty good and on the hour long drive from the airport to our hotel he told us a lot about the area, some history, and some ideas of how to handle the beggars and street sellers. He’s been doing this for 11 years and seem to be really good. I think we lucked out again. Jensen was worn out from the trip and the effect of the altitude, and fell asleep in the car.

I saw two really weird stoplights here and had to take pictures of them.

The hotel is pretty nice. It’s a 4 star for Tibet - maybe a two star at home. But we have a nice enough room, with our own bathroom. It’s in decent shape but it’s undergoing renovations. Jensen and I went to the Tibet style restaurant on the complex. There are 3 restaurants, Western, Chinese, and Tibet. We’ll have Western food in the morning.

The altitude doesn’t seem to effect me at all, but the girls are both down for the count. Tricia is really feeling under the weather, and I hope she adapts quickly. Jensen is up and down, and I think she’ll probably be fine by tomorrow.

I hope so since we start with the highlight of the trip, the Potala Palace, tomorrow! Until then - Zai Jian!

(Please forgive any spelling or shortness of these entries, I’m using a local PC that is all in Chinese, and it’s very slow on top of that! But I wanted to make sure everyone knew we got here in one piece and were doing OK, if not perfect.)