A Room in Tibet

With the tricky political situation in Tibet, the Chinese government has added an extra difficulty level for tourists; 1. You must have a Chinese visa, 2. You must be part of a tour, 3. You must have an official invitation from Tibet (this serves as your Tibetan visa), 4. You must enter Tibet from China. It would have been easier to visit Tibet from India, but I was forced to fly out of Xi'an and travel across China to get there. In my last minute scramble, I found a wonderful travel group (Wind Horse Holidays) that created a tour for one and sent all of my invitation paperwork to my hotel in China, just in time for the flight to Tibet. I was warned that my hotel reservation could be cancelled at any moment. The hotels in Lhasa will cancel one person's reservations for the opportunity to have a large tour group. This actually happened but I was moved to a fairly new hotel; the Dhud Ghu. It was located in a small alley which turned out to be a good thing. The best shopping in Lhasa is actually up and down the small alleys where the deals are the best. Also, each night I went to sleep with the sound of buddhist monks chanting outside my window, another reminder that I really was in Tibet.