Chengdu to Lhasa

Day 17

Last night Donna came and gave us our official permission papers to enter Tibet. We repacked in such a way that we could give her one of the duffels to take to Beijing where we'll meet her.

We had the hotel breakfast, boarded our 20 passenger bus, which had permission to travel in the municipal bus only lane and sailed past traffic to the airport.

At the airport both the ticket agent and security scrutinized the permission, painstakingly comparing the names and numbers on our passports to those in the document.

At the airport Zachary asked me how to get the WiFi to work. I didn't even try. They always want to know who you are if you're using public wifi and the way that they accomplish that is to use a feature that makes you log in with your cell number and then they text you a password. The interface is always in Chinese. Just painful. Even once you're on it is censored. Sometimes a VPN will work and other times it is blocked.

Another way that they keep track of you is through an app called Wechat. It is really impressive: texts, voice calls, video calls, audio messages, navigation, real time location sharing, and even the ability to pay anyone for anything. On the other hand I tried to register both my tablet and phone on the same account and it threw a fit about security violations and locked the account until I removed it from the tablet and reverified my identity.

In the English language paper provided to us on the airplane there was an article about how the Chinese government was tightening restrictions on mobile phone apps, requiring that the providers determine the identity of the user, keep logs, etc. They claim it is to protect from identity theft, fraud, and terrorism. Of course, the same paper called the Dalai Lama a terrorist.

The citizens seem happy enough to give up their privacy for the stability and prosperity that the government provides.  I guess it beats the starvation and strife of the great leap forward and cultural revolution, so if that is your benchmark it's a good deal. On the other hand a government that is so insecure that it can't allow it's citizens to freely talk to each other or to criticize it, with no checks and balances is bound to get out of touch and to stumble eventually.
We arrived at the Lhasa airport and had our visa and passports checked by security again at the airport exit. They were checked again at a checkpoint along the highway, just before we entered Lhasa and again when we checked into the hotel. On the drive into town Andrea asked about all the security and whether the Chinese government was afraid of tourists. The guide diplomatically told her it was too keep everyone, including Tibetan natives safe.

The Chinese are doing lots of public works projects. Our guide pointed out the new road we drove in on and the railway that ran to Tibet's second largest city, telling us when they were built. Despite this there is high unemployment.

Lhasa has a population of about 300,000 more than half ethnic Han Chinese.  Every single streetlight in town had Chinese flags attached.

On the way to the hotel we stopped for lunch. No electricity at the restaurant. We ate potato cut into long strips with hot pepper, cucumber with garlic, a really hard tofu that tasted like it was smoked, lamb, shrimp, and a spicy yak dish that was delicious.

We're staying at the Sunrise Tibet hotel.  Zachary charmed the lady at check in with his Chinese and we were put on the top floor, the VIP floor. Still, the place is a pit. Stained sheets, plaster dust in the corner, the place where the a/c unit used to be is visible out of the window.

Unfortunately because we are on the sixth floor and had luggage we needed the elevator and the hotel was blacked out too. Shortly after check in, power was restored.
I napped. Zachary napped. Andrea napped. I don't know what the big boys did but I bet that they napped.

We took a strange herbal remedy for altitude sickness that the guide gave us. If I grow a second head I'll know what to blame it on.

The Internet in this hotel is the worst yet. The router is connected to the TV for it to work the TV must be on. We could not get it to work, our guide couldn't either, finally on the fourth attempt a hotel employee got the one in the kids room working. Joshua clocked the speed at an amazing 250kbits/second. They told him that was normal.

We went to dinner at the same restaurant that we had eaten lunch at. The driver and guide ate separately, despite several attempts to get them to join us. Both have a son; the driver's is one and a half and the guide's is almost two. The guide told us that unemployment runs 40% here if you count those who get only occasional work as unemployed.

Andrea and I took a stroll through a neighborhood that was primarily small auto parts stores with an occasional hole in the wall restaurant, office building, or Bodega although there was one fancy mall under construction in the middle of it all.
The kids refused to come with us on our walk. Ari has been saying he's "had enough of Chinese culture. I mean a goose died here a thousand years ago so we built a pagoda and called it a world Heritage site." I retorted "It's better than a duck died here yesterday so we chopped it in half, hung it in the window, and are trying to sell it to you today."

We're planning on telling him that we found the world's most amazing donut shop on our walk.