Day 11: Farewell Kunming & Tibet

Final day supposed to have a great plan to Dragon gate but it was raining like cat and dog in the morning and I decided to stay back and just visit a nice temple near the guesthouse called Yuantong Zen Buddhist Temple passing through Green Lake Garden.

Then went back guesthouse to dress up and go straight to the airport after lunch near the station. It is a nice feeling to go back Malaysia with AirAsia and it feel so warmth.

Day 10: Kunming day tour to Shilin Karst Stone Forest

After a good rest and I continue with my planning to Shilin for another Unesco world heritage site of Karst stone at Kunming. We starting with a little walk to the train station and taking to the last station where the Eastern Station located where we can take a direct bus to Shilin and it is a tourist bus. Everyone on the bus is having the same objectives. The bus go direct to the Shilin Karst Stone entrance. I am so lucky that the rain come chasing me and I am stuck at the bus station and force to buy an umbrella to continue my visit at the attraction.

There are few section of the karst stone, where I walk straight to the stone forest where there are a peak viewpoint to view the whole area of the karst stone then before walk to the next section of the karst stone. There are also buggy to fetch us around to have a glimpse of the whole karst stone at other site. It is a huge big site to enjoy the karst stone with various shape and story but since it is raining and tiring so I decide to have a short visit and then straight to the bus station to have a crispy duck rice before departing back to Kunming.


Once reach back Kunming then I took the train and stop at Donfeng Square Line 2 to visit Flower & Birds Market at Jingxing Road and Jinbi Square (The Golden Horse and Jade Rooster Archway). I call it a day after some Kunming walking as I am really tire after the whole Tibet trip.


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Day 9: Journey to Kunming

Today is the final day at Lhasa as am departing at Lhasa airport later evening and just having a relax morning around Lhasa and walking around Johkang Temple for a coffee and some souvenir before departing to Kunming for my next destination.

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The airport transfer was organise at 2pm as we can have a nice lunch next to the hotel while waiting for the transfer. Once reach the airport and this round the China Eastern flight to Kunming going smoothly without any changes but my newly travel mates from Germany got flight delay and seem change to next morning and I feel he will have some problem since there are flight transfer the next day.


Reaching Kunming at night isn’t a good idea anyway as I am trying to take public transport to the guesthouse for a more budget option. But reaching the last bus station at a rainy days at night is really bad as I am disoriented and I do not have a map and taxi is not picking up and I have to based on my google map memory to walk to the guesthouse. Lucky I still speak some mandarin and manage to reach at 11pm. Kunming weather during September is really different from Tibet as it is raining most of the time comparing to Tibet beautiful weather.


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Day 8: Potala Palace & Johkang Temple

The final day at Lhasa is the main highlight of the 2 main heritage site of Tibet where it supposed to visit on the second day but we change schedule because to suit another group for the Everest trip. So we meet up at 9am and took a tricycle to the Potala Palace entrance where we start to witness the huge china crowd at Potala Palace as there are many local tourist group queue up at the entrance to wait to enter. This is the real queue in China where we did not experience at Everest and also other monastery outside of Lhasa. 1

Potala Palace is a real grand monastery of Tibet and it is an icon of Lhasa and Tibet. We slowly enter the palace from the ground and slowly climb up the palace through the stairs and slope. The maintenance of the palace is maintain using natural resources e.g. the entrance blanket are made of Yak hair and the paint is using other agriculture products, such as milk, sugar, rock sugar, honey, brown sugar and so on. In the deployment of coatings, the staff add mineral raw materials in proportion of red and yellow. At the same time, adding saffron can remove the smell, which is recorded in the Buddhist scriptures.Adding sugar is to make the coating more sticky, easier to attach, but not easy to fall off. This is what make Potala Palace a beautiful world heritage site that you must visit and witness yourself.

After Potala Palace we went back to the hotel for a rest and lunch before meeting up at 3pm to proceed visit of Johkang Temple. This is another interesting heritage site where there are active buddhsim pilgrimage at this temple. Locals walking round the temple where the statue of Jowo Sakyamuni, Tibet's most holy relic, resides. This is a pilgrimage every Tibetan Buddhist aspires to make. Interesting site to walk around round clockwise with the locals with surrounding of locals souvenir and café places near Johkang Temple.

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Day 7: Journey back Lhasa

It is the same routine today back Lhasa where after the breakfast at the hotel then we proceed to the same route back to Lhasa as the new highway was close because of landslide. The same route passing by Yamdrok Lake and Karola Glacier again. We just stop at the man made lake before the glazier. Then we proceed straight to Lhasa without stopping all the attraction as we are quite tire and feel satisfy with Everest.

We reach Lhasa around 5pm and went to the same Yak hotel at Lhasa. I stay in a 4 person room with all by myself as I suppose to stay in a dormitory but there are only me in the room.


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Day 6: Beautiful Everest sunrise and return back Shigatze & Tashilumpo Monastery

I was lucky and I did not get worst but lucky is just a night at the campsite and we leave the campsite after breakfast around 9am back to Lhasa via Shitgatze. The route back Shigatze is the same passing by roads at Qomolangma national park. It was a lucky day for us as today the sky is clear with no clouds and once we reach the hill peak after an hour and all of us having an awesome time as we manage to witness the stunning awesome beautiful scenery of the top 5 peak of the world including Mount Everest.

(From left is the Mount Makalu. then follow by Mount Everest and then the far right is Mount Cho Oyu)


Then we exit the national park and have our lunch midway before proceed to Shigatze. We reach Shigatze around evening and manage to visit Tashilumpo Monastery at Shitgatze where the dalai lama mummify tomb is found at the monastery. It is a historical monastery in Tibet related to the 5th Dalai lama Panchen. There are many story surrounding the 5th Dalai Lama during the serious political era in China.

We stay at the same Mansarovar Hotel at Shitgatze.


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Day 5: Journey to Everest reaching Rongbuk Monastery & Everest camping site

It was a quiet day at Shigatze as we have breakfast at the hotel and start our journey around 9am towards Qomolangma national park where Everest and the top mountain can be view there. The whole day journey is flat as there are many dry land area similar like desert.

After lunch then we enter the entrance of Qomolangma national park before reaching the hill peak about an hour. From the peak we able to view the top 5 peak of the world but there are some cloud and we manage to view 2 mountains. Even 2 mountains and it was a beautiful scenery at the peak hill.

After the beautiful scenery then we start our remaining journey about an hour plus to reach the Everest camping site. Before reaching the camping site then we slowly drive towards the valley and slowly the shy magnificent grand Mount Everest appear without any cloud blocking and it was stunning. We took some photos there before proceed to the camping site.

Once we reach the camping site passing by Rongbuk Monastery. Then we quickly put all out bags at the site and rush to the viewpoint of Everest for sunset. It was a worth trip of our Tibet journey and we stay there for an hour to witness Everest sunset with different colours and phase of Everest. We are simply out of words looking at the grand Everest.

We even climb up to a nunnery monastery near the viewpoint to have a glimpse of Everest sunset and also experience the nun prayer at the little monastery. It is a different experience to witness the sunset and Everest.

After the view and almost towards dark fall and we slowly walk back to the campsite and have a rest. There were no restaurants or any meal place. The junk food and instand noodle is sell at the campsite but with a higher mark up price. I did not have a proper dinner as I took some biscuit and then have a rest cause I seriously not feeling well as I slowly caught altitude sickness towards the night. It was a serious sickness even worst then motion sickness as I am having dizziness and feel like vomiting but I sleep through the night and manage to recover a bit in the morning.

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Day 4: Journey to Everest stopping at Shigatze passing Yamdrok Lake, Karola Glacier & visit Pelcho Monastery

Journey to the beautiful world heritage of Everest start today where we will drive through a lake, glacier and finally visiting another monastery before reaching the town of Shigatze. This is the town where we will stay overnight and rest before reaching Everest base camp.

The first 1 hour drive is a nice drive through highways before the actual mountainous road. Then the following section of the road around 2 hours+ is through mountain narrow road. We reach the peak of the section where we enter the National park of Yamdrok Lake. It is a nice beautiful lake along the journey to Everest. There are many tibetan mastiff and yak for display along the road for tourist to take photos.

After a local Tibetan lunch, we continue our journey to another mountainous route which will pass the glazier at around 5000m. We have the opportunity to trek for an hour at the foot of the glazier just to take some photos before depart direct to Shigatze for the overnight stay and also apply special permit to enter Qomolangma national park as well at Shigatze.

We manage to visit Pelcho Monastery at around 5pm before check in to the Manasarovar Hotel.

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Day 3: Drepung & Sera Monastery

After a long and good sleep and my headache recovered and I feel I did not get the worst of altitude sickness which is very lucky even though I did not listen to the advice (There will be story later on the altitude sickness). We will visit 2 monasteries of the Tibetan Buddhism study colleges or universities Drepung and Sera.

Drepung Monastery is at the top of the hill where the monastery is sitting at the top with beautiful scenery. There are many accommodation for the monk that study there and it make the monastery very huge where at one time it was the largest monastery in the world.

The other Sera monastery which is also important to the Tibet Buddhism study where the most important learning process that bring us there which is the ‘Debate’ among monk at the debating courtyard. This is good experience to observe the Tibetan teaching of a famous monastery tradition at Sera.

The day ended with a tour group dinner at a local restaurant near Johkang Temple with another tour group which will follow us to Everest the next day.


-Next Day-

Day 2: Journey to Lhasa Tibet

Beginning of the great Tibet journey starting off with a message where my flight will be delay to late afternoon which I got stunned and was a bit lost whether I wait until the time or just go to the airport. Lucky I decided to just go to the airport as I can’t delay the flight anymore as my planned Tibet tour will start the next day which I can’t afford to lose. So once I reach the airport and first thing I make a query at the airline information desk on my flight and they manage to change to another flight which have the same itinerary. I manage to reach Lhasa at the same arrival time with different flight. Seriously the flight delay in China is pretty common I believe which I experience the first time.

Lhasa whether is beautiful with clear blue sky and it is a good start of the Tibet trip. Once I came out from the arrival hall and first thing there are the tour representative waiting with my name display to pick me up. They just pick me and sent me straight to the Yak hotel at Lhasa. It is the first day of the itinerary with free and easy. One of the important topic I discuss with the tour guide which I would like to share and emphasis where the guide mentioned better don’t wash our head for the first few days to avoid high altitude sickness and this is an important guideline.

Since I reach at noon and I have amber free time on my first day where I start off with a beef noodle next to Yak hotel. Then I took a walk towards Potala Palace which I already planned looking at Google map. It was a 20 to 30 minute walk until the entrance which I can’t proceed anymore except the park opposite the Potala Palace where I can view the palace beautiful scenery on the very first day. It was spectacular and awesome world heritage site. Then after taking all the beautiful photos and I walk back towards the hotel with a detour to the Johkang Palace.

After a simple dinner around Johkang Palace with some nice local beer and end up with a nice bath washing my hair which I really need to emphasis my experience as I did not listen to the advice. I was caught with altitude sickness like headache symptom follow by dizziness like motion sickness but I did not get until that level as I quickly took some paracetamol and also some local altitude sickness local pills that I brought from the local pharmacy.

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Tibet & Everest Adventure Day 1: Arrival to Chengdu at night

The starting of my great journey to a place that I wanted to visit since we heard the dalai lama issue at Tibet that wanted freedom at a very young age.

Tibet is also known as a very sacred and holy place for Buddhism. Taking a late evening flight and reached Chengdu at 10:40pm. Planned to stay near the airport as Chengdu is just a gateway to Tibet as arranged all the Tibet arrangement through Chengdu Tours Company.

The Tibet permit was sent directly to the hotel where I stay overnight. Everything was smooth as I manage to call for free pick up, identify the transport number and got my permit from the reception. Even is a short stay and I did have a reasonable good rest before the next hectic day where my flight to Lhasa at 8:30am with China Eastern.

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