![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/books-about-tibet.jpg\")
<\/a>The emotion of\nthe trip to Tibet started long before leaving. I had found out from various\nsources what awaits me there: lack of oxygen, mountain sickness, something I\nhear for the first time exists (it only appears at altitudes over 3,000\nmeters), headaches, nausea, vomiting your stomach out, increased heart rhythm,\nshaking, being like a cloth basically, the risk to develop pulmonary edema,\ncerebral edema, the risk to die\u2026 My God, enough with the good news !<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I get a guideline for Tibet. I read that I don’t have to have a huge practice to get there, but I should have climbed the national mountains a few times, in order to get used to the altitude, I should have been a regular at the gym\u2026 I am not it ! I am no good ! But I have already made the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found out\nthat there is only one medicine good for the altitude sickness and I start\nlooking for it in the Romanian pharmacies. I find something different, with the\nsame active substance, I take two boxes and I think I am ok. A pharmacist with\nexperience in climbing on the mountains tells me to buy glucose from the\nsupermarket\u2026 You know, the very firm one, that could break your head ! I take\nthree, to be on the safe side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TIBET USEFUL ADVICE AND INTERDICTIONS!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe Travel Guideline gives me a lot of good information about Tibet, what to do, things to do, tips and tricks: from what clothes to pack, to how much money I can get from the ATM machine one day, from the traditional food to \u2013 Mladin, take your solar protection cream, because the radiations are very strong there (the city is also called Sunlight City), from how I should behave to how to respect the Tibetans customs and traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cautions! I am not allowed to debate and political matters with the guide or with people there, because the guide could lose his job and his agency can be closed if I do so. I am not to hug or kiss anyone in public places, I am not to pat children on their heads, I am not to point the finger at anything, I can only point\u2026 my entire hand. And some other things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With fear (even panic sometimes), here I go! The adventure “Tibet on my birthday” starts, with a delay\u2026 The first day I can go into Tibet: April 1st.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SOME DATA ABOUT MY JOURNEY:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n- my route:
Bucharest-Doha-Beijing. With qatarairways, round trip ticket about 500 euros.
Mini-vacation in Beijing, then the route Beijing-Shanghai in a high-speed
train. Mini-vacation in Shanghai. Then Shanghai-Lhasa, with a change of planes
halfway (two flights of about 2 and a half hours each). This ticket is
expensive, man, about 1,000 Euros! Bought last minute, that is true.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n- 5-day trip to Tibet,
with private guide – $ 1,175.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/on-the-plane_me-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nOn the way to Tibet, I am a blonde ET in a plane full of Chinese people. I am like the black sheep\u2026 Sorry, the blonde one ! I am trying to control my chronic fear of flying. Don’t these people ever switch off the seatbelt sign ? You are not allowed to stand in the lane. You can only take things from your bag or go to the toilet. That’s it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly they tell us that we are entering a turbulence area. I am in panic, like always. And, like always, I am trying to catch the eye of a flight attendant, to calm down. But\u2026 I am in shock! The flight attendants SLEEP! What??? Yeap, the sleep in their seats on a less than three hours flight. I look in front and towards the back. The both flight attendants I see sleep. Without any shame! Neither the signal for the announcement, not the announcement itself wake them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibet-airport-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe strangest sensation ever! We land in Lhasa, I take my backpack and I get off the plane. I hardy make two steps on the corridor between the plane and the airport and I feel dizzy. In a second I am dizzy. I feel weak in my knees and I realize I have to take it slowly. I walk very slow\u2026 I am afraid. Other tourists tell me they feel the same. The cause? The sudden lack of oxygen. We took off at sea level and we landed at 3,700 meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/welcome-scarf-tibet-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTerribly tired after a sleepless night and two flights, I get out of the airport and I look at the perfectly aligned line of guides awaiting for their clients. I see my name on the card of a young man. We say “hello” to one another and he puts a white scarf on my neck. Then he says: “Dashi Delek!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, I asked him about this, as I saw it everywhere, especially in temples. This is their way of saying “Hello!”, “Good luck!”, to give offerings in a temple, this is a wedding greeting and so on. It is sort of a proof that their soul is open, clean, full of good intentions and with all the best thoughts towards you. That is why it is white. (There are other which are colored, but those carry a religious significance, as far as I understood. My guide, who is a Tibetan heart and soul, is a bit angry at the Chinese guides who give the tourists yellow scarves, simply because they look colorful and happy…)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibet-hotel-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI get to the most colorful and rigged out hotel I have ever stayed in! I smell that will accompany me for the next five days in Tibet greets me here. It is different from that of the incense burners in the temples in Beijing and Shanghai. It is a smell of burned aromatic herbs that is impregnated in the entire city…<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/nongfu-spring-water-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI usually don’t drink water. Yes, I know this is not ok. But I don’t… Believe me, here I drank plenty of water OUT OF FEAR! They told me that dehydration increases the risk of altitude sickness, so I have to drink water. I drank more water the first day here than during an entire month elsewhere! I remembered the glucose from Romania. So, first some water, then some glucose, just to make sure I won’t faint. But this is the sensation one has…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LHASA<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/lhasa-main-street_me-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nLanding suddenly at such an altitude (Lhasa is at 3,600 meters and the airport is even higher!), the body reacts in a strange way and the brains is in panic… I am told that I have to walk very slowly. I walk in slow motion, really… You cannot do it any other way. You get tired instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step by step,\nslowly, I start walking around the hotel, on the main street in the old town.\nLow buildings with strange windows, horns everywhere, warehouses like in a very\npoor market area back home, that is covers an entire street, interesting people\nthat I try to photograph discreetly and me… a kind of Vader, the one who can\nhardly breathe. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibetan-adornments-683x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibetans-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibetan-prayer-wheels-1-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nI am out\nhunting Tibetans. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am fascinated\nby the way they look and dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see them in a second, they are completely different from the Chinese people. Do you know what they look like to me? Native Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tibet has a\npopulation of 6 million people, out of which only 3 million live here, as the\nothers have run away… (I was told that in Europe there are a lot of Tibetan\nmasters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I admire the\nvery long hair of some of them adorned with spectacular beads jewelry, I see\ntens of people with masks on their mouths and noses and I will only understand\nlater that these people don’t have any cold… I notice some very strange\nclothes, cut on an angle, so that one arm stays out. I ask about the\n“fashion”. It has a practical purpose: they need freedom of movement,\nso that they can work with that hand in the household or tending the animals…<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibetan-windows-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Tibetan\narchitecture… In the old town, on one of their most important streets, always\nfull of pilgrims \u2013 Barkhor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the buildings I see two types of flags: the Tibetan ones, for prayer, on the roof, and the Chinese ones on the lower side… I will find out very interesting things about the prayer flags!<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/tibetan-window-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe fact that they wash the Pampers and let it dry in order to use it again I think says a lot about the standard of living here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/times-square-lhasa_tibet-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTIMES SQUARE in Tibet! It really exists! With a kind of a mall where not all Tibetans can go. (I went in for just a minute. It was full of Chinese people.) My guide shows me the balcony over the entrance and tells me that there is where the rich people drink coffee and do business… For him the place is pure luxury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/road-signs-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBelieve me, this sign is just for fun. On all the streets in Lhasa everybody uses the horn a lot!!! It’s unimaginable! Not one second passes without a horn being heard. These people honk when it is the red light, when it turns green, when they turn left or right, when they pass another car, they honk at all the crosswalks and, by the way, here, you don’t have priority as a pedestrian!!! Never mind there is a panda crossing there, you have to learn how to cross the street avoiding cars, trucks, rickshaws and bicycles. It is total madness…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- my route:
Bucharest-Doha-Beijing. With qatarairways, round trip ticket about 500 euros.
Mini-vacation in Beijing, then the route Beijing-Shanghai in a high-speed
train. Mini-vacation in Shanghai. Then Shanghai-Lhasa, with a change of planes
halfway (two flights of about 2 and a half hours each). This ticket is
expensive, man, about 1,000 Euros! Bought last minute, that is true.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n- 5-day trip to Tibet,
with private guide – $ 1,175.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nOn the way to Tibet, I am a blonde ET in a plane full of Chinese people. I am like the black sheep\u2026 Sorry, the blonde one ! I am trying to control my chronic fear of flying. Don’t these people ever switch off the seatbelt sign ? You are not allowed to stand in the lane. You can only take things from your bag or go to the toilet. That’s it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly they tell us that we are entering a turbulence area. I am in panic, like always. And, like always, I am trying to catch the eye of a flight attendant, to calm down. But\u2026 I am in shock! The flight attendants SLEEP! What??? Yeap, the sleep in their seats on a less than three hours flight. I look in front and towards the back. The both flight attendants I see sleep. Without any shame! Neither the signal for the announcement, not the announcement itself wake them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe strangest sensation ever! We land in Lhasa, I take my backpack and I get off the plane. I hardy make two steps on the corridor between the plane and the airport and I feel dizzy. In a second I am dizzy. I feel weak in my knees and I realize I have to take it slowly. I walk very slow\u2026 I am afraid. Other tourists tell me they feel the same. The cause? The sudden lack of oxygen. We took off at sea level and we landed at 3,700 meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTerribly tired after a sleepless night and two flights, I get out of the airport and I look at the perfectly aligned line of guides awaiting for their clients. I see my name on the card of a young man. We say “hello” to one another and he puts a white scarf on my neck. Then he says: “Dashi Delek!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, I asked him about this, as I saw it everywhere, especially in temples. This is their way of saying “Hello!”, “Good luck!”, to give offerings in a temple, this is a wedding greeting and so on. It is sort of a proof that their soul is open, clean, full of good intentions and with all the best thoughts towards you. That is why it is white. (There are other which are colored, but those carry a religious significance, as far as I understood. My guide, who is a Tibetan heart and soul, is a bit angry at the Chinese guides who give the tourists yellow scarves, simply because they look colorful and happy…)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI get to the most colorful and rigged out hotel I have ever stayed in! I smell that will accompany me for the next five days in Tibet greets me here. It is different from that of the incense burners in the temples in Beijing and Shanghai. It is a smell of burned aromatic herbs that is impregnated in the entire city…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI usually don’t drink water. Yes, I know this is not ok. But I don’t… Believe me, here I drank plenty of water OUT OF FEAR! They told me that dehydration increases the risk of altitude sickness, so I have to drink water. I drank more water the first day here than during an entire month elsewhere! I remembered the glucose from Romania. So, first some water, then some glucose, just to make sure I won’t faint. But this is the sensation one has…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LHASA<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nLanding suddenly at such an altitude (Lhasa is at 3,600 meters and the airport is even higher!), the body reacts in a strange way and the brains is in panic… I am told that I have to walk very slowly. I walk in slow motion, really… You cannot do it any other way. You get tired instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step by step,\nslowly, I start walking around the hotel, on the main street in the old town.\nLow buildings with strange windows, horns everywhere, warehouses like in a very\npoor market area back home, that is covers an entire street, interesting people\nthat I try to photograph discreetly and me… a kind of Vader, the one who can\nhardly breathe. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nI am out\nhunting Tibetans. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am fascinated\nby the way they look and dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see them in a second, they are completely different from the Chinese people. Do you know what they look like to me? Native Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tibet has a\npopulation of 6 million people, out of which only 3 million live here, as the\nothers have run away… (I was told that in Europe there are a lot of Tibetan\nmasters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I admire the\nvery long hair of some of them adorned with spectacular beads jewelry, I see\ntens of people with masks on their mouths and noses and I will only understand\nlater that these people don’t have any cold… I notice some very strange\nclothes, cut on an angle, so that one arm stays out. I ask about the\n“fashion”. It has a practical purpose: they need freedom of movement,\nso that they can work with that hand in the household or tending the animals…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Tibetan\narchitecture… In the old town, on one of their most important streets, always\nfull of pilgrims \u2013 Barkhor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the buildings I see two types of flags: the Tibetan ones, for prayer, on the roof, and the Chinese ones on the lower side… I will find out very interesting things about the prayer flags!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe fact that they wash the Pampers and let it dry in order to use it again I think says a lot about the standard of living here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTIMES SQUARE in Tibet! It really exists! With a kind of a mall where not all Tibetans can go. (I went in for just a minute. It was full of Chinese people.) My guide shows me the balcony over the entrance and tells me that there is where the rich people drink coffee and do business… For him the place is pure luxury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBelieve me, this sign is just for fun. On all the streets in Lhasa everybody uses the horn a lot!!! It’s unimaginable! Not one second passes without a horn being heard. These people honk when it is the red light, when it turns green, when they turn left or right, when they pass another car, they honk at all the crosswalks and, by the way, here, you don’t have priority as a pedestrian!!! Never mind there is a panda crossing there, you have to learn how to cross the street avoiding cars, trucks, rickshaws and bicycles. It is total madness…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- 5-day trip to Tibet,