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2007 July - Namtso Lake, Tibet

Blessings carried across the lake and to the mountains.

#2007tibet #tibet #namtso #himalya #himalayas #travel photography #mountains

2007 July - Namtso Lake, Tibet

I will always miss this place

#2007tibet #tibet #himalya #travel photography

2007 July - Namtso Lake, Tibet

The most beautiful lake I have ever seen.

Probably the highest altitude I have been to as well - 4,718 m (15,479 ft)

#2007tibet #tibet #himalayas #himalya #freshwater lake

2007 July - Tibet, China

A monk crossing the river on a narrow bridge - en route to Namtso (Lake Nam)

#2007tibet #lhasa #namtso #tibet #travel photography

2007 July - Lhasa, Tibet

Scenes from the streets of Lhasa, 14 years ago

#2007tibet #lhasa #tibet #travel photography

2007 July - Cuo Na Hu 錯那湖 (Cona Lake), Tibet

Stunning view of one of the highest fresh water lakes on earth - 4,594 metres (15,072 ft) above sea level

We arrived here approximately 30 hours in (and 20 something hours on the train floor with no seats) since we left Shanghai on Qingzhang Railway - I wish I had the guts to step outside for a bit, but I couldn't fully understand the announcements made in mandarin and REALLY didn't want the train to leave with out me so just stayed inside.

#2007tibet #tibet #travel photography #티벳여행 #티벳

2007 July - Shanghai, China

Two tickets that started it all.... (btw, I am so excited to be posting this portion of my travels - definitely one of my top 3 destinations ever)

It was always a dream of mine to see the Potala Palace. I don't know why, how and when this became a dream of mine, but I just became so fascinated by the mystical view of the palace with a Himalayan mountain backdrop. So when I heard that the 48-hour long train - the Z164 train that connects Shanghai to Lhasa opened up in 2006, I just blindly flew to Shanghai the following year, not even knowing if I could even get a ticket. It was an extremely popular route during the summer back then (probably still is) as it just opened up. Rumours were that the local tour companies raked up all the tickets to use for their tour packages so there were only a few tickets left for backpackers, like ourselves.

As a context - before this train route was built, one would have to either take a plane (which has the risk of giving you high altitude sickness as you arrive at Lhasa, which sits at 3700m/12,000ft above sea level -and more importantly, NO FUN) or take a local bus from nearby cities like Chengdu for 2000+ kilometers, which would take like, FOREVER and extremely dangerous)

Luckily, my friend and I were able to secure tickets thanks to a stranger, a boy who told me his name was 'king' (now that I think of it his name probably was 'wang 王' which means king in mandarin). The catch was that we only had proper seats until Zhengzhou, which is only 1/5 of the trip...

So I braved 48 hours of train ride from Shanghai to Lhasa on a 'hard seat' (literally, a freaking non recline hard chairs) for the first ~8 hours and then on a 'standing seat' (i.e. I don't have a seat, you either stand or sit on the floors) for the next 40 hours. I was 24 and fearless (and/or clueless) and I had no idea what that would be like (it meant something like using a giant pile of table cloths that the train attendants kindly provided us - probably because we looked pathetic- as our seats/beds for 40 hours).

#2007tibet #tibet #lhasa #travel photography #티벳 #티벳여행