Hey hey hey!
I have missed you dearly! It feels nice to be in an area where I can blog without hesitation or concern of security. With that said, I’ve got a lot to share with you! For the sake of your email inbox-I am not going to send every blog post to you from this past month, but if you are interested to read more of the blogs from China, please just scroll through my blog posts & there should be some new ones for you to read. For starters, I’m going to share with you my experience traveling through Tibet 🙂
Interesting fact: Did you know that in order to travel through Tibet-one must go through a tour travel agency?
Another interesting fact: The squad I am traveling with-was the first squad to ever travel through Tibet in all of Adventure In Missions history! Woah, that’s pretty sweet.
This was a once in a lifetime week, my friend. Looking back-there were limitless emotions. The joy in making it into China, the awe & wonders of the landscape, the pain of altitude sickness, the discomfort of difficulty in breathing, the fun in being a real life “tourist”, and enjoying the perks of hot showers, & a nice soft comforter at the hotels was refreshing to say the least.
Through this Blog I am going to describe to you what the day to day looked and felt like during this tour. Here we GOOOO!
Pre-getting to Tibet: At 3:30 am, we left for Tibet. We traveled from Nepal about 11+ hours with all 31 of us +3 bus drivers, in a bus that only fit 28 comfortably. That meant-4 of us, including myself sat in the front seat with the driver, packed in like sardines. Never less, the view from the front window was incredible & a bit daunting at the same time! There were cliffs like I’ve never seen before, & part of the time I held my breath on those narrow roads, sharp turns & gigantic potholes. At one point in the journey we were in a traffic jam for about 2 1/2 hours. At first we did not know why all the driving had stopped, but then our bus driver walked me about a half mile up the road to show me 3 big trucks stuck in a mud slide. There has been a landslide that hit the trucks & made them stuck. There were a bunch of men shoveling these trucks out & we could not move until those trucks were out of the mud. Eventually-we made it & came to a lovely hotel on the mountain side right next to the Tibet border. Everyone on the squad seemed to be asleep within hours of our arrival. We were tired!
Day one: We met our tour guides at the Tibet border & the journey began! We were gifted with scarves, a water bottle, a face mask, and an small portable oxygen can for when the altitude went really high. We saw beautiful landscape, a combination or deserts and mountains, as well as thousands and thousands of “Yak” cattle. In this same day, our elevation reached past 19,000 feet. This is higher than mount Everest base camp-& you can bet those oxygen cans came in handy! This drive lasted about 10 hours. Around midnight we arrived to the hotel & unfortunately-a lot of us got sick. About 10 of us, including myself were feeling the negative affects of altitude sickness. Several times that night of sleep-I found myself in the bathroom throwing up & wondering if this would be how I felt the rest of the tour in Tibet. Yikes!
Day two: We woke up & were ready to tour more of Tibet at 8:00 am. Unfortunately, quite a few of us were feeling weak, so the “sick” were asked to sit towards the front of the bus for the day. The mountains & views were simply stunning! We had a traditional lunch & dinner, & got to know the tour guides quite a bit too. I personally, was quite out of it-I was doing my best to look out the window, enjoy the views & distract myself from the nasuea I had once felt so much. This travel tour day was about 8 hours this time. We arrived in a hotel & most of us crashed, again! & unfortunately I also found myself that night in the bathroom, throwing up almost uncontrollably. But- we have a couple great nurses on our team & they helped get me the right meds to calm my stomach down & allow me to sleep a bit more.
Day three: We had another wonderful day of travel, viewing breathtaking landscapes. This time, our travel was only about 6 hours. This was such a gift because by this time, about half of us were feeling the nasuea blues! Around dinner time, we arrived in a beautiful city & the hotel again, had hot showers, cool air, and nice comforters. It was such a refreshing change to have! For me personally, I was still feeling the Altitude sickness-I could not believe how much it had affected my body! So I quickly fell asleep-only to wake up yet again to throwing up. Yuck!
Day four: Our tour guides took the group to a giant building, called potola palace. This is where many Buddhist monks live, and where a variety of histories on old spiritual figures and leaders can be found. Unfortunately I felt a need to stay back-so I was not able to experience this part of the tour but I heard it was very interesting to see & some life giving conversations happened with the Buddhist monks.
Day five: our tour guides took us to the train station & that is where we said our goodbyes & embarked on a 21+ hour train ride. Thankfully, each of us were given a sleeper bed, it was the nicest train I have ever been on in my life! Unfortunately-at this time I was still experiencing altitude sickness so you can imagine I was waiting in line quite often for the squatty potty. Not the most ideal-but hey, we do what we can, right? Haha.
Saying goodbye to the tour guides was difficult for me. There had been so much I wanted to say to them & let them know about the love of Jesus, but we had to be so careful, as it was the first time we were traveling through Tibet & sharing things like your faith- is prohibited in this area.
Still-I was able to write them a letter of encouragement & share with them as I said goodbye how the way they took care of me & my friends so much meant alot. They reminded me a lot about how Jesus would treat people & how much our heavenly father truly does care about us.
A couple other random inside scoops: The tour guides were like uncles to us. Uncle “I”, Uncle “Pooboo”, Uncle “Tawain” & Uncle “Su su” will be missed. On the tour there were usually no public restrooms or “rest stops” that you would see in the US. So our “Rest stops” were bathroom breaks literally on the side of the road, behind a rock, or a bush etc. The cold weather climate was incredibly refreshing. To get out my small jacket wqas such a nice surprise! We were not allowed to run, jump, or talk fast, for that made the breathing much more difficult. Besides the altitude sickness, it was REALLY FUN!!!!
That’s the scoop on the Tibet tour. I am forever grateful for this opportunity. & while I do not wish to be as sick as I felt on that tour-I would not hesitate to take another tour like that again. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity & I thank you for talking part in allowing for me to experience such diversity & wonder as Tibet.
Talk to you later, friend!
Kailey
