Today we were making the journey from Amdo to Lhasa.

However our experience of the night before:

The hotel had nebulisers for hire, Kirit and I had, had enough oxygen deprivation for one night so decided this evening we were going to minimise the risk by hiring one and get our oxygen supply. At 15,000 feet we were feeling it. What a sight, we looked more like intensive care patients. It was another long night but because of the help of the nebuliser, not as uncomfortable as the previous night – we still only managed to get a few hours sleep. Hotel not the best, slept in my sleeping bag again. We are all feeling a bit rough, and our concern was lack of concentration when driving. Decided each will only do a max of 50 miles and next person takes over.

Not eating much these days, even breakfast for the last 5 days is no more, there is only so much Chinese food you can eat in a day –  spicy food normally served at breakfast too, but in the last two accommodation no breakfast. Straight in the car and drive.
It’s been a long while since we have had a decent lunch break, the days when we use to stop over and make ourselves a quick sandwich have long gone, not sure but I think I am starting to loose weight – don’t think the photos bear this out!
Most of the recent photos are scenic and not of historic buildings etc because this part of the journey was always about the mountains and vast open space.

The hired Nebuliser.

The blue pillow looking bag above, also contained Oxygen, we were really trying to cover all angles.

Intensive Care Patients…..

Our Hotel…..

Loading our ride up – it was a really effort.

In the journey we made today, we covered nearly 450 kms.

A Map is attached below.

Again during today’s journey we had to endure nearly 11 security stops including speed stops – i.e. where you have to reach the next destination, no earlier than the time allocated to us and which normally meant us driving at an average speed of about 30 mph – any faster and by reaching earlier you would be fined, on a number of occasions we just stopped and waited in the vehicle if we anticipated we were going to arrive early -  I suppose more time for us to enjoy the scenery, which again for the most part was quite awesome.

Our first real stop for today, was to be the natural hot springs at Yangbajing.

The Hot springs at Yangbajing, are the highest-altitude hot springs in the world, (nearly 15,000 feet above sea level)  and is 87 Kilometres north of Lhasa in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The hot springs have been harnessed to produce, much of the electricity for the capital of Tibet, Lhasa. Its the first geothermal power in the whole of China. The minerals contained in the springs can help heal many diseases – Manvir and myself gave it a go, we were totally revitalised even though we only dipped our legs into the hot spring waters! Magic waters I say!