But isn?t Lhasa a dog?

A late night of conversation over beer, and an early start (05.00) causes some confusion. We are off to Lhasa.

The VT twins think this might be a famous screen dog, or a yoghurt drink. Despite this, the van is loaded and we are off- but not before Mac is fined a measure of gin for neglecting to wear his tee-shirt. At the airport, the VTs feel under the weather, heralding a viral infection. The flight is short, and we land in Lhasa to find a totally different experience from that in Nepal: the administrative burden is enormous, and we wade through a series of layers of inspection. Boxes are opened, closed, and re-opened.. until finally we are free and driven to our hotel. Once again, all our equipment seems to have arrived intact, and is counted in and checked off.

The 70km drive to Lhasa is amazing and beautiful, and we all recognise how privileged we are to be here. The only downside is the sudden gain in altitude: we all feel this, and on testing at the hotel we find that our arterial oxygen saturations have fallen from 98% at sea level to between 76 and 86% here. Climbing the stairs can cause breathlessness. The aim is to spend a few days here to start acclimatising, before progressing to higher altitudes.

Mark Wilson needs a new charger for his pupil studies- and we go wandering nearby.. and find one! Buying some (very hot!) chicken wings from a nearby stall, we head back for some more neuro testing.

We have picked up a Chinese translator called ?Stone? who takes us to a nearby restaurant that evening. In fact, it is aimed very much at westerners, and we would all rather ?eat the real McCoy?.

We return to the hotel for a good night?s sleep, whislt some others go in search of MoMos to eat, to supplement their supper.

Story by Kay Mitchell