Because we were on a shorter tour than the rest of the group (had I known, I would have been on the longer tour, believe me!), we separated from everyone else and left on our own with a new tour guide to Shigatze (I'm not sure of the correct spelling, but it's the second largest city in Tibet). Just after we'd left Lhasa, we stopped off at a site on the side of the road, where the founder of Tibetan Buddhism carved a massive Buddha into the side of a cliff. Just a quick stop for a picture, then we continued driving towards Shigatze. We did take a detour along the way, to another lake at the top of a mountain, called Yalong river (I think). The lookout point was Gangbala Mountain, and was 4790m. The only road up and down was so terrifying for me - it was quite like the Great Ocean Rd, except that there were no safety barriers for most of the way, and it was a long way down (also a lot of cars/buses taking the blind corners on the wrong side of the road). The view from the top was nice, but I was too worried about the drive back down to fully appreciate it. Aisanxin managed to keep me distracted in conversation for the majority of the descent, but I knew what she was up to.
When we were finally back on relatively flat ground, we had another stop-off... At the spot where less than a week previous, a bus-load of German tourists had left the road and fallen into a river (could still see the skidmarks). Just a tad down the road, we stopped for lunch, which was one of the most delicious meals we ate in Tibet - yak with capsicum, and very spicy (there is a photo below!) Had a little walk around the village too - we saw two kids who could not have been a day over ten, doing the laundry! (Something you don't see in Australia). We finally made it into Shigatze around dinner time, just dumped our bags in the motel (which was a brand spanker) and headed to the most famous restaurant in town, the Wor-Du Kitchen for traditional Tibetan hot-pot (so much nicer than Chinese hot-pot, if I may say so myself). We met a nice Communist guy in the restaurant (his parents owned it) who spoke perfect English but no Chinese, who helped us out with what to order and kept us entertained with anti-Bush stuff off the internet. After dinner, we went for a little walk around downtown Shigatze, but nothing was open, so we went back to the motel and slept (and the bed was soft).
Mini me with the uber-old Buddha - please note in the picture, American school children did not go crazy with toilet paper - they're silk scarves.
Up at Gangbala Mountain, overlooking Yalong River
Gangbala
The descent that I was so worried about - at least this section has barriers
More of the descent - nearly down
The spot where the German tourists died
Lunch
The little village we snooped around while everyone was at work in the fields
Din-dins
