Hi there. This is live blogging coming all the way from Laoag, Philippines. Well DanielCtw is now in this country with a group of people known thru a chatbox called ShoutOut.

Along with us from Malaysia is Hannah from Flaircandy.com who will be our guide and also language person here. Well this is the 2nd day we’re here, and there was a slight mishap in our flight from Manila towards Vigan but we made it through with an alternate plan which is we took the grueling 8 hours bus trip there. Yes, freaking sleeping in the bus with super cold air from the air conditioner.

As I am using mobile now, I can only share a photo. I will be back with more post-dated posts after I am back from the trip.

Cya soon.

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Finally back from the mountains, it’s now free and easy in the town of Lhasa and I’ve forgotten that I brought bread up with me to the Mt Everest base camp. Now look at how the bread turned out.

All puffy and somehow reminds me of a fetus that can’t wait to get out from the womb. Jeez… of all things I have to think of that instead. What bread is this though? Just a simple flour and nothing inside. In English, they only wrote French Bread.

Anyway for those that wants to read back a few posts regarding my Tibet travel without hassle, here’s the whole link again!

[Tibet 1] Hello from Lhasa, Tibet
[Tibet 2] The Rough Journey Tibet
[Tibet 3] Another Day in Lhasa
[Tibet 4] Visiting Drepung Monastery Tibet
[Tibet 5] Monastery Visitation Tibet
[Tibet 6] Moving Around Lhasa Tibet
[Tibet 7] The Day I Visited Temples at Lhasa
[Tibet 8] Weird Blue Lake Tibet
[Tibet 9] Randomness at China and Tibet
[Tibet 10] More Monasteries and Mt Everest
[Tibet 11] Journey to Mt Everest
[Tibet 12] Journey to Namtso Lake
[Tibet 13] Namtso Lake Scene

Okay, enough of the bread. Since we’re now having our free and easy in the capital city of Tibet at Lhasa, we thought of looking for places to eat and definitely a few notable places we could hang out. Yes, get ready cause this time it’s all about the food in Tibet. When you’re outstation, one has definitely got to try the local food.

One of the place that we found is Makyeame Restaurant, located at the pedestrian street of Lhasa. As you can see, there are two exposures of the same restaurant. The sun was blazing sunny but the weather there is still cool (compare to our hot and humid Malaysia), so we didn’t even sweat. Well, that’s for a country that doesn’t hit the equator and also about 5000m above sea level.

Seeing this restaurant and since we’re all hungry, let’s get some grub.

Not until we see what’s the view from the top of the restaurant. Remember we’re sitting at the roof top and unlike the houses we have in Malaysia, the houses and buildings here all have flat surfaces.

This is how the place looks like when you’re not overlooking the ground below. Ahhhh…. many people so it seems. Kenny sitting there playing with his HTC and going online. Darn, they have WiFi here. Those days I don’t have a WiFi enabled gadget. We’re actually practically waiting for our food to arrive.

Of course, why not start with a taste of something Tibetish, a Tibetan beer. The name is Tibet Beer – Green Barley Beer.

What an original name. There are loads of Barley in Tibet, heck they even have a tagline for this beer which is Beer From Top Of The World. Simply amazing I must say.Taste like beer and yes, there’s no way you can find one of these alcoholic drink in other countries.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Finally the 12th installment is here and the continuation of the Tibet adventures at Namtso Lake. How long more will this post be? Beats me… I try to finish all this in a jiffy okay?

Clicking the links below will open a new tab or page.
[Tibet 1] Hello from Lhasa, Tibet
[Tibet 2] The Rough Journey Tibet
[Tibet 3] Another Day in Lhasa
[Tibet 4] Visiting Drepung Monastery Tibet
[Tibet 5] Monastery Visitation Tibet
[Tibet 6] Moving Around Lhasa Tibet
[Tibet 7] The Day I Visited Temples at Lhasa
[Tibet 8] Weird Blue Lake Tibet
[Tibet 9] Randomness at China and Tibet
[Tibet 10] More Monasteries and Mt Everest
[Tibet 11] Journey to Mt Everest
[Tibet 12] Journey to Namtso Lake

So let’s get on with what can one view here at Namtso Lake?

Now surprisingly some people wondered why did I use a logo instead of a url in the photos. Well, maybe after awhile I find that without a url, it feels hard to associate some photos back. Anyway let’s get back to the Tibet thingy. It’s clear blue sky there and this is what one could view at La Ken La. Refer previous Tibet post to understand where it is.

A different view as I go a little bit higher and this time without those flags. Far towards the left of this photo, you can see the NAMTSO LAKE.

Anyway, after arriving in Namtso Lake, it’s time to put our luggage into the inn we’re supposed to stay. This is the place we stayed.

Holy Lake Namtso Guest House, since it’s 5000m+ above sea level, the temperature could drop very low and mind you, there are wools around the building to keep the place warm. Lucky there’s the sun. Have a look in the inside.

The roof is just cloth or rather wool and the place looks comfortable enough. Just wait till you have a look at the room we are sleeping.

3 beds. This was the only time where we were glad that we had only 3 of us going to Tibet. Shot with ISO of 1200, still ain’t so bad. Now enough of what’s in the inn. We’re not here to look at the inn right?

Finall the view of Namtso Lake from higher ground. We climbed up a hill to get this shot. The wind was blowing, and yes, that’s an eagle flying. Settings were set to vivid, makes a lot of things super blue. Seeing that you’ve made it this far, here’s a background of why is Namtso Lake a salt water lake.

As history mentioned, during the ice age, or rather many many years ago, the ocean covered a lot of ground on the Earth. Then the water recede, which what makes the salt water which is part of the ocean unable to move out of it’s location due to a mountain like enclosure trapping water above it. This was then how the Namtso Lake came about.

The small figures you see below on the bottom left are actually human beings. Just imagine how big this lake is. There’s also a festival once in every year where pilgrims would come over here to walk across the dry land that you see in this photo. Too bad we missed it as it was a month ago before we arrived here.

As always, being in Tibet or Nepal, there’s always this familiar arrangement of stones. It’s also here in Namtso Lake where climbing up the hill, we also get to see them.

Just how high it is. If you think you saw snow capped mountain at the background, yes, you’re right. Too bad I didn’t bring my wide up the hill. Kinda loss of breath due to high altitude and the cold wind. We stayed up there for nearly 3 hours. Imagine the strong wind blowing, I needed to find shelter behind rocks at times.

But why?? Why do we have to stay for 3 hours up there? The next photo would reveal something.

Ahhhh!!! Looks like the sun will set soon. When we took this photo, it was already 4pm or 5pm in the evening. We know that we could actually catch the sunset from here. The problem is when the sun starts to set, the air became cooler, my hand starts to shake and I was chilly all over. I couldn’t wait any longer, so we walked back towards the inn. Only for me to get one last shot of the so called sunset.

TA DAH~~~ That’s the best I can do.

After reaching the inn, this is what we all did. You’re right, we didn’t have dinner. Too cold to eat.

Kenny in his sleeping bag.

and the so serious Ek Wei in his own sleeping bag. XD XD… while I took photos.

ps: They requested to help them take this photo actually.

The next morning though, both me and Kenny couldn’t wake up at all. Or rather we were just too lazy to get up. Ek Wei got up on his own and walked at the lake. (Though I wished I had) He called both of us LAZY after that.

Well, I should have learnt my lesson after that. That’s because is not everytime one will visit the place again. By the way, by forgetting to bring one’s razor up here as we left some of our luggage back down at the town, I am sure some of you can’t wait to see how I looked. Maybe you can, but anyhow I am still gonna show it.

Okay, peace out.

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It’s time to recap. It’s now the 11th post in the Tibet category and there are more to come. If you haven’t read the rest before that, you may refer to the list below.

Clicking the links below will open a new tab or page.
[Tibet 1] Hello from Lhasa, Tibet
[Tibet 2] The Rough Journey Tibet
[Tibet 3] Another Day in Lhasa
[Tibet 4] Visiting Drepung Monastery Tibet
[Tibet 5] Monastery Visitation Tibet
[Tibet 6] Moving Around Lhasa Tibet
[Tibet 7] The Day I Visited Temples at Lhasa
[Tibet 8] Weird Blue Lake Tibet
[Tibet 9] Randomness at China and Tibet
[Tibet 10] More Monasteries and Mt Everest
[Tibet 11] Journey to Mt Everest

Finally after descending Mount Everest base camp, it’s time to go on to our next destination which is the Namtso Lake. The world’s highest salt water lake. Yes, SALT WATER! Unbelievable? Well, how can there be a salt water lake high up the mountains?Anyway along the way down, there are lots of crazy roads we have to go through.  From roads that are such cramp in between rocks and hills.

Roads that are in the middle of the mountain are also experienced. We heard a story, just a month ago, there was a cave in and the rock collapsed on the road. We did witness a part of what had happened. Rather it was the history of it.

Here’s another so called hole in the mountain that we had to go through too. Now look at how wide the road is, and how ‘big‘ is that hole compared to the road. What a way to carry on our journey. Still all of us like so called prayed that the driver that is ferrying us in his van would drive safely and that we reached our destination in one piece.

We were in the van for hours, and considering that a few of us are photographers, we needed some stretching done and with beautiful scenery around in this land of Nepal + Tibet, we make sure we stopped for some shots. Most of us won’t be coming back again, so it’s either you shoot now or you won’t be able to shoot another photo in the coming future.

The stream, the splendid mountain. These kind of scenery, what a sight to behold. Of course along the way, we could see herdsmen driving the buffaloes and what another view other than just scenery.

Photos taken from inside the van. Not very good composition as we’re in a moving vehicle and I just shoot with my previous settings.

After what seemed to be a long journey, it’s time to move on, and finally a spot to rest and flex our legs.

Buffaloes roam the place around here. Something funny happened here though, there was this local guy who was basically walking towards us asking for money for shooting the area here. The funny thing was not that, but more of he was practically following Kenny all the way until he tailed him back to the van. I can’t stop laughing. Seems like he’s a local Tibetan magnet.

The snow capped mountains at the background seems so near but yet so far. Well, I was only able to view only and never did I get to touch them yet.

Remember I said there was a guy who kept following Kenny all the way. Well basically he was behind this offering structure and then he suddenly stood up and kept going near to us. Kept asking for 50 Yuan. Practically I was using a zoom lens, so I stood kind of far away. He only came near to me once and I just walked the other way.

Finally it’s time to push forward and this time we stopped at another amazing location. Most photos shot are practically taken straight from the camera with their settings.

I must have set this to vivid. The sky is so blue but I love them. But isn’t it strange to have the mountain being cut in half from the photo. So feast your eyes on a panoramic shot then.

Click on the photo to get it in 1280 x 501 resolution joined together using Adobe Photoshop CS3 by using this technique to merge the photos.

How to do it? This is the tutorial page.

Well, after what seemed like a hard long journey, took like 6 hours, we’ve finally reached a location that somehow mentioned about the Namtso Lake. Did I mentioned that it was salt water? I guessed I did.

Finally the Big Stone wall to welcome us to the entrance to Namtso Lake. Again we have to pay 100 Yuan to go pass the guard house. Everything is money here. Well, the stone wall reads The Highest Lake in the World – Namtso (世界之 ? – 纳木 ? ) . Someone please help me fill in the blanks. I can’t find the han yu pin ying, nor do I know what it reads for the ones with the question mark. Anyone can help?

Now you must be wondering, since we’ve descended from Mount Everest, how high is it right now? The next photo should explained it. It’s 5190m above sea level.

Now don’t you love the way we all jumped. Beyond the horizon is the Namtso Lake and we had a jump before arriving our destination. What a great place to do all our jumping.

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Now back to where we last left about the Penan people. Well, this time instead of taking the back of the Penan man doing his fishing, let’s view it in another different angle.

Ahhh well, according to him, that’s how they used to dress but as modern civilization started, most of them started wearing jeans and t-shirt now. Well, time changes a lot of things. As Penan is one of the few smaller tribes, they don’t really have a longhouse (maybe they do) but usually they live in huts. Let’s move on to the next place of interest.

Rumah Orang Ulu (Remote People House) is what I can say, woah~~~~ look at the height of the house. In the cultural village, it’s the tallest structure for a Rumah (house).

Some historic backgrounds of Orang Ulu

Orang Ulu basically are meant to consist of a few ethnic roughly 27 very small but ethnically diverse tribal groups in Sarawak, with a population ranging from less than 300 persons to over 25,000 persons. So basically it’s a group of different tribes.

Well, so being WEIRD ONE I have got to explore this majestic place and go up the special stairway instead of the simple stairs made for normal people. Well, I ain’t normal people, I am WEIRD am I.

Just look at those steps, Woah, dearest Princess Yen has taken an excellent shot of me going up to the entrance of the Rumah Orang Ulu.

Oh forgotten to mentioned, at every tribal house, there is a checkpoint where we have a passport and get to put a stamp on it. Surprisingly, if you’re going in as a student, you won’t get that passport. So how does the passport looks like? We will showcase the passport before you eyes.

The Back and The Front of the Passport

More about the passport later, I must say it was a splendid way from up here viewing the entire Sarawak Cultural Village from here. What’s to do here? We get to explore the place and it’s just like another longhouse, but this time there are props for us to play.

Look at Yen go with the musical instrument. Well, I wanted to shoot more and more of the antics of her playing until she suddenly does this.

No taking my photos or I’ll beat you up with these sticks. Then I stopped.

Finally time for a commercial break…. opps this isn’t a TV channel. Time for a toilet break and we have the tallest toilet ever built for tourist like me. What??? Got such thing? Have a look.

Toilet on stilts!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA NOT!!!

It’s the Rumah Melanau. Well, now that you’ve seen most of the houses, you wondered why were they built on stilts? Surprisingly I just deduced it, one it’s to keep away from wild animals. Another one is to keep an alert from enemies. Well, like I mentioned on the previous post, Iban used to be a headhunter tribe. Those days, it’s the strong to survive.

When we finally reached the bottom of the Rumah Melanau, it’s time for stamping again on the passport. Now you’ll know what I am talking about. It’s a stamp like any other stamp. DONE!! Princess Yen stamped on the passport (I don’t need to do all this!! Hehehe)

Another long house, but this time the view of a healing hall in the Rumah Melanau. Well, to ward of evil spirits and others. A background on the Melanaus, they were traditionally fishermen as well as paddy and sago farmers. Some were skilled boat builders.

By the way time for some relaxing photos taken from the Cultural Village to relax the eyes from all the brown and greens. Let’s have a look at a certain flower which I don’t know what species it is.

Blur?? Yup, it’s meant to be blurred. Especially for readers to adjust their eyes from looking at all the constant brown and black and green colors of earlier photos.

Finally it’s time for the other two to be visited. It’s the Malay house and the Chinese house. Surprisingly, I can’t really take anything special about these 2 houses as most look like modern houses. The reason the Sarawak Cultural Village was built so that people will know about the different ethnic group living in the lands of Sarawak.

As the day started to grow dark, it’s time to finally touch the ball for it’s good luck.

By doing so it’ll give you tonnes of luck and the Power of The Ball.

LOL… Forget that I said that. I just created that up. Basically it’s just one of those ornaments and somehow we both got interested in taking pictures with balls. (Errrr… that sound mighty wrong)

Finally after going through all those ‘Rumahs‘, I have finally collected all the stamps. I felt like a kid able to collect things while visiting these traditional houses of people in Sarawak. Then I just have to act cute.

Pitiful face, Cute leh…. =P~~~~~ (I is can SYIOK SENDIRI)

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