It’s time to leave Lhasa Town. Where are we going next? We’re on our way to Chengdu, basically a simple road trip with a Jeep and a driver and a guide. Now not bad. Sad to leave the town of Lhasa as we grew fond with it with each passing day. During the first few days of the trip we miss home, but as time goes by we dread to see our holidays coming to an end.

This is the 16th installment of our trip in Tibet and it’s almost nearing the end with hopefully only another 2 to 3 more chapters. Then it’s time for some Bali post and other posts which have been outdated. I know I know.

[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
[Tibet 14] Return to Lhasa from Mountains
[Tibet 15] Lhasa Town Free and Easy

No more shots of Potala Palace. No more walking around on our own in the town of Lhasa. No more going anywhere we like during the day. Ahhh, so many things we missed. The funny poses we do in the city. The kids that came to us begging for 1 Yuan or 10 cents.

Okay, there are many more memories to note, but it’s now all a memory. What better way to document it than to blog about it. Anyway, along the way we took some scenes that we felt were breathtaking even when we were in the jeep.

The above photo is clickable and with a width of 1280px, it’s suitable to be a wallpaper with that resolution. Of course, those using 1400px and above resolutions will have a problem with it. If you would like a higher resolution for this photo, do drop me a comment or email me at my email stated on this site. As we’re traveling during September, the leaves started to change colors and thus one gets to see the wonderful work of nature getting ready for the next upcoming season which is Winter.

Going through the road along the hill, the view is amazing. Basically the sky made the photos simply spectacular. It’s so hard to get skies like this in Equator bound countries. Well, couldn’t complain, each has it’s own advantages.

Time for me to appear once again. Whoa… look at this big stone of a sign. We’re now stopping for a breather after a long jeep journey at MiLha Mountain Entrance which is like 5013.25m above sea level. Shouldn’t 5000m and above be very cold, why am I dressed like that? Well, it’s different compared to the 4000m mountain we have in Malaysia though. Don’t really need to have thick clothes.

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It’s the 15th chapter of the Tibet travel log and I am sure many people are slowly getting bored with the length of this post. Why is this trip super long and unable to finish?

Reason: I was on this trip for 23 days, that explains why that there are tonnes of photos and it doesn’t seem to finish. Of course I do select photos to be displayed here.

Here’s a recap for those who missed it, the last few posts showed that I was back at Lhasa, and for foodies, the last post was all about the food in Lhasa town, Tibet. Since it was practically 2 days free and easy in the town, Ek Wei, Kenny and me went on a stroll along town to capture the beauty of it. Well maybe to me, it’s the weirdness of it.

[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
[Tibet 14] Return to Lhasa from Mountains

So what else can we see at the town. Didn’t I covered that part in the beginning of the post? Well, now we walked even further as we traveled on foot and on the occasion sat in the taxi.

As usual the only superb landmark in Tibet is the Potala Palace and once again we go to this favorite landmark trying to capture it in any way we find intriguing.

Currently all photos published for this post, none got Photoshopped except resize and blog link being added. The vivid function is an overkill but at times it gets the job done.

The above is another perspective looking from the road below towards the Potala Palace in Lhasa.Then up again we go to the shooting place and paid 3 Yuan to go again.

Another shot, this time aiming at the structure on the right with the Potala Palace in the background. Weird shot if you ask me. But then when we thought we’re having a fun shooting and that we’ll be the only one shooting up there, wait till you see what’s next. Other than us, there are like 3  to 5 other people shooting and one person has one of the best equipment there is there.

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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.

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Finally it’s the day to leave Lhasa town for a while and go on my way to the Base camp of Mount Everest. Yes, I will be traveling to a peak higher than Mount Kinabalu and the place I am going is nearly 6000m above sea level. It’s so gonna be cold up there.

Upon driving on the way, we made a stop on a site for photography, but amazingly we are also charged for stopping there. Each person was charged 30 Yuan (that’s RM15 in Malaysia). Just because there’s a lake which is so blue, it looks so fake. Yes, the blue makes it so fake  but what they mentioned was it was natural color and it’s not because of the sky, it’s due to some chemical in the lake. Amazing right. If you were to see it by yourself. Since I’ve already paid 30 Yuan, I just need to pose with the lake in the background.

Jeng Jeng Jeng. I love the solid background. No humans… darn red thingy at the side. Supporter of Liverpool FC all the way. Even in Tibet. Of course, I can’t get enough of just standing in front of the background. What about a JUMP????

I am here… woo hoo~~~ LOL.. Though it seems that everywhere I go, everyone is doing the jump. So not unique, I don’t want to be like everyone else. Why not do something else with the lake pose. Hmm… let’s do what Daniel does best. WEIRD POSE.

Hahaha… don’t know what I am doing. Not special but just want to do something different. Mission PHAILED. Ok done about this part.

Let’s see how it was before we (that’s me and the other 2 friends with me) got to the lake. We went on a jeep and below you can see the roads that were used to travel up.

A view from the jeep’s window

The road is so long and winding. Sometimes it can be very near the edge, the whole lot of us are praying the driver is driving safely. So anyway since the blue lake is there, we thought of going there nearer and nearer. So to see whether it’s really blue.

Here’s my friend here, Ek Wei with the so called dog of Lhasa, Tibet and with a local man. Now no alteration in the photo and yes, the lake is super blue even upclose. This is crazily weird. First time seeing a blue lake and it’s not an optical illusion.

So here’s another proof of the blue blue lake of Tibet. I just love the surroundings of Tibet. Superb sceneries, not many places you can find these kind of view and perfect sky.

Next this is the place we had our next stop. OMG, look at the height of the place.

5560m above sea level and we can actually see a snow mountain up close. Wooots… White white, something which I don’t get to see in Malaysia. What a way to play around and look at the clear white snow.

The surrounding area of Kharola Snow Peak which have the snow and yes, it’s just a 5 minutes walk there. Hmmm.. did some mini HDR technique on the clouds to avoid having just white background on the sky. Not so appealing but I just want to show you how the mountain looks like.

This is finally the end of the Kharola Glacier and Blue Lake of Tibet. The view is superb. I really love the view, oh my goodness, I wanna go there once again. What a day up 5000m above sea level. Who’s game for the next Tibet trip??

ps: What’s next? Food review? Bali travels? Kuching Travels? or more Tibet Travels? The decision is yours.

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Is my blog moving? Hmm… well, after like a few months and promising that I’ll update my blog frequently, I did for awhile but only to neglect posting about Lhasa Tibet backpacking trip. Well, here is Daniel once again, in the middle of the street of Lhasa. Though it was about 4000m above sea level, it was also very hot.

Come to think of it, it was hot as the sun was shining so brightly. The breeze was there though, but I wouldn’t want to risk any sunburn on my own hand, so I got myself a sweater. Photographers would know that there’s something wrong with this picture though. Don’t you feel awkward?

Anyway it was one of the days in Lhasa and here in Lhasa, one of the famous place is Potala Palace (the place where the Dalai Lama used to be). Well, since I can’t go in the palace yet, I took a picture with the stone with writings. Can’t read them though. Strange how it feels. I feel so short compared to the rock.

I think during this time, I was already down by a kg. Yes, the constant walking and carrying my bag full of camera gears which consist of a Nikon D300, 55-200mm VR, 50mm f/1.4D and a Sigma 10-20mm. Not to mention the extra weight from the SB-800 which I think was only used once during my visit to Tibet. Flash units are kinda rarely used when one is traveling. Now enough of my photos, let’s see what the Potala Palace looks like.

On the left, the Potala Palace was built on the hill. The original hill was actually part of the road that you see now. Or rather the road was part of the hill before it was destroyed and now became a big main road. Well, now what do I want you all to focus on. The sky is indeed magnificent and yes, the whole view in Tibet is definitely somewhere any photographer would want to be.

The life here is pretty safe. I could just walk out at night and there would be police everywhere guarding the streets. Anyway since there is a lot of free time in Lhasa Tibet, the gang (me, Ek Wei and Kenny) walked towards the artificial pond or lake to take scenery shots. There are lots of shot taken over here but here I wanted to show 2 shots taken straight from the camera without using any HDR or any doctored job on the photos itself other than resizing and putting my blog link on it.

If you would love to see the EXIF of the picture, just right click and save and look at the properties of the photo. This is the setting I used to shoot this photo. Imagine how clear the sky was, how the clouds reflect itself on the water. But where’s the Potala Palace? Here’s the next photo.

Yes, Potala Palace is just around the corner. Why are we still here? Well, practically, a few of us are waiting for the sunset to capture the sunset scenery across the lake. How did it turn out though? Seemingly we have too many photos of the scenery that we find that we shouldn’t neglect ourselves.

Then we do what we do best. We pose to the extreme. Some of you might have seen this photo before though.

Now who can beat the top 3 posers.

Though if you have the chance to see the Potala Palace at night, it’s definitely a breathtaking sight. Well, that’s what we did and we walked at least 20 minutes from the hotel to reach the palace and took the photo……..

….. with me in it. Yes, it was this dark, and I just use the internal flash on the camera to shoot this. Then of course, that’s what you get for just using the internal flash and with not so “powderful” focus and setting. Now how about if you use long shutter and make it sharp and crispy.

The Full View of Potala Palace with it’s reflection

Why is there water? Well, it’s basically a water fountain show running at the same time. Just so happens that I got this shot when the water fountain stopped for awhile. Exposure time  is 13 seconds. Too bad the lights around it are giving the orange feel.

Finally it’s time to sleep and the following day, it’s finally the day to go up the Potala Palace itself. Now wait….. how much does it cost? It’s RMB100 or 100Yuan which is equivalent to RM50 in Malaysia. Ahhhhhh…….. this has better be good. It’s way way expensive compared to the other temples.

See the big blue square thingy. That’s where we roughly were when we took the photo of the 3 Heroes of Tibet. So now we’re entering Potala Palace. What is in there that are in store for us. Sad to say, didn’t really take any photos in the Palace as it’s FORBIDDEN at certain areas and also you need to pay photographer fee if you would want to take some internal pictures of the rooms and statues.

So what other things did we do there? I might say, that it’s good if it’s continued on the next post.

ps : I am back~~~~

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