If you visit Tibet, there’s a few things you should know before going. First up, there’s no way of sugar coating it, the food is shite.  Imagine something not much better than prison food and you’ll prepare yourself for what is coming.  My guide took me to a few local restaurants and I indulged in Yak rice which was bloody horrendous.  I also got served up some local dumplings, they were no better. Thank the lord for crackers!

Even at the Shangri-La in Lhasa, I ordered up an Australian Ribeye thinking ok, that won’t be the delicious piece of meat you might ordinarily expect, but at least it’ll be edible.  Wrong!  Even if the taste was ok (which it wasn’t), there is no norman human being that could have been expected to cut this up, try as I might, I couldn’t get a piece to cut. At one stage I had the entire steak on my fork trying to bite it, but no go.  The staff must have thought I didn’t know how to use a knife and fork.

The next night at the Shangri-La I thought I’d go for something a bit more easy to cut, spring chicken. What a mistake that was!  Although I butchered through it with my knife, it was just foul, like eating rat.  So anyway, prepare yourself for the worst if you visit Tibet. If you eat street food then you might be ok, but if you’re a foodie, or actually if you enjoy food, don’t expect you’re going to find anything halfway decent if you visit Tibet.

Next, you need a permit, they say it can take 30 days and most Tibet travel agents say you need to book at least 20-30 days in advance. I got mine in about 5 days so as usual, it’s the whole thing of the Internet going into state of panic. I don’t think you’d be able to get one in a day or two, but around a week should be ok.

Next, the altitude.  I had based my whole short itinerary on the tour companies advice that I could, under no circumstances, go to the high altitude of Yamdrok on the day of arrival. When I eventually got in the tour van, the first thing the tour guide did was to suggest we go to Yamdrok Lake.  To be fair, he asked me how I’m feeling, and I said fine, so he said we’re off to Yamdrok Lake.  Yeah, it’s a tiny bit harder to breath, you can’t really notice it that much, and it’s definitely nothing to worry about when you visit Tibet, at least from my experience.

I don’t know if it makes a difference if you’re fit enough, I read that it doesn’t make any difference, but the local tour guide told me otherwise and I’d tend to believe him over some shit for brains who’s sitting back in the USA studying gophers.  Anyway, I’d say I’m reasonably fit, I either run 5-10km a day or hike around 40km per week, but definitely not fit enough to run a marathon. So if you’re even a tiny bit fit and want to visit to Tibet but are worried about the altitude, I’d say you’ll be fine and not to worry about it.  The local guide did say a lot of the mainland Chinese completely lose it and end up needing the oxygen tank in the tour van. That might be just because there are more mainland Chinese than any other.

Lastly, the flight, oh the flight, and this is something you need to know when you visit Tibet.  Chengdu-Lhasa on Air China Flight 4405 departing at 0615a.m. Booked a window seat way in advance as I heard the view along the way was pretty good.  Flight took off somewhere on schedule, all good. That is until the lovely lady next to me decided she wanted the window seat and started to get right up into my personal space, at one stage motioning that we swap seats, which of course I was having absolutely none of!  From takeoff to landing, she was basically in my seat, taking video, snapping photos of the sky and literally doing this half in my seat.  Basically I had her boobs rubbing against my arm, her head about 2 inches from my face the entire time.  Oka so that’s an exaggeration, she went to sleep (thank fucking God) for about 30 minutes before we landed.

This was the most uncomfortable flight I’ve ever been on (apart from one time when I had a 600 pound wilderbeast literally take up half my seat and destroy 3 airplane meals of macaroni and cheese in less than 8 seconds, on an Alaska to New York flight).   I guess what made it bearable was the fact this lady, either from Mainland China or Tibet, was quite a happy woman, I mean I guess I would have been quite happy to had a I been given a middle seat yet been able to take advantage of a window seat.  She thought it was absolutely hilarious that I didn’t speak Chinese, and when the meal was finished she even took mine away for me, so at least she was quite nice in that respect.  She was obviously a first or second time flyer (from Tibet on her way back), so I wasn’t too upset and almost (and I mean almost) found the whole experience amusing.  A bonus of sitting next to someone who has no idea of aeroplane etiquette is that as soon as the plane lands, they jump up, allowing you to get out to the aisle before the rest of the plane charges towards the front.

The food on the plane was as expected, shite and I don’t even remember what is was exactly, some kind of bread that they tried to call a sandwich.  I took one bit and almost chundered.

So there you go, if you know all those things, your expectations might be lowered and you won’t be so disappointed.

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