Lhasa, Tibet (finally)

Hey now!! I finally made it to Tibet after a couple of years of planning. Its really good to be out of foggy Chengdu as the weather here in Lhasa is perfect. It was actually hot today! Lhasa is amazing, of course. I arrived about 10 AM this morning (Saturday, 30 September) and easily caught the bus for the 1-hour ride to Lhasa. The first hostel we checked, which was recommended to us, was full, so we went down the street to apparently the next best hostel. I checked in there and then found out the hostel is complete crap but I can't do much about that now. I'm going to try to switch tomorrow.

I went from an altitude of 1,600 feet (500 meters) in Chengdu to 12,200 feet (3,700 meters) in Lhasa in 2 hours this morning so I'm sitting here wondering how I'm going to not get altitude sickness from ascending so fast? There is no way to 'descend' if I do! I saw someone that I met in Chengdu in Lhasa this morning and he was just getting over altitude sickness (AMS). It didn't hit him until he had been here 2 days. So I get to hang around Lhasa for several days acclimating and hopefully I don't get sick. I feel fine right now though.

I've been having problems with my contacts since shortly after I arrived in Chengdu so I have been wearing my glasses (which I hate). It wasn't really a problem in Chengdu because it was cloudy and I didn't need my sunglasses. But here in Lhasa the sun is really intense so I had to find some clip on shades for my glasses today. I really, really hate wearing glasses! Even with the clip-on's the sun still hurts my eyes. Hopefully my eyes with get better and I can switch back to my contacts full time. It doesn't help that it seems fairly impossible to find any thing other than standard eye drops here, which I already have and don't seem to be helping much. It wouldn't be traveling with out some constant bodily aliment..... I sure hope this one gets better quickly.