Written on 3/25 and posted on 3/27
Have you ever needed an ice scraper for the inside of your vehicle?
Our driver said he didn’t want to arrive at our destination in the middle of the night, so he took his time in getting here. It was great (at first), with fairly smooth roads, sunshine, friends, and great views!
Then, after we stopped for lunch, the paved road just disappeared – for the rest of the trip! Forget about reading anything. It was like constantly being on one of those massage chairs at the mall that is set on high but doesn’t lean back – at all. We still had great views of the desert and grazing yaks, but once the sun went down we were really beginning to feel the pain – in our rears. We were tired of bouncing on them and not being able to move around. As we continued to climb in altitude, it got colder and colder. As we felt the cold sinking into our bones, the ice slowly began to form on the inside of the windows and crept down onto the metal frame of the window. Don’t forget that we are sitting with our hips touching the metal side of the bus (can you say cold?!!).
We had a friend join us who is from the Caribbean and needless to say he had never experienced cold weather, was battling a cold, and had never been in a high altitude. Unfortunately, this resulted in altitude sickness – his sinuses were experiencing all of the pressure that is usually relieved when our ears “pop” and equalize. He was also having a very difficult time breathing (getting enough oxygen). This made for a very long and painful experience for him, and for those of us who tired to help him in any way possible.
There were several others who became ill during the long trip. We finally arrived at 6:30 in the morning, after a long, cold, bumpy night without much sleep at all. The hotel was closed, but we got someone to open it for us – unfortunatly there was no heat, not even heating pads. Actually, we really didn’t care much… there were blankets and a bed! Our ordeal was over and we were finally able to get some sleep…
We are here for only one day/ We split up tomorrow and head to five different little cities. There are more Tibetans in this part of China than there are in Tibet! We will be attempting to communicate with some of them as we learn more about their culture, religion, and the cities we will be in. The people are so beautiful! This is so much better than seeing pictures in National Geographics or on the Discovery Channel. It will be such a great honor to live amongst these people for the next few days.
I will once again be with another team – this time i will be with Chad and Lloyd from the Blue Tteam, and Liesl from the Yellow Team. Wwe will only be together for four days before we travel to meet up with everyone else to make our way out of China and to Thailand. We are looking forward with great expectation for the next week.
Please continue to talk to dad about our safety and protection, communication, translation (we are the only team that will be without a Chinese phrase book, but most of the people only speak Tibetan anyway ; ). Also talk to dad about health – most of us are battling colds and some of us are battling infections.
We will not have internet access during our time in the cities so updates will have to come after the fact. This is a very important time to be talking to dad about us as much as possible as we are really stepping out into the battle – some of us have been experiencing it more than others in the last couple of days as we have decided where we would be going.
This has been the part of Asia that i have been looking forward to the most… can’t wait to tell you all about what happens!
Love,
Casey
