Overland from Zhongdian to Lhasa

Its taken us 7 days to get from Zhongdian to Lhasa. We had to take an organised jeep tour because you need a permit to visit Tibet. This meant that we ended up sharing the jeep with a camera toting American called Eric. Our driver, Nema, managed to get us here in one piece. The first 2 days we drove on dirt track all the way, mostly vertically up and down the mountain passes. The scenery was spectacular and the driving was broken up by visiting the monsateries and nunneries on the way. By day 3 we were far enough from Zhongdian to avoid the tour buses and the monks got friendlier, inviting us to take their photos as they liked to see themselves on the digital camera. By day 5 we were mostly driving on tarred road which just makes the bumps harder to see. We also had to avoid the yaks, dogs, pigs, donkeys and the odd baby sitting in the middle of the road. The Chinese army were also on maneouvers, so every day we had to catch up and overtake this massive convoy of trucks. This usually involved some kamikaze driving from Nema around blind corners. We stayed in a variety of hostels - some nicer than others but day 6 was the worst (it was even worse than the camping with pigs). We have no idea where we were but it was a fairly large town. There were so many people being let in to the hotel during the early hours of the morning that we were not quite sure whether we were sleeping in a brothel (nb. the rooms were the cleanest in town). The 2am slaughtering of pigs in the butcher shop next door didn't help either! Luckily our last day was fairly short - we visited Ganden Monastery. Hermann and I found a scenic roof to sleep on while Eric took photos. then it was only an hour to Lhasa and our first sight of the Potala Palace.