Mo Monestary Mo Blues

I'm sitting in another Internet cafe right now in Shigetsu, Tibet, but don't have much time to update this blog as my two German companions Rafael and Simon are waiting to get in and out of here as quickly as possible, probably because the combination of the high altitude (4500 meters above sea level) and the cloud of Tibetan cigarette smoke here are rendering the three of us akin to that old woman in the anti-smoking commercials who takes a drag from her cigarette through her throat.

The overwhelming sentiment from the bulk of our tour group of 10 is this: NO MORE MONESTARIES! Yes, what else should we have expected from visiting Tibet, you ask. Still, there are only so many yak-butter cauldrons that I can stand. The last time I left you we were embarking on our first day in Lhasa at the Drepung Monestary, where Richard the Brit was trying to convince us of the hilarity in throwing Tina into a large vat of yak-butter. After Drepung we headed down to Potala Palace, the Tibetan monestary of all monestaries that looms over Lhasa on its throne of stone. It was clear that at this point, our travel guide was working the incompetence angle, as she had somehow managed to purchase 6 tickets for 10 people. Before long, it would become painfully evident that she knew little about her people or her religion, as she began to answer questions as if she were talking to a group for the deaf. For example:

"Kun Kei, is this statue of a buddha or of a dalai lama?"

"It is a statue of a buddha."

"Which one?"

"It is either the buddha of mercy, the buddha of the future, the buddha of protection, or it's a statue of the 14th dalai lama."

We eventually found a German-speaking Chinese tour guide, and I discovered that understanding 30% of what he was saying was much better than listening to 100% of our own tour guide spewing bullshit at us in our general direction.

(I may be kicked out of here at any minute, so don't be surprised if I end with a sentence fragm