Finally... arriving on the roof of the world!

On the morning of the 10th all the worries whether we would have entered Tibet cleared as we finally boarded the plane that would have taken to Lhasa. But what a plane ride... we got hit by a lightening (!!) and it felt as if the plane would touch the mountains ...
While landing we got a glimpse of the mountains growing over the clouds and we suddenly felt the altitude as breathing at 3600 metres can be hard. We got into Lhasa at the beginning of a week of festival and were welcomed by masses of pilgrims and monks wondering around the monasteries while praying. We checked into a nice hotel and nearly made it to the third floor, understanding we would need to acclimatise before heading on the sites. Walking along the Koras (the pilgrimage around the monastry) with the pilgrims and entering the monasteries during the festival somehow touched us quite deeply as people have such a strong belief in religion. We really enjoyed the sites and tried to get used to the (pretty strong) smell of the yak butter tea, which is rather dense (fat!!) and rather different (salty!) from our idea of tea.
We were lucky enough to attend a festival at Deprung monastery where a huge image of Buddha (Thanka) on a big cloth is revealed on a mountain while around 70 thousands people start throwing their white praying scarfs (and themselves) onto it.

As we walked to 4500m (with lungs and heads aching ...) to visit the monastries we got great views of the valleys and praying flags flying so high. Tibet is really an incredible country, althouth the Chinese would not quite agree with the latter definition, with very nice simple people which touch you deeply inside...
and the food finally is not chinese only giving us the opportunity to enjoy spaghetti bolognese and tasty nepalese food..