幸运记 - 生在福中不知福
Our trip to Chengdu-Tibet is peppered with strokes of luck.
We managed to get into shrines and chapels that is otherwise only opened on major religious festivals. With no idea how the Tibetan
calendar works, we somehow stumbled onto their '绕山节'. Firstly, the oldest temple in Tibet (on our way from Gyantse to Shigatse) opened for visitors, and we saw a religious procession. We also became the last to visit the holiest shrine in Lhasa when it was unlocked for some '领导' to visit. Lastly, we met a traffic jam at 4737m above the sea, and spent one day's worth of daylight at 2 different airports.
We were returning from Shigatse via the new road. There was road works on the already narrow mountain pass. Traffic on both directions couldn't pass for 3 hours for the maintenance team to lay the tarmac road. Well, some bugger on the same direction as us had a argument with some other buggers from the road laying team. So the road layers purposely delayed the whole direction by not giving way after the road laying is done. The whole length of us slowly snaked behind the road laying car until they finally relented. The final score? 7 hours behind schedule due to the 'road works'.
Our domestic flight from Lhasa back to Chengdu was scheduled to fly at 1030hrs. So we actually reach the airport at about 0900hrs. Fate had it that the damned monopolised flight be delayed due to technical fault and can only fly at 1415hrs instead. 祸不单行。When we reached Chengdu at about 1630, the tour agency that was supposed to pick us up sent the wrong vehicle (we are a group of 5, we cannot fit into a normal sized car), so we had to wait for a bigger 面包车to arrive and pick us. Eventually, we left the airport at 1730. So in total, we spent about 9 hours in the airport and on the airplane.
We managed to get into shrines and chapels that is otherwise only opened on major religious festivals. With no idea how the Tibetan
calendar works, we somehow stumbled onto their '绕山节'. Firstly, the oldest temple in Tibet (on our way from Gyantse to Shigatse) opened for visitors, and we saw a religious procession. We also became the last to visit the holiest shrine in Lhasa when it was unlocked for some '领导' to visit. Lastly, we met a traffic jam at 4737m above the sea, and spent one day's worth of daylight at 2 different airports.
We were returning from Shigatse via the new road. There was road works on the already narrow mountain pass. Traffic on both directions couldn't pass for 3 hours for the maintenance team to lay the tarmac road. Well, some bugger on the same direction as us had a argument with some other buggers from the road laying team. So the road layers purposely delayed the whole direction by not giving way after the road laying is done. The whole length of us slowly snaked behind the road laying car until they finally relented. The final score? 7 hours behind schedule due to the 'road works'.Our domestic flight from Lhasa back to Chengdu was scheduled to fly at 1030hrs. So we actually reach the airport at about 0900hrs. Fate had it that the damned monopolised flight be delayed due to technical fault and can only fly at 1415hrs instead. 祸不单行。When we reached Chengdu at about 1630, the tour agency that was supposed to pick us up sent the wrong vehicle (we are a group of 5, we cannot fit into a normal sized car), so we had to wait for a bigger 面包车to arrive and pick us. Eventually, we left the airport at 1730. So in total, we spent about 9 hours in the airport and on the airplane.
posted by taxi taker
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