0900: It’s our last day in Tibet. We are travelling from Shigatse to Tibet, and catching a flight back to Chengdu. So, not a lot to write on this post, but it does have some great pictures that we took on the way.
On the way back from Shigatse, the Brahmaputra river flows alongside the road.
There’s a lot of new roads, tunnels and railways in this part of Tibet,
We also saw a couple of Yaks up close.
By 1 pm, we were in Lhasa, and had time for lunch.
1400: At Lhasa airport, to check into the flight back to Chengdu.
1600: On the flight back to Chengdu. As the mountains disappeared below me, I reflected on out time in Tibet. Frankly, I had not had a great time. I don’t know what I was expecting when we came to Tibet, but I was not leaving happy. I had been unwell the whole time we were there, with Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), dehydration and diarrhoea. The hotels we stayed in weren’t the best value for money and neither was the food. The scenery, temple and people we met made up a lot, but there was another reason why our stay in Tibet didn’t have happy memories.
On the day we arrived in Lhasa, the Easter Sunday 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka rocked the World. When the news reached us in Tibet, and left us all shaken to the core. It had been 10 years since the end of the civil war, when suicide bombings occurred with alarming regularity. But everyone (including us) had thought that this had been firmly consigned to the history books since the war ended. Easter Sunday events showed that this was not to be the case. So every morning and evening since arriving in Tibet, we were glued to our mobile phones, trying to find out as much information about the what was happening in Sri Lanka. I’m sure that this, above all coloured our experiences in Tibet, although it had nothing to do with Tibet.
1800: Back in Chengdu. After, Tibet, Chengdu was busy, urban, and humid.
We were staying at the Buddha-Zen hotel in Chengdu, where we had stayed before. It is beautifully decorated and its restaurant serves great Sichuan food.
Although we didn’t do much today, we felt tired from the travelling, so we decided to call in a day. Tomorrow, we are travelling to Leshan, to see the Giant Buddha statue.
Diary of a Tourist 
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