Nomad Tent in Namsto 
Prison Cell styled room - Old Tingri Namtse Hotel in Lhasa
Gyantse Hotel
Accomodation is very key to one's comfort. I must say that our experiences were quite good! We went through the conventional Guesthouses in Lhasa (which's quite okay), the hardcore Nomad Tent, to one prison-cell-alike guesthouse in Old Tingri. All in all i think that we did well, managed to improvise and survived the ordeal!
1)Namtse Hotel - Guesthouse/hotel in Lhasa City.
I would name this as our homeground. The rooms are tidy and neat, and they serve both hot/cold drinking water. In additional to that, the beds are fine (just that the pillows ain too good). Beggars can't be choosers but all of us slept relatively well here..
The only problem would be the bathing facilities. Either the water was darn hot or cold, and it was such a chore trying to shower at night when the tempreature hit about 10 degs or so. It doesn't help when I have such long hair. Should have gotten a good haircut before I head off to Tibet.
Well well, we all learnt, don't we.
The breakie was bad, seriously bad. However Kelly seemed to love it. They serve porridge, with some pickles and hardboiled eggs. Hmm not that bad but I had to eat for 4-5 days..Too sick of it by the end of the trip. Also, the eatery has an odd smell which I don't fancy.
2) Lhasa hotel near the 'Red-light' District.
Unforunately I do not have the name of the hotel. The rooms were fine, however the switches to the lights were challenging to find. At first the girls did not really like the shower area as there wasn't a bathtub to contain the water. However the shower head was relatively strong! Haha the toilet flushed! Both Kelly and I were exhilarated when we realised that the loo did not give out a foul smell. Why are we so paranoid, let's read on.
3) Gyantse Hotel
It was quite a nice set up, very clean and neat with pretty wallpapers. The only problem was that the loo couldn't flush. We tried to get the lady to repair but she disappeared after getting help. Well well, I had to try to psycho myself not to make cake in the middle of the night , as this would be detrimental to my relationship with my roommate should I bomb the loo in the middle of the night and the flush is not working!
4) Old Tingri
Hmm quite a hardcore place. But it was actually kinda not too bad as our Namsto Nomad tent was the most hardcore out of all. At least we felt warm , thanks to structures known as 'Concrete Walls' that blocked the cold wind.
Basically its a row of little rooms, each room has 2 beds, one metal grill window and a door. Hence I nicknamed it as "Prison-cell". There's a little lightbulb that hangs from the ceiling. I think illegal immigrants would find the set up familiar to them, as we commonly watch on tv.
But we were quite entertained without our usual dose of Taiwan idol drama and HK drama serials. We were following the entire series whenever we had tv in front of us. Not in Old Tingri. No music/TV makes Jack a dull boy. We used Mavis' Sonywalkman phone and played some songs. No disco lights, no worries. Torchlights/Metlights were useful to create the sort of effect. 4 of us started dancing in one room and that was really effective to keep us warm! :) It was so crazy and fun!
Brushing teeth and washing up were challenging. We just made do with wetwipes and used our bottles of water to brush our teeth right outside the drain outside our homes. :D
5) Namtso- The ultimate Test.
It wasn't easy to keep ourselves warm in a NomadTent. We had some beddings and blankets. It was hard to fall asleep when the dogs howling was a direct stereo effect as soon the lights were off. Other animals were making tonnes of noise. :(
Plus the high altitude, it made it more difficult to fall asleep. I doubt i slept much.. I wore so many layers to keep myself warm... And there wasn't a stove in the camp that kept us warm. Hot bottles were key to keep us warm while we tried to get to sleep. The heavy blankets made it tough to for me toss around... Grrrr. Totally not enjoyable. But it was those 'been there done that' sort of experience! :)
5) Smelly-loo Shigatse Hotel
The room was big and spacious, but guess what, the loo was STINKY. It smelt of sewage... and we had to close the door all the time.
Grrrr. Ha never judge a book by its covers, Never judge a hotel by its pure physical look!
***
In short, we had a fair share of sleeping in different places. Packing and unpacking our haversack was a daily routine. What we care most are the following basic requirements:
1) Clean beds
2) Bathroom that works : Showers/Toilet flush
Well the pictures didn't come up to look really nice cos its not ez to navigate around this blogspot. Heheh.
Well. :D
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