The Escape

Thankfully there was no buzz at midnight (oh right, we had disconnected the buzzer). And there were no tourist police to issue us a fine. We never did meet the tourist agent and go back for our permits either.

At 7:15am we were still debating our options. A further complication had developed overnight. My slight feeling of illness worsened into a fever, chills, stomach cramps and a cough. Tibet was difficult enough without tackling a 17,000 foot pass with a cough. This was the land where hotels installed oxygen-generating machines in the rooms. Should I risk going to higher elevations, colder weather and further from any city? What if I got worse?

John looked at his watch. "8:30 Janet. It's crunch time. What do we do?" The tour agent would be at our door in thirty minutes. A bus to Lhasa was leaving in fifteen.

I exploded into a fit of coughing and reached for my water bottle. "I think...we go...back...to...Lhasa," I eeked out between gasps for air.

"Let's do it then."

We left a note at reception for the tour agent. We felt a bit like we were sneaking out on him after assuring him we wanted the jeep. "Glad we didn't sign anything," I said.

We hailed a pedicab. "To the bus station," John said. "And step on it." The driver pushed on his pedals and we were off.

The mini buses were lined up ready to go. "Lhasa, Lhasa, Lhasa," the boy shouted out the door of one bus. We threw our packs in the trunk and climbed on board. There was a German traveler on our bus. He too had gotten a knock on his door by the tourist police. In Nyalam he had been told he could not go further. He had to return to Lhasa.

Our decision to return to Lhasa turned out to be a wise one. I was sick for the next few days (apparently something was going around).

Our last days in Tibet were spent relaxing, drinking tea and making phone calls to find air tickets back to China and the USA. Lately we had both been thinking of home more and more. John kept mentioning the fall colors in New England. I kept thinking about hiking in the White Mountains in that color. I felt bad that John hadn't seen Everest. But he didn't seem to mind. "We've got the rest of our lives to see Everest," he said. "We've seen Russia, Mongolia, China, and now Tibet. I'm happy and I'm ready to go home."

"You got a permit for that?"