As journeys go, the overnight bus to Shangri La has to rank up there as one of the worst. The bus consisted of bunks of "beds" which were more like sun loungers but with no room to stretch your legs out unless you happen to be under 5 foot. Within 5 minutes I had vowed that I would never subject myself to the contortion required for any degree of comfort (and I use that term lightly) to be achieved. After barely a snooze we arrived at our destination at the ridiculous time of 4am where we caught a cab to
our booked hostel. Of course no-one was up at such a god forsaken hour and being unable to wake anyone and no other hotels showing sign of life we resorted to putting on all our warm gear, for the temperature had dropped now we were above 3000m, and lying out on the benches outside tramp style! A breakfast of spicy noodles went some way to revive our spirits and we hit the travel agents to try and sort out our Tibet leg. Having established that no-one would sell us
just a flight and permit alone we were lucky enough to bump into 2 American journalists, Claire and Stephen, who were looking for another couple to share a trip from Lhasa to the Nepalese border. We had initially hoped to travel the whole way overland but that was going to be cripplingly expensive and so we agreed to hook up with them for the trip. We were especially fortunate as they had already spent a week looking for travel companions and we were in our first day! After checking a few companies for final quotes we ended up booking an 8 day trip with
a character our American friends had already dubbed "Shady Guy". Having ticked our job bow the afternoon was spent relaxing in the old town (that has just been either renovated or built from scratch) and then watching the locals, young and old, dancing in the square.
As journeys go, the overnight bus to Shangri La has to rank up there as one of the worst. The bus consisted of bunks of "beds" which were more like sun loungers but with no room to stretch your legs out unless you happen to be under 5 foot. Within 5 minutes I had vowed that I would never subject myself to the contortion required for any degree of comfort (and I use that term lightly) to be achieved. After barely a snooze we arrived at our destination at the ridiculous time of 4am where we caught a cab to 
our booked hostel. Of course no-one was up at such a god forsaken hour and being unable to wake anyone and no other hotels showing sign of life we resorted to putting on all our warm gear, for the temperature had dropped now we were above 3000m, and lying out on the benches outside tramp style! A breakfast of spicy noodles went some way to revive our spirits and we hit the travel agents to try and sort out our Tibet leg. Having established that no-one would sell us 
just a flight and permit alone we were lucky enough to bump into 2 American journalists, Claire and Stephen, who were looking for another couple to share a trip from Lhasa to the Nepalese border. We had initially hoped to travel the whole way overland but that was going to be cripplingly expensive and so we agreed to hook up with them for the trip. We were especially fortunate as they had already spent a week looking for travel companions and we were in our first day! After checking a few companies for final quotes we ended up booking an 8 day trip with 
a character our American friends had already dubbed "Shady Guy". Having ticked our job bow the afternoon was spent relaxing in the old town (that has just been either renovated or built from scratch) and then watching the locals, young and old, dancing in the square.
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