Five thousand meters above sea level

In a pleasant surprise, my room here in Lhasa has a computer with internet access, unlimited usage and free of charge. I am also sharing my room with a mouse, one that roams untethered to the computer and was last seen somewhere between the television and the wall. A fair trade, I'd say.

The train ride here took more than twenty-four hours and stopped only twice. The train twisted through the North Eastern parts of Tibet, through the outskirts of the Himalayan range. The scenery was pretty awesome.

Snow capped mountains as jagged as the Rockies; the worlds highest lake; silt-covered riverbeds framing crystal clear glacier rivers; frozen tundra; rolling plains and foothills as lush as a windows desktop picture... all sandwiched by lots of naps. so, so many naps.

The thin air definitely is getting to some. The conductor lady who was servicing my car had to stand outside at a stop for about thirty-minutes, and when she got back in she was literally a shade of pale blue.

I seem to have suffered no ill-effects thusfar, but I haven't really spent more than ten to fifteen minutes at a time outside. I like to think my superior conditioning has more to do with my imperviousness to human weakness however.

As a bonus, I've managed to read three books so far this trip and am halfway through Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Normally it takes me ages to read Klein's writing, just because I spend half my time re-reading passages to filter out her angry-rhetoric from the actual points of note. I must say that compared to No Logo, her newest book is much less openly antagonistic, it really is a more effective criticism of corporate capitalism. Her research is really impressive, it's much more meaty than simple activist sentiment and doesn't have the pervasive single-mindedness of No Logo.

I'm not done but I highly suggest it to anyone with even a mild interest in cutting to the heart of geo-political matters and what is happening in the world around us, behind the wall of media.

Going to check out The Potala Palace tomorrow morning, it's on a giant hill in the middle of the city, illuminated as the bus drove from the train station to my hotel. It's actually quite similar to how the Parthenon in Athens is visible on the hill from everywhere in the city, it should be an interesting excursion.

Internet one more night as I'll be in Lhasa at least another few days.