And now for the bad news....

Last week 5 student from Students for a Free Tibet protested at Everest Base Camp and were thrown out of the country. It was a peaceful protest (they raised the Tibetan flag and sang the Tibetan national anthem), but one guy ran and somehow sent his video of the protest out - you can see it up on youtube. Read the CNN article here: 4 held for protest on Mount Everest

All this has irritated the Chinese government in Tibet and they have severely tightened permit regulations...so much so that they have been requiring an approved Chinese guide for all groups and you must be in a group. It also seems that they are not even issuing permits to some places - Everest Base Camp being one of them. It's hard to say, things are changing everyday. They have been turning travellers back from places along the Friendship Highway and making them return to Lhasa. Also, the approved guides are in short supply - one agency we visited said that they couldn't arrange a tour for us at all, at any price. So it looks like we cannot ride to Nepal, and it might be that we cannot even get to Nepal from Tibet and we will have to leave Tibet through China (people going direct also have to pass the checkpoint near Everest Base Camp and that requires a permit).

We are not happy bunnies, as you can well imagine. We are not giving up hope though, don't you worry!!!! :) There is a lot of riding to do around Lhasa and there are no checkpoints as far as Gyantse...so my tattoo eyes may get to see the originals that inspired them at Kumbum Monastery (but we are not going to push it!). We are still trying working on a plan and we will let you know as soon as we know. If we can get to Nepal we may just go ride the Annapurna Circuit, who knows :)

We do want you to know that even though the Chinese Government has their knickers in a twist over this protest - WE ARE SAFE! There is no danger for foreign tourists, they are just restricting our movements outside of the Lhasa area.

We will not let this put a cramp in our totally chilled out traveller mood - we are still having a great time and seeing and experiencing some beautiful things.

Later!