by Ying Yang

Created on: August 21, 2009

Traveling anywhere should be an adventure: a thrilling, challenging journey into the unknown - traveling to Tibet was no exception. In the Christmas of 2006, my Dad and I decided to go on a sight-seeing trip to Tibet; a sort of father-daughter bonding thing (awww...). Our trip was fraught with troubles, but we also had some moments of pure luck and wonder. It really was an unforgettable experience.

Our trip started off smoothly; we joined a Chinese tour group in Guangzhou and took the few hours' flight to Cheng Du, the capital city of South-Western China's Si Chuan province. We spent the night wandering along Cheng Du's famous Pedestrian Street, a boulevard full of food stalls and shops. A word of warning though, Si Chuan people like their food HOT, and by that I mean really, really, unbearably spicy! Dad loved the food there, but me... well, I settled for a bowl of two-minute noodles for dinner.

The next morning we got up early in time to catch one of only two flights that leave for Lhasa (capital of Tibet) each day. However, at the airport our travel plans hit a major roadblock: Chinese bureaucracy. Dad and I are New Zealand citizens, not "legally" Chinese (still a hard fact for Dad to swallow since he was born and raised in China), and so we weren't "legally" allowed into Tibet like the other tourists in our group. The travel agency had already told us this and we had paid them a whole lot of extra money to sort out visas for us. We thought there shouldn't be a problem. But, according to the lady at the check-in counter, visas were not enough; we needed an "invitation letter" from someone in Tibet. This would apparently 'prove' that we were just innocent tourists, not terrorists or anything of the sort.

While Dad was arguing away with the lady, our flight took off and I was ready to throw a major tantrum. For several hours, we sat at the airport desperate to sort out some way to continue our trip: we called the travel agency in Guangzhou, but they couldn't do anything to help. We then called the agency in Lhasa, but they weren't open. Just as the final boarding call was being announced, Dad tried one last time to get on the flight. This time we went to a different check-in counter, showed our passports and visas, and unbelievably, the lady there let us straight through! Shocking... That was the extent of their border control security: if you can't get through one check-in counter, try your luck at the next one?

At last, we were finally on

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