After two nights in the dismal, smelly room in the Tashi, we moved to the very pleasant, clean and friendly Pentoc Hotel across the street. It was just 80 yuan a night (a little less than US$10), compared to 60 yuan a night at the Tashi. In a guest notebook in town, we saw a note accusing the Pentoc of being a front for missionaries.

Whatever. It's probably the best budget hotel in Tibet. The room was immaculate and painted in Tibetan style (red and blue). The showers were private, clean and hot. They showed videos in the lobby every night (We watched Schindler's List and The Fugitive). They let us keep our bikes in a locked back room on the ground floor (no carrying them up narrow staircases), where I could also work on them. They sold Snickers bars at the front desk. We loved the Pentoc.

So many Chinese have moved into Lhasa that the capitol of Tibet now has a Tibetan Quarter instead of a Chinatown. The Pentoc was located in the Tibetan Quarter. The rest of Lhasa's new, uncontrolled sprawl is rather like the towns around Chengdu.

However, in the sprawl we found a Chinese restaurant we really liked, called something like “The Wonderful Tea House and Vegetarian Restaurant.” A woman whose English name was Grace ran the place and we really liked her. (Unfortunately she pronounced her English name, ‘grease’). She had been a school teacher in rural Tibet for a few years before. We ate lunch there almost every day.

One of the many foods we missed in China was bread. Usually, all you can get is a stale tasting, starchy and strangely sweet Wonder Bread white that was not good even with real butter on it. (We got the same bread in the Philippines). The Wonderful Tea House had a brand new bread maker, so a couple times we got fresh hot bread. We liked it so much we got them to make a few loaves we took with us for our ride across Tibet.

One day while we ate, a stern-looking Chinese man in uniform came in. He didn't look like he wanted to eat. He looked like an angry inspector looking for trouble. We thought maybe he saw our bikes out front and would harass us about riding around without a tour group which we had read can happen. But he didn't exactly harass us (other than wandering over to our table and staring at us for a few seconds). Instead, he harassed poor Grace. She looked nervous and off-balance. Even without understanding their conversation we could tell this guy was a real jerk.

When he finally left Grace, who seemed slightly shaken, we asked her if she was OK. She said, “I don't like people like that, don't say anything”

We did two day rides to help us acclimatize: one to Sera Monastery and then to Drepung. Sera had lots of beggars. Drepung was a lot better, and a lot more fun to look around.

The monasteries are collections of very solid stone and mud buildings, some quite old, with lots of chapels that have Buddha statues, some covered with real gold. Unlike other Buddhist countries we've seen, Tibet has many statues of people and deities besides Buddha: mostly Dalai Lamas.

Because the statues are valuable, they're often kept behind a chicken-wire fence. The chapels are locked with 59-cent padlocks. (Actually there is some security. The Potala recently installed video cameras for security) Pilgrims fold money into the holes in the chicken wire, or pile notes on plates in front of the statues. We saw Thai, India, Nepali, U.S., Dutch, and other currencies. Most were worth pennies. The most valuable note we saw was 100 yuan, worth about US$12.

Many of the chapels also had rooms full of books. The books are about two- to three-feet long, but only one foot wide. They're stuck in cubby holes, and look like safe deposit boxes. At one place, they laid a book out open so we could see inside. Each page had just four lines of great calligraphy, and one detailed, colorful picture.

In most chapels, the Buddha statues and libraries were in long, skinny side chambers off a large main room. Instead of pews the main room had cushions on the floor. We almost never saw anyone using these mats. Everyone walked through the small side chambers. Some stopped to light candles or give money.

The only bad thing about the chapels: you've seen one, you've seen ’em all. At least to a layman like me. We probably saw 50 chapels before we left Lhasa, and that was plenty.

Ditto for the Potala, the traditional home of the Dalai Lamas. It was gorgeous, elegant and had amazing statues. But we felt like we'd seen it all before. We arrived on a weekend, and had to join a tour that followed some monks around. The monks would unlock a 59-cent padlock, usher us into a chapel, go ahead of us to open the next room, and then come back to close the previous room. We were led through about 20 chapels for two hours and then we wanted to leave. But all the doors were locked. They wanted us to just stay with the tour. We said we had to go. They couldn't believe we would skip Chapel x or Chapel y. We finally convinced them to let us out.

In one of the best chapels in the Potala, we met a young Tibetan man wearing a baseball cap who claimed to be a monk in residence. As we sat in front of a Buddha gilded with over four tons of gold, he told us in hushed tones that half the resident of the Potala were Chinese police--there to put down any uprising by the monks. As the traditional residence of the Dalai Lamas, the Potala is Tibet's version of the White House. Only Tibet isn't supposed to have its own government, since it's occupied by the Chinese). Our monk said the day before, a Chinese film crew had come to the Potala, and had done disrespectful things like allowing soldiers to sit on the actual throne of the 5th (most revered) Dalai Lama. The monks were pissed. Our monk surmised the Chinese were making a revisionist film about Tibet history. Who knows.

A few days before we left Lhasa, we met some more cyclists who planned to ride the Friendship Highway: Team Norway, Petter and Anna. They planned to do the ride on mountain bikes they had bought in Lhasa. We had heard that other had done the same thing with few problems. But Petter and Anna were already having problems. One day we saw them outside a bike store. They were getting a flat tire repaired--and their bikes were only one day old.

Team Norway were going to really press their bikes. They had a lot of weight, including 30 pounds of camera equipment. But they weren't fazed. They had a lot of time to do the ride, and if all else failed, they could hitch out of Tibet on a truck. I admired their spirit.

I was nervous as hell about our bikes. I feared some unknown flaw would show itself at a bad time--like anytime on the 1,100km between Lhasa and Kathmandu. We hadn't been to a proper bike store in 3,000 miles (last one was in Bangkok) and even then, I couldn't get all the parts I wanted. My rear rim, which I had bought in the Philippines was of questionable quality. My derailleur had been behaving poorly. My bottom bracket was leaking and needed to be repacked. Joan's bike seemed OK, but then again, it was OK just before her rear hub cracked in Southern Thailand.

Just before we left, Team Swiss arrived. We partied with them for our last two night in Lhasa.

Next: On the road at last.

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