It was a long drive from Everest Base Camp back to Shigatse where everyone fell asleep in the van, exhausted from a night without any sleep. 

We stopped for lunch where our guide chose an extremely overpriced restaurant. Previously they arranged a bunch of shared dishes and a reasonable price for us to pay per person to make it more affordable and quicker, but in this place they said we could order what we wanted. 

Craig and I picked the Nepali dal bhat, a silver tray filled with curries and rice and it was not only the cheapest item on the menu, but clearly the right thing to order because our food arrived first. 

Our friend had to send back his boneless chicken curry as it consisted of only bones, and another girl’s spaghetti was fluorescent orange. Some people in our group waited almost an hour for their food, but it was actually quite hard not to laugh because we began assessing people’s reactions and emotions when food came out but it wasn’t theirs. “He’s going through the four stages of grief right now…” said the Singaporean guy, causing us all to crack up laughing. 

We arrived at around 9pm in Shigatse, grabbed some noodles at a nearby Chinese restaurant and fell asleep in a room where oxygen was being piped in – what a joy! 

The following morning we headed to Tashilhunpo Monastery, one of the few to survive the Cultural Revolution and now the largest religious institute in Tibet, home to 950 monks. 

Just like the previous monasteries we visited, our guide wasn’t giving us any information about Tibetan Buddhism, and he kept contradicting what our guide from Lhasa said about the white walls being made from a mix of white stone, yak milk, sugar and butter, saying to us “It’s bullshit.”

We’d had enough of him so we slipped away and began exploring the monastery on our own. It was a big complex with a mix of Tibetans and monks passing us in the courtyard area, with some monks wearing yellow robes and fabulous velvet boots. 

Just being five minutes ahead of the group entirely changed our experience from negative to positive. We were having a much more authentic experience without our guide loudly shouting facts while Tibetans were trying to focus on praying. 

Inside one of the temples, a lady grabbed my hand and touched it to her head. We also saw many of them rubbing their heads or beads along a bronze wheel in the centre of the room. 

A huge Buddha statue was in one of the rooms, and the remains of three previous lamas sat inside elaborate stupas adorned with jewels. The monastery was busy with pilgrims and some temples had security outside to help with crowds and form queues. So it felt wrong allowing tourists to enter because they were rushing the locals to pray to keep the queue moving.

After a couple of hours it was time to start the long drive back to Lhasa, check into the same hotel as when we first arrived and head out to Barkhor Street to soak in the last of Tibet before we left. We stopped at a hidden rooftop eatery selling just a few items on their menu, and we chose a Nepali curry plate which was not only cheap but also delicious. From the roof we had a view of the monasteries and mountains. 

I was delighted to come across a couple of women heavily adorned with jewels. I decided to risk asking one of them for a photo and she happily obliged. She looked fabulous, with huge slabs of amber placed above her forehead. It was decorated with pieces of vibrant red coral and turquoise which she draped across her neatly plaited hair. Ironically, she was shopping for even more jewels, and she seemed to know everyone who walked past, greeting them warmly with a classic Tibetan symbol of respect – by sticking her tongue out. 

We did a little bit of shopping, buying a yak fur crafted item which we’ll hang from the mirror of our next car, and a nice turquoise ring to add to my collection. Before we headed back to our hotel, we stopped at a Mixue to buy a cheap ice cream, and it’s hard to not dance to the catchy music while queuing up. The shop worker seemed to appreciate our excitement and he translated into our phone “Welcome to Lhasa, let me buy you a treat!” Before presenting us with two free mint ice creams! 

Then it was time to shower and melt into our bed, because tomorrow we had the long train journey back to Xining, China where the time flew by pretty fast as we watched snow capped peaks through our window.