Thursday 25 October 2018. Tibet Photos.
Highlights: Train to Lhasa, bargaining for souvenirs (but not very well)

The day was dominated by severe swelling in my face. Yesterday afternoon my face swelled up like a ballon on the left side which today started expanding to front as well.

After speaking to members of our group and undertaking research it appeared there are three possibilities:

1. Infection
2. Altitude sickness
3. Food allergy

I organised to take medicine for all three possibilities. I think it’s a combination of 1 & 2. As I haven’t had a food allergy before. For the infection I’ll be taking antibiotics three times a day for the next 3-4 days. There is a dentist in our group and she helped me get the right antibiotics if it’s a mouth infection.

It will take at least 2 days to fix itself but only if I have taken the right medicine. While this wasn’t painful it wasn’t comfortable either. I’d prefer to deal with this issues back at home if possible.

The group all decided to upgrade to a 2.5 hour train from Shigatse to Lhasa instead of 8-9 hour bus ride. This meant we left our hotel at 6 am. We left our main bags with our driver and set out on this train journey that felt like we were about 30% in tunnels under the mountain.

On arrival in Lhasa it was much colder than last time, about 13 degrees, and small specks of snow floated to the ground.

A visit to the pharmacy saw my medicine settled for the next few days. At the hotel I decided to skipped lunch (I had also skipped breakfast) took a shower and the medicine and went to sleep for a few hours.

I did eventually go out to buy some souvenirs but I barely bargained for anything. I’m not good at bargaining at the best of times, if I feel the price is right but today I barely had the energy. Still I was happy to pick up the items I did.

That night at the group dinner I noticed that my swelling had gone down in the front of my face but not yet on my left cheek, still go process and hopefully will be much better tomorrow for our flight out of Lhasa, Tibet and back to Kathmandu, Nepal.