We’ve been hiding in our hostel room trying to recover for the past three days. I’m feeling much better but V’s is turning into a head cold. Besides watching too much ‘West Wing’ and listening to weird books (like Neil Gaimen’s ‘American Gods’) we have snuck out only to get essentials such as tea, biscuits & meds. Excursions are limited to a couple hours – after that we both start feeling horrid.

We’ve paid up our Tibet trip and made another change. We leave tomorrow night by train. It will take around 36 hours to get to Lhasa. After our 8 day tour we have booked a flight to Kunming (the cash we saved having two extra people join us has saved us from spending 3 nights on trains getting back to Kunming). We haven’t yet met the other two people – apparently two girls (from Belgium and Holland).

Yesterday we went on a bit of a mission to replace the camera. We hopped on a bus and headed South to the area known as ‘Digital Plaza’ (intersection of the first ring road and Ren Min Nan Lu). The place is incredible. Imagine a 6 storey mall with almost every square metre of floor space crammed with stalls and shops selling every piece of cool tech known to man. What a spot ! I could have blown our entire trip budget in 30 minutes. Walking around made us feel instantly better – it must have been all the excited electrons and wifi signals affecting our auras 🙂 We replaced our camera with exactly the same one (so I can pretend it never happened) for the same price we paid in Hong Kong. For sure we could have bargained it down but we were getting tired. One thing to note about the place – every time you go up a floor the price drops (and not by a little). I left there drooling. Across the street we found a strip of outdoor gear shops. Double bonus. Maybe not. Not the greatest selection of gear – mostly clothing.

On the we back to the hostel we stopped in at a pharmacy armed with some aids – photos of pill boxes that have worked before and a translation for Cortisone Cream – 氢化可的松（副肾荷尔蒙之一种）药膏 – from Google (I have got a nasty rash that is quite concerning). We entertained the pharmacy staff for 20 minutes before leaving with a pile of drugs – mission accomplished.

We only leave in the evening tomorrow so we have the day to get supplies for the train. Spotted a fancy bottle store the other day. Here’s hoping for a small bottle of decent Scotch.

[Pictures: There be a Mecca in there]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi