DJ - Greetings, we have entered Lhasa, the capital of Tibet and we are glad for it, although with high altitude, it's hard to do simple things, such as breathing. The elevation here is 12,500 feet. Lhasa is the second highest city in the world. We'll leave it to you to research where the highest city in the world is , it's very close to Lhasa, but as part of our sharing this experience, we invite you to discover where the highest city is and we'll pass that fact on to you in another report. This is the update for Carl and Don in Lhasa, Tibet trying to keep it together and go forward on our journey around the world. We're doing OK, but beginning to feel the fatigue and the strain of the travel and of the physical demands of so many factors. So in a synopsis, we've arrived in Lhasa. To add to the intrigue, there is some question as to how and if we'll be able to leave China. This has to do with road conditions over the Himalayas and recent landslides and typhoon rains that have washed out bridges. There are a lot of rumors circulating amongst the participants and we're scheduled to leave at 6:30 AM tomorrow, our time. We're approximately one half day on the other side of the world from where you are. This report being sent your way on a day off at about 11 AM on whatever day it is. I'll look at my clock here that says 9/16, Tuesday. One tends to lose track of the days when you're out here proceeding on this journey. What you do is you struggle and deal with what you have to do at the moment and lose track of time.

The '54 Packard has just been brutalized by the driving conditions. The roads here are used primarily by trucks. We want to be very fair to the Chinese. It isn't that they're not doing their best to keep up, in fact, one analogy I would make is to have roads in this terrain is like asking to have roads in all of Alaska, where there practically are none, or asking the Canadians to have roads in northern Canada, something that is just impossible. And it's a near impossibility here, but there is a roadway and it's used 90% by heavy trucks, millions of trucks that move across all of China. We are 3,580 kilometers from Peking and it was 1,300 miles from Golmund to Lhasa through a vast frontier. Not very many people and spectacular scenery. We crossed a mountain range pass yesterday of 15,400 feet and did that successfully. We mentioned that breathing is difficult here. We had a tire blowout just 10 kilometers outside of Lhasa and we were able to ask the public safety officers, otherwise known as the local police to help us change the tire. You'd think that changing a tire would be something that two adult men could possibly do, but simply breathing and exerting yourself is very, very hard. So the public safety officers here, who do many things to help visitors, agreed and offered to help us change the tire. We offered them in exchange the equivalent of 12 US dollars, or 100 Yuan Chinese. They declined to accept, however they were having fruit after we changed the tire and we offered to purchase an apple from them in exchange for 100 Yuan which they accepted. The average wage of a Chinese person is about 450 US dollars, or in Chinese about 200 Yuan for the six million public safety officers and about 400 Yuan for a professional college educated person. In the United States the medium income is about $25,800 dollars.

Here in Tibet, there is tremendous mystery of the culture and the history of Lhasa. Many people killed, died up until the 1930's trying to enter the Forbidden City of Lhasa. It was in the 1930's that the British sent a military detachment from India to enter Lhasa. The Russians attempted to engage the Tibetans in some sort of arrangement from the North. They were not successful at that. Our recollection is that the first Americans to enter Lhasa were some American aviators who had to bail out at night from their aircraft as they were crossing the Himalayas and they landed by parachute in a place they did not know where they were or what it was about and it turned out to be Lhasa. It was in 1959 that the Han Chinese, who are the 90% race in all of China, took control of Tibet and the controversy has swirled since then. The Dalai Lama, the religious, political and economic leader of Tibet is in exile. You can learn more about Tibet in exile by finding the web site that contains information about Tibet (www.tibet.com). Here in this city of 203,000 and this province of 2.2 million people, they consume tea at the rate of 25 cups a day and they include yak butter in their tea. The people are very, very cordial. They remind you of Peruvian Indians or the native people of Chile, very similar in their colorful dress and their skin tones and in their very pleasing manners.

Some other thoughts we'd like to share with you on this update. We've explained many times that this is not a race and to illustrate that, our average speed in the last 48 hours has been 37 kilometers an hour, that's approximately 22 miles an hour. We're very thankful telephone messages here in Lhasa from my Mother who passed along some information about the fact that Lake Superior is much larger than Koko Nor, the very large lake where we attempted to camp out. I say attempted because the temperature reached approximately 8 degrees. They say that we're suppose to camp out or tent out as we cross the Himalayas and within view of Mt. Everest and they say the temperature there is below freezing, so we don't know quite what to expect, other than another sleepless night. Well, my Mother, who I just find wonderful and has been a tremendous influence in my life in learning and gathering knowledge, reports that Lake Superior is 350 miles by 160 miles, which contrasts with 150 miles by 50 miles for China's largest lake, Koko Nor. My Mother also researched from her atlas information the fact that the square miles in China are 3.6 million and that contrasts to the United States, which is 3.7 million. So China, from a square mileage basis, has almost 6 times more people, that being 1.2 billion, with slightly less square mileage that the United States with 260 million people in the US population.

The Potala which is the monastery of Buddhism dominates the landscape here in the city of Lhasa. We'll have an opportunity this day to visit that monastery. We are grateful to be in an urban city, however, we're reminded how far and detached we are from the rest of the world. The newspapers here arrive one week later than they're published. So the newspaper we were able to secure here from the hotel, The China Daily, English language is the same paper we read in Peking seven days ago. There are 10 channels of television. CNN being one of them, the International CNN, and two Star TV, which is the Asian television service from Hong Kong for all of Asia.

The '54 Packard is showing signs of wear and tear. Keeping air in the tires, keeping the spark plugs clean, keeping the carburetor going, very basic things are all of what we're struggling with, but we're pretty convinced that if anything can push through these conditions and succeed, the Packard ought to be able to do it. The question is can the drivers do that? We're privileged to be here. We're aware of what an awesome proposition this is, although each day we discover how really awesome it is and we're determined to persevere.

The other competitors are quite remarkable in their resourcefulness. There are teams here from the UK - they tend to be sort of fiddlers and fettle with their equipment. They also tend to need a lot of hand holding. The Greek team which is operating a '55 Chevy are very congenial and delightful people to be with. One of them is a surgeon. The Iranian team, which has three cars, are going right along. Very friendly people, very skilled in their auto mechanics and being resourceful with the conditions. The Australians are very good natured. The French team are very determined to win the competition by staying up with the very complex daily timing system and the demands of meeting the course timing. Our aspiration is to meet the standards necessary to stay on the course and to get to Paris and to secure a metal in the process. So far we remain qualified to do that. The Americans who are still entered in the competition are described as easy going and easy to be around and easy to get along with. On the other hand, the Europeans kind of look down their noses at the American equipment and at the American comprehension of the difficulty and what it takes to get through these various cultures, these various conditions. Our next task is to get to Katmandu, which is on the other side of the Himalayas and they tell us as difficult as things have been up to this point that they're going to be even more difficult to get to Kathmandu. That will be a three day process beginning tomorrow.

Those are some random thoughts. I find that as I attempt to prepare these reports that my mind is a little bit disconbobbled, if that is a real word, in that I'm not quite as organized and one does feel the effects of the altitude. Airplanes have to be pressured and have oxygen at 8,000 feet and so one is reminded constantly as you walk about, as you even talk, as I am now, that to be at this altitude and to try to carry on normally is really not very likely. We're OK and the car is hanging in there and we're pleased to have this day of rest and to catch up with some messages from family and friends. We're also pleased that we can share this experience with you. It is so very much more meaningful to be able to do that and for me it was probably the only way that I was willing to take this time away from family life by knowing we could stay in contact and so far, we've been able to do that and that is really quite encouraging.

Carl himself is doing fine. Getting more rest than we've been able to get the last couple of days. Physically doing well. He did mention that his belt buckle had shrunk two notches and that he's gotten to the point where there isn't another notch in his belt. So that's another problem that we'll have to solve, but a good one. And my belt seems to be moving a notch or two also.

That's the report for now from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. This capital city has been sort of under control of the Chinese since 1959 and the source of a lot of world controversy as to what is correct and proper for Tibet. We'll not get into the political dissertation, but we'll tell you there are a lot of books on the subject. There's a tremendous amount of mystery and intrigue and almost incredible, incomprehensible things that have happened throughout history in all of Tibet and particularly from this regional capital city of Lhasa. We're told that Richard Halliburton, a famous American explorer in the 20's and 30's, wrote a lot of books and made a lot of travel documentaries on the subject and his material would be a good place to begin to learn. So we've made it to Lhasa. We've persevered through some pretty difficult conditions, certainly out of the norm of what our experience is. We're pleased to be in Lhasa and we're gathering out breath and getting ready to proceed across the Roof of the World, the Himalayan Mountains, within about 40 kilometers of the peak of Mt. Everest. We'll actually be at the base camp of Mt. Everest for one of our camp outs if we do proceed in that direction. I'll conclude with the observation that there is some question as to where we're going to be able to go and how we're going to be able to leave China and get to either India or Pakistan from Tibet. We'll tell you in the next 24 hours what happens. Stay with us and thanks for joining us for yet another update on this our tenth day of travel from Peking to Paris. So long until the next time.