Shanghai'd

Turns out things are worse than I even knew. Not only is the entire group visa in jeopardy, but Laurel and I are in an even worse lot than the rest. For some incomprehensible reason, it is forbidden to enter Tibet from Kathmandu with a Chinese work permit, like Laurel and I currently possess. Where does this leave us? Infuriatingly, our only options are:

1) Cancel our work permits and get issued a temporary tourist visa to enter Tibet. This is unacceptable since there is no guarantee we could regain our work permission status at a later date without significant time and financial loss.

2) Return to Chengdu (where we started 2 days ago as you may remember), re-apply for a separate Tibet travel permit, and re-enter Lhasa from Chengdu with our work permits.

As absurd as it sounds, option 2 is looking like our only hope. It would be like putting our life on rewind 2 days, backtracking several thousand miles and starting over. TIC. This Is China.

To add to the complexity of the situation, we still have no indication of the visa status of the rest of the group. We may all fly to Lhasa tomorrow as planned (Laurel and I sidetrip to Chengdu and meet up with the group in a few days). We also may not obtain the rest of the group's China visa until Oct. 10!

Bottow line: our Tibet trip is in serious jeopardy (double jeopardy?). We should know more at our group meeting in 20 minutes. Wish us luck, as we could really use some good news about now.