Day 25 – Yeah got my Tibet Travel Permit!

By bogaert
I was going to write about a total different topic today. Last night we came back a bit later then expected and we still had a hell lot of work to do today. I almost thought about skipping a day in my blog. But today’s day had a great unexpected end!
This morning I was desperate getting a great coffee. A few text messages later Megan and I went to Starbucks to get two Grande Americano. Our team worked the entire day on tomorrow’s final presentation with our recommendations for Lizhou Group. It took us far more time then expected, but we did it! Late afternoon we had it all together, Megan and I started cleansing the presentation. We kept postponing dinner, as we wanted to finish the presentation and give it to our interns for translation this evening. Shortly after 20:00 I got an unexpected text message from my agent in Lhasa: ‘I got ur permit’. We worked the entire day so hard, that I totally forgot about my pending Tibet Travel Permit application. At the first moment I couldn’t believe it. Until a few minutes later a mail with a scanned copy rolled into my mailbox. I still couldn’t believe it! After all those calls during last week to get the documents last minute translated in Chinese, signed, stamped, and delivered in Lhasa before due date. The whole paperwork and changes in the application process made me so nervous the past days that I had a very bad feeling, this was going to ruin a dream of visiting the roof of the world. A minor detail would have been enough to refuse the permit, in particular given the strict rules for foreigners. Despite all positive encouragements from my direct colleagues here and from home, I lost most of my hope. That simple text message and one mail changed my day! I was so excited and happy; I dropped immediately a message to home and shared my happiness with Megan whilst working! Yeah, I’ll go go go ! ! ! We went for dinner and around 23:00 we discussed with Christy and Cecily on the remaining translation work to done before tomorrow. I have the feeling this is going to be a long night for them.

#ibmcsc china

Travel permit

Backside Travel Permit
The permit will be delivered by courier to my hotel in Xi’an, where I will arrive on Nov 26th. Let’s hope Everest Base Camp re-opens by then. Anyway, I feel much better now! But still can’t believe it!