At last, 11 of us did get onto a plane to Lhasa last Friday. It was soon clear that while the Tibetan authorities were prepared to let us in, this was by no means going to be a free-ranging reporting assignment.

The hotel ‘near Lhasa airport’ that we had been promised turned out to be 300 kilometres away in Shigatse (3,900m).

The compensation was the drive up a stunning river valley. Tibetan prayer flags fluttered in a stiff breeze above the squat houses and children skinny-dipped in the aquamarine water beneath azure skies.

On one of the toilet stops, a friend of mine in the Chinese media party told me he had been acclimatizing in Lhasa for four days. It turned out that all the Chinese media had had at least one day more to get accustomed to the high altitude. 

We arrived at Shigatse late in the evening, were fed and told to be ready for departure at 9am the next morning.

Seen through the windscreen of an official Chinese government bus, a paramilitary soldier stands guard under a road sign located near Lhasa Airport April 25, 2008 indicating the road to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and the town of Rikaze. A heavy troop presence was evident on Friday lining the road between the capital Lhasa and Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet, after foreign reporters were allowed into the region to witness the Olympic torch ascend Mt Everest. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA)

We’re here, where’s the torch?

We arrived. For a long time it looked like we wouldn’t, but on Monday morning, four days after leaving Beijing, 11 foreign journalists arrived at the media centre on the lower slopes of Mount Everest to report on the torch relay.

It brought to an end two of weeks of uncertainty that started when a briefing was cancelled and we heard nothing more until we were summoned to the Beijing Olympic media centre on the morning of our scheduled departure. The party of foreign media, at this stage 20-strong, was informed that bad weather had caused a delay to our journey and the departure ceremony for the climb team and torch had been cancelled.

Little did we know, although we might have guessed, that the Tibet Autonomous Region did not want foreign journalists poking around the still sensitive sores of the March riots. It took pressure from the central government, we have now learned, for them to finally allow us to go.

But the lost days meant we would be going from 54 metres above sea level in Beijing to Everest Base Camp (5,200m) in just three days – something that rang serious alarm bells with the doctors we consulted. “I would strongly advise against it,” said one British doctor, an expert on high altitude sickness who reached the summit of Everest last year. “You’re putting yourself in a position where you could get something that could kill you.”

There followed three days of back and forth with deadlines missed and pushed back, meetings in cafes, stand-offs, stand-downs, demands for money, demands for information and a BOCOG employee being chased down the street by reporters trying to stuff wads of cash into his hands.

Chinese security personnel watch from their observation post in front of the peak of Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma, near Everest Base Camp April 28, 2008. A small group of foreign reporters have been allowed into the region to witness the Olympic torch ascend Everest. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA)

The moment China has been waiting for … well one of many Olympic moments. The torch relay kicked into gear on Monday, but not without a bit of drama. (The above picture is of China’s gold medallist swimmer Luo Xuejuan.)

The Chinese media lauded the event, and several pages of newspapers were devoted to lavish descriptions of the event.

 ”At that moment, my heart was beating so hard!” the Beijing News quoted Quan Maoda, the father of a torch bearer from Inner Mongolia, as saying of the lighting.

Local papers also made much of the fact that the sun came out for the ceremony in Ancient Olympia, after overcast rehearsals. “A perfect start on the road to gold,” read one headline in the China Daily.

“Each day we will pay attention to the torch, deeply knowing that day by day the Olympics are coming closer to us,” the Beijing News quoted Zhu Yuetao, an official in the port city of Qingdao, which will host the sailing events, as saying.

Here’s the relay route:

PROLOGUE
Mar 24    - Torch lit at Ancient Olympia, Greece
Mar 25-29 - Torch Relay in Greece
Mar 30    - Handover ceremony at Panathinaiko Stadium, Athens
Mar 31    - Beijing

April 1 - Almaty 

(When the flame arrives in Beijing, a separate torch will be lit and an attempt will be made to take it up Mount Everest [Mount Qomolangma] on a day in May that presents the best climatic conditions.)

INTERNATIONAL

April 2 - Almaty, 3 - Istanbul, 5 - St Petersburg (Russia), 6 - London, 7 - Paris, 9 - San Francisco, 11 - Buenos Aires, 13 - Dar es Salaam, 14 - Muscat, 16 - Islamabad, 17 - Mumbai, 19 - Bangkok, 21 - Kuala Lumpur, 22 - Jakarta, 24 - Canberra, 26 - Nagano (Japan), 27 - Seoul, 28 - Pyongyang, 29 - Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

CHINA

May 2 - Hong Kong
May 3 - Macau
May 4-6 - HainanProvince: Sanya, Wuzhishan, Wanning, Haikou
May 7-10 - Guangdong Province: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Huizhou, Shantou
May 11-13 - Fujian Province: Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xiamen, Longyan
May 14-16 - Jiangxi Province: Ruijin, Jinggangshan, Nanchang
May 17-19 - Zhejiang Province: Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Jiaxing
May 20-21 -  Shanghai
May 22-24 - Jiangsu Province: Suzhou, Nantong, Taizhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing
May 26-28 - Anhui Province: Hefei, Huainan, Wuhu, Jixi, Huangshan
May 29-31 - Hubei Province: Wuhan, Yichang, Jingzhou
Jun 1-3 - Hunan Province: Yueyang, Changsha, Shaoshan
Jun 4-6 - Guangxi Region: Guilin, Nanning, Baise
Jun 7-9 - Yunnan Province: Kunming, Lijiang, Xamgyi’nyilha (Shangri-la)
Jun 10-12 - Guizhou Province: Guiyang, Kaili, Zunyi
Jun 13-14 - Chongqing
Jun 15-18 - Sichuan Province: Guangan, Mianyang, Guanghan, Leshan, Zigong, Yibin, Chengdu
Jun 19-21 - Tibet Region: Shannan Diqu, Lhasa
Jun 22-24 - Qinghai Province: Golmud, Qinghai Hu, Xining
Jun 25-27 - Xinjiang Region: Urumqi, Kashi, Shihezi, Changji
Jun 28-30 - Gansu Province: Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Jiuquan, Tianshu, Lanzhou
Jul 2-4 - Ningxia Region: Zhongwei, Wuzhong, Yinchuan
June 5-7 - Shaanxi Province: Yanan, Yangling, Xianyang, Xian
Jul 8-10  - Shanxi Province: Yuncheng, Pingyao, Taiyuan, Datong
Jul 11-13 - Inner Mongolia Region: Hohhot, Ordos, Baotou, Chifeng
Jul 14-16 - Heilongjiang Province: Qiqihar, Daqing, Harbin
Jul 17-19 - Jilin Province: Songyuan, Changchun, Jilin, Yanji
Jul 20-22 - Liaoning Province: Shenyang, Benxi, Liaoyang, Anshan, Dalian
Jul 23-26 - Shandong Province: Yantai, Weihai, Qingdao, Rizhao, Linyi, Qufu, Taian, Jinan
Jul 28-31 - Henan Province: Shangqiu, Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Anyang
Aug 1-3 - Hebei Province: Shijiazhuang, Qinhuangdao, Tangshan
Aug 4-5 - Tianjin
Aug 6-8 - Beijing
Aug 8   - OPENING CEREMONY

Check out the torch relay web site for more details.

The pix from the top are of Lou Xuejuan; Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, playing the role of the High Priestess, lights the torch held by first torchbearer Alexandros Nikolaidis, Greece’s Olympic silver medallist for taekwando; and rest of the cast at ancient Olympia. Photos by John Kolesidis and Mal Langsdon.