Hello this is Chanda Baggarly calling for Around The World 1999. Today's date is October 23rd and we are in the city of Golmud. This is a Tibetan city in China and we actually decided to stay here an extra day to better prepare the vehicles and ourselves for the high altitude that we'll be encountering tomorrow.

While Nick, Earle, Doug and our Tibetan guides readied the vehicles, Todd and I went shopping. Todd and I walked down the street around from our hotel four or five blocks and discovered the Golmud marketplace. This marketplace was huge. It was filled with rows and rows of fruits and vegetables, spices, and lots of smiling Tibetan and Chinese faces, most of which knew the word "Hello", and we must have gotten a hundred Hello's today. That was pretty cool.

We saw spices in every shape and form you can imagine and in every color under the Sun. We even found a little tongue-numbing spice that we keep running into at dinner. This spice is a very tiny black seed usually served with the pod, which is very small as well. It kind of looks like pepper but it has the proliferating effect of the spice Cardamom, which is served in a lot of Indian food. So if you know what I'm talking about, please tell me the name of this spice, so we can take it off of our unsolved mysteries list. Thanks.

One of the most unusual items that we found for sale at the market was a small garden snake. Several of the vendors had their slimy little merchandise displayed in red buckets. Now, these critters are alive in the bucket, which is good the for buyer because they know they're getting fresh product, but Todd and I didn't get too close.

So after a long day at the market we met up with our group for dinner. Dinner was the usual delicious meal of bok choy and beef, and fried mushrooms and chicken and rice and peppers - very good. But near the end of the meal the cook brought out a special dish for us to eat before our long journey. Snakes!

So this is Chanda Groom Baggarly signing off for Around The World 1999. Safe journeys!