Hey people, this is Doug with AroundTheWorld1999. Jeff will actually do today's report which would be Tuesday October 26th, but I would like to make an amendment to my report from yesterday about the Sky Burial. The reason why they chop the body up and basically leave it for the vultures to eat, is the vultures carry the deceased's soul into heaven. I apologize for not knowing this the first time around, but hopefully I have made up for it.

I am going to pass off to Jeff now and he is going to tell you about his exciting time in Chengdu.

Hello everybody, I'm back after five days away from the team. It's good to be back, but I have to say I had a great five-day vacation. I went to Chengdu, the bustling metropolis, population eight million. I was basically living large for five days. I stayed in a four-star hotel, by far the nicest hotel any of us have stayed in so far on the trip, complete with a hair dryer, and they turned down my bed at night. Deluxe!

Anyway, I got a chance to go to Leshan and see the giant Buddha. Amazing - carved into the side of a mountain right where the three tributaries of the Yangtze River meet. I went to a Buddhist monastery, a Buddhist nun monastery, I went on a mountain hike, saw some macaque monkeys (one even jumped on my back - a lot of fun), ate like a king, and stayed in a mountain hotel, and taught Jian-Ping (who is the person that put this all together - he was with me the whole time), his side kick Mr. Gau, and also an interpreter Christine, who is the manager for her travel group in Chengdu. I taught them "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," and they loved it. They made me sign a solo rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, which was pretty embarrassing, but basically brought down the house with it.

Anyway, let me get on with today's report. Day 20, the 26th of October.

We all slept in today. Doug and I made it all the way until 9:30, we all went to breakfast, which was excellent. Alas, the much-craved western food including scrambled eggs, PB&J on toast, and coffee. I filled the gang in on some of my deluxe adventures for the past five days. Chanda, after breakfast decided to work on some pages to eventually upload onto her Web site. Nick installed a new carburetor on Alaska, imagine that. Earle installed a new light switch on Hercules, even more odd. And uh, Todd, Doug and I decided to just screw off all day, and we went on a stroll through town.

We immediately noticed that the holy city here is much dirtier than any of us expected. There's litter everywhere, and we noticed men urinating all over the place in public. Other than that the city is incredible. The people, Tibetan and Chinese here, are all very friendly. We gave on-lookers a smile and a "ta-shi-da-lay," which means hello and we always, seems to get the same in return. It seems a smile and hello goes a long way wherever you travel outside the US.

Anyways, we walked through some bustling alleyways, full-on local's only route, and we came across some guys playing pool. Doug and Todd challenged two of the guys to a game, and they happily accepted, indicating that they would play for money - five Yuan, or about 50 cents US. Doug and Todd looked like they would get schooled at first, but took the first game with a nice corner pocket shot by Todd. As on-lookers started to gather, the two men wanted another game, attracting more attention. I was filming the game, so that probably added to the excitement. The locals took the second game, Doug called for the best two out of three, and the excitement just built from there.

It was a hard fought battle, and our two heroes pulled it out. The locals wanted one more game. Apparently they didn't want the Americans getting the best of them, and they won a fourth and final game.

We strolled around some more, I bought some cookies and Todd and Doug bought some boots lined with wool or possibly fake wool, and Todd had a key made for one of the Land Rovers.

On our way back to the hotel, Todd peaked into one of the doorways and noticed it was a bar, so we decided to sit down and enjoy some delicious room temperature Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's amazing, Pabst Blue Ribbon in Lhasa Tibet, China. The bar owner was very nice, and she kept filling our tiny glasses after almost every sip. We invited her to drink with us and she did. We practiced Tibetan and she and her husband later on practiced their English. We were loopy after only two beers - Todd and Doug even had another. The altitude and the altitude sickness pills we've been taking really enhance the alcohol. We managed to stumble back to the hotel, go to dinner before sacking out for the night.

Well that just about does it, and the battery on the satellite phone is running low. That does it for October 26th 1999. Thanks for tuning in.