I bought my ticket to Chengdu today with he last of my baht, and will leave at the end of the month. From there I can try to arrange permits for onward travel to Tibet. I say "try" because I just found out that next month is the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region by China. It's not a happy anniversary for Tibetan people, and the Chinese government is going to crack down on everything to avoid any negative publicity. Perhaps even on foreign tourists. So maybe I'm just not fated to visit Tibet.