In Tibet

We've been on the road now for four days, and each day has been it's own adventure...

(I apologize for any spelling mistakes, this brower's in Chinese, and a little tricky)

The trip started out easy enough, with our early 5:15am departure on a bus towards to the Nepal/Tibet border. We stopped for a great breakfast in the mountains outside of Kathmandu, and were all feeling great about the trip. The French couple, who's traveling with us, are very nice and extremely well travelled.

So we get to the Nepal/Tibet border, the three of us make it through no problem, but the Frenchies visa is screwed up and we end up waiting there for about 3-4 hours. Once things get sorted out, we take a minibus up and twisty dirt road to the main customs building for more passport and visa checks, and they scan our bags just before the place closes. Then our guide, who we call Zorro, but who's name is actually Sunume?, informs us that No, accomodation and breakfast isn't included...which the tour company guy said was definietly included. So, we had to call Kathmandu, which was now an expensive international call since we're in Tibet, and sort things out. And appearently, we did get it sorted, so that's all good now.

We spent the night at the border town, in a dumpish place, and then got on our way the next morning. Our Landcruiser is pretty good, only problem is there's 7 people in it! So, we have driver, who's not a small man, our guide (Zorro), the french couple, Matt, Tim and I (plus all of our stuff). It's a squeeze. Our first day of driving got us into Tingre(sp?), it's a wildwest looking town that doesn't have much going for it. China has some issues, one of which is garbage disposal. Actually, there is no garbage disposal to speak of. Everyone's just tossing whatever, wherever. It's pretty sad really, what could be nice towns look very dirty and trashy. But, can't really judge, I'm in a foreign place, things are different.

From Tingre we traveled overland on rough track to the Northern Everest basecamp, near Rongbok monestary. The weather's been nice, but it was cloudy up in the mountains. We decided to give ourselves the best shot at seeing Everest by hiking up to the basecamp, and spending the night there. Hopefully it would clear up in the morning, and we'd be in a great spot to see the mountain. It was a 7km to the actual basecamp, and while on the trail we noticed a significant turn in the weather. It started snowing lightly, and the wind picked up. Matt had what turned out to be a chest/head cold coming on, and we were at around 17,000ft. We met a nice french guy, named Thomas, while walking and we all hit the first tent we found at basecamp. A really nice tibeten guy took us in, and cooked dinner. It was FREEZING in the tent, but there were plenty of blanets and a sheep dung fueled stove. So we played some cards and went to bed. Matt couldn't sleep at all, as he was feeling quite bad. I slept pretty well, in my bag and under a bunch of blankets. The trick is to fill up your Nalgene with boiling water right before you get in bed, toss it in your sleeping bag, and you've got a nice little furnace for the night.

We woke up this morning in base camp, and there was about 3 inches of snow, and still lots of clouds, and no Everest. Pretty bummed, because we didn't have time to wait around for the weather to clear, Zorro and the rest of the gang were waiting for us to get back to Rongbok. With Matt still ill, and he didn't get a wink of sleep last night, we weren't really keen to walk back in the snow/wind for another 7km. Luckily, there was a dumptruck parked nearby which had been delivering stuff to the National Park office. We got the driver to give us a lift back to Rongbok in the back of the dumper. It was perfect! We got back with time to spare, had some breaky and checked out the monestary for a little while before all piling into the cruiser for another bumpy day on the Friendship highway.

Now we're now in Lhatse, a slightly nicer place, and looking forward to a warm night's rest, after a interesting Tibetian meal. We're all looking forward to paved roads, a shower, and Lhasa. I'll update more when I get a chance.

Oh, and the toilets have lived up to their reputation! You know it's bad when there's poop On the way to the toilet... That means most people can't bear to go inside. You can smell them from a mile away. :)