Tucked in by a Tibetan

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We were sorry to be leaving Lhasa especially since we had just been moved to a better room in our hostel. The improvements in standards were most welcome because now when we washed our hands, our feet didn’t get a wash at the same time. We also realised that the dungeon look was not a theme running through the hostel after all. Our small group of 5, that’s including the driver and guide, left Lhasa for a long journey, which would eventually result in our seeing Mount Everest. The initial day’s drive was a long but beautiful one with nonstop scenery and stunning views. Little did we know, when we embarked on this mini trip that we would be suffering from repetitive strain syndrome by the end of it, after taking so many photos. As the jeep wound its way skilfully along mountain roads, we noticed the change in scenery as we moved from City to remote mountainous countryside. Yak, sheep and goats peppered the hillsides and towns became less dense whilst cars were exchanged for motor bikes which were later swapped for tractors and finally horse and trailer. In Tibet a motorbikes can easily fit a family of 3 on it.

Our first major stop was at Yamdrok Lake and there were no guesses as to why. It was a huge turquoise lake which reflected the mountains in its waters. Tibetans believed it to be a Holy lake and therefore to touch it in any way or even to drink from it would dirty the pure holy water. We stopped at 2 viewing points one from above and one from the shore side. At these places the locals had decided that tourists wished for nothing more than to take photos of them holding or standing next to a Yak, Mountain dog and or goat. They were charging 10 Yuan for a photo with these animals (this is only about £1) they hadn’t realised that it was photos of themselves and their children that we all really wanted.

At these viewing places, and there were plenty along the way, were toilets and they were charging for them too. Now I don’t mind paying for a wee.... but paying to stand over a hole which has a tower of faeces poking out of the top is disgusting and along with not really having any properly defined cubicles or doors makes the experience almost unbearable and not one that should be viewed by anybody. As westerns we are not very successful at using squat toilets and so the odds are stacked against us from the beginning. We have learnt to roll our trousers up so that we don’t splash on them but splashing on your legs is not necessarily any more pleasant. Being on view whilst balancing over a hole full of poo with the most putrid of smells wafting through the air is unfair. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Anyway after Yamdrock Lake our next stop was a glacier mountain. Along the route we were steadily gaining in altitude and by the time we got to the glacier it was cold and breathing was less easy. We snapped away taking the same vista in a million different ways. Our aim for the day was to get to Tibet’s second largest city called Shigatse. We stopped at a small town to visit a large Stupa, which is used to burn scented leaves and smells like a giant incense stick. It was here that a Tibetan family were eating food from home in the grounds when our guide saw them pour a drink from a flask. He told us it was barley wine and the traditional drink for Tibetans. Did we want to try some? Silly question! Of course we did so he went and asked the man. I handed him my empty water bottle and he began filling it to the top. He would not stop as he said it was respectful to fill it to the top. We all took a small sip and if I were to compare it to fermented horse milk then I’m afraid fermented barley wins hands down. It’s not a good idea to drink at high altitude and so the bottle remained sealed all the way back to Lhasa 4 days later. It was at these toilets that Jacks stuffed tissue up her nose before entering and became outraged at having to pay 2 Yuan. She asked the Chinese man had he actually cleaned them because she was not paying if he hadn’t. But of course he hadn’t cleaned them and we did pay and they were officially the worst toilets ever!! Along the whole route there were other jeeps and tourist who we kept bumping into at each of the stops and at lunch. We had gotten talking to a small group of Americans, 3 men and 1 woman. They were making a steady ascent in altitude in preparation for climbing the world’s 5th or 6th largest mountain Cho Oya 8 200m. They were experienced mountaineers and the American guide had summitted Everest 3 times.

We didn’t much like Tibet’s second largest city despite there being a lack of Chinese guards. It was obviously much poorer and far dirtier. Outside of our hotel was a meat market and the carcasses of sheep stood everywhere. The people seemed far less friendly. But excitement was impossible to contain on the discovery of a bath in our hotel room in Shigatse. It was a small, dirty ish bath with no plug but fear not we had our own. The Girl Guide in me meant that I had come prepared. We had climbed in altitude reasonably quickly and the 3 of us were feeling it in our heads after our 10 hour drive. We settled down to bed after a warm bath and Emilie (our French travel companion) went out with the Americans to drink in a local Tibetan bar. By the next morning a beautiful relationship had begun and we spent lots of the next day playing cat and mouse with them trying to meet up at the various stops. We needed tickets to enter the national parks and our driver had to show these tickets, our extra alien permits as well as our passports and visas at least 10 different times. (Through each check point nobody discovered the mistake with Jack’s visa, which our tour company said may stop her getting a permit to travel to Mount Everest.) We left the Americans as they were staying lower than us and we were making a quick ascent towards Everest.

Then we began to travel on the bumpy road that we had read about. It was 100KM and was originally made by the first people to summit Everest from the north side (The Tibetan side which is said to be the harder side) The road does not look like it has been updated much since then but it adds to the authenticity as getting to Everest should not be done on a tarmac’d road in comfort but a little hardship adds to the experience. 3 hours in total it took our skilled driver to navigate the crumbly and bumpy tracks dodging mini landslides as he went. We zig zagged up one side of a mountain and then our driver shouted EVEREST!!! To say we stared dumbstruck is an understatement. As clear as could be Mount Everest stood majestically in front of us head and shoulders above the other mountains in the Himalayan range. Mount Qomolangma (saint mother) as it is known locally stands at 8844.43m tall or 29,002 feet. It is measured from the point at which the Earth’s surfacee reaches the greatest height.

For the final hour and a half of our journey we had unspoiled views of Everest and it was just impossible not to gaze in a trance like state at the highest point on planet earth. It was only on seeing it so clearly that we realised we could have travelled this far and saw nothing. Our guide and driver were very excited. He kept saying that we would we get a better view later and so the driving took on an element or urgency as we all quietly hope that the Himalayan weather would not change and decide to hide this spectacular view. To say we were lucky was an understatement - we arrived at Rongbuk monastery way before sunset and according to our itinerary we would be staying in the grotty but high Rongbuk monastery guest house but to our surprise after yet more photos of the addictive Everest we got back in the jeep and drove about 15min further towards the mountain and into base camp. Oh my god we were staying at Everest base camp in a Yak tent.

We quickly found warm clothes and both camera’s and then scrambled out of our very dark Yak tent to photograph Everest and the sunset. We walked out of our camp and up a dirt track towards Everest and pinched ourselves in utter disbelief. We were really looking at the Everest-- the place where Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered the mountain in 1953 and where Mallory and Irwin lost their lives so many years before that trying to summit in 1924. In fact it is a contentious issue in the mountaineering world as to whether these 2 reached the top first but as they never came back to tell the tale nobody will ever truly know. The American who had climbed it several times said one summer season when he summited 500 people on both sides were climbing and only 4 died and so 496 made it safely but of course he said the focus was always on the 4 and never the others. We steadily walked onwards aware of our laboured breathing and cold ears watching the clouds drift through the mountain changing the view constantly and as the sun began to drop the clouds reflected a gentle pink and the mountain stood out even more brightly amongst the now darkening mountain ranges below. We decided to turn back as we thought night may come upon us more quickly than we were prepared for and would have hated to be the only people to get lost and rescued at base camp. Very Embarrassing!

Back at the Yak tent a local Tibetan was running the tent. He had food and drink on offer for us to buy and so one hot and spicy pot noodle and several cups of tea later we were warm and cosy. We began to play our Mongolian bones came with the guide who absolutely loved it and soon wanted us to play for money. We did bet 1 Yuan each which was 10p and he beat us. Before sleeping we went to the toilet. I won’t describe the toilet just think of the worst possible toilet ever and multiply by 10 but I will describe the night sky. We have never seen a sky so jammed full of the largest brightest stars ever and we could see the Milky Way high above us. If hadn’t been for the freezing weather we would have stayed outside for ever. A couple of shooting stars and a bad neck later we retreated to our tent where we were tucked into bed by a Tibetan. Our silk liners, 2 huge duvets and a Yak blanket were placed on top of us and then the Tibetan tent owner came over and tucked us in tightly and moved the table/chest of drawers up to the side of the bed so that it pinned in the covers to stop them falling off at night. We shouted across the tent at each other that the title “Tucked in by a Tibetan” would be great title for a blog. It was very funny and surreal.
We woke early, wore the same clothes from the day and night before washed our faces in a luke warm bowl of water brushed our teeth outside and were ready to leave. Everest was covered completely and this only made us feel luckier because of the views we had gotten yesterday but by the time we arrived back at the monastery the peak was poking moodily out from dark black thunderous clouds. More photos. We were back on the bumpy road and the weather over Everest had cleared and we again had unprecedented views of the Himalayan range with Everest standing proudly about the others. You can clearly see just how huge it is compared to the others and to the right of it we picked out Cho Oyu the mountain the Americans would be climbing. It looked to our naked eye the next highest to Everest but of course we couldn’t see K2. The mesmerising pull of these great peaks did not wear off and for every minute they were in our view we stared at them hypnotically. Mountaineers can suffer from summit fever which means they lose all sense of logical reasoning powers and become fixated on nothing but achieving the summit even if that means putting themselves in danger and a small part of us felt as if we could quite understand this addiction to the mountain.
It would be a lie if I never mentioned the terrible headaches that we all woke up with on that morning at Everest base camp. The altitude had meant that we were dehydrated and feeling rough. I had not slept at all that night and my head felt truly painful. Then only response to altitude sickness is to descend, descend, descend and luckily we were. Base camp to shigatse was a descent of 4000ft. Another day of travelling took us back to Lhasa.

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