The cheese factory at the roof of the world

Yes, they make cheese at Everest Base Camp. It's not the cheese you think of- Ghouda, Motzarella, Edam (that is the dream of all backpackers)-but it is the cheese you find when your grandmother pinches your cheeks or the greetings from a Hallmark card.

First of all, i need to vent about the difficulties of travelling in Tibet in order for you to understand the cheese. It's not that it's difficult, as any traveller can rent a 4X4 jeep and get to Magic Land#1 and then to Dreamland #4. There is a massive monopoly with the jeeps, which makes any other transporation mode a challenge. The jeeps also cost a fortune, and i mean a fortune! We rented one to get to Kailash (4 days from Lhasa) and I swore never again. Not that it wasnt good- it was great! The problem with the jeeps is that most are controlled by the Chinese tour agencies, and the Tibetans get hardly (or none) of the profits. And as I said, there is mass profits. So much that we think they (whoever 'they' is) go to the bus stations and make sure no one sells a foreigner a bus ticket. They have the police on their sides too, and when we went to catch the bus from Shigatse to as close to base camp as possible, we were escorted out of the station. A friend managed to get a ticket, but once on the bus he realized they were not going anywhere until he as off. I've heard miraculous stories of people actually going someplace from hub cities in Tibet, and I honor them with utmost respect. It's hard to get out of Shigatse and Lhasa by bus!!

So, after dissing the jeeps, we ended up on an unofficial one which had to dodge checkpoints and we had to hide in the back. After dodging our way to Shegar, we (Rob-UK, Nadir and I) set out to find a way to base camp. Nothing. A little desperate, we got to the road and faked the biggest smiles to passing trucks and, of course, jeeps. Finally, a car with businessmen stopped and offered us a ride to the EBC turn off, where we continued to trek to the checkpoint in the middle of nowhere. No one looked at out permits that we "HAD" to get. In fact, it's been 10 days and sill no hassle, they only look at our passports! After that, we split and hitched as far as possible. I got a ride with some crazy Chinese photographers, who worked for some sort of adventure company? (FBLIFE.com, apparently i'm on the website). YOu can only drive as far as the Romphu monastery, which is supposed to have great views of the mountain. But, as you can probably guess, it was foggy as hell. So i waited for my travel companions, who also had no problem catching a lift, and we trekked to base camp.

And now for the cheese.
I've always immagined Everest Base camp to have expidition tents and radio towers, and climbers warming their toes next to campfires. Like always, my immagination got the better of me. Instead of hard core expidition tents, there was a street of army tent guest-houses with names like "Hotel California" and "Nescafe Hotel". My favourite was "Engrish Guesthouse". In place of hard core climbers there was flimsy tourists with sandals and cameras, despite the freezing temperatures. Many come up just for a few hours, snap some shots then leave. There was no campfires, but restraunts serving 20Y plates of rice (the normal price is about 2Y). They also served fries and Nescafe, at the Nescafe Hotel. Needless to say, I was severely upset by this scene, but had a good laugh nonetheless. We camped in our own tent and managed to bargain our rice down to 6Y.

The next morning I woke up to what I think is a miracle from Mother Nature. The fog that gripped the camp the night before was still present, but now i could faintly see some blue sky above it. I raced up a small hill to find that the sun was rising on Everest!! It was truly one of the greatest things i've ever seen. Every second the mountain would change, with color from the sun or from the whispy clouds touching it. I have to say that from base camp Everest does not look like the highest mountain in the world, but you can definetly feel that it's the highest mountain. A memorial was also placed where we sat that emortalized the people who lost their lives trying to reach the summit, a reminder of the the harshness of Everest.

Later on, we hitched to the trailhead where we would begin the 4 day hike to Old Tingri. After only two hours of hiking, I am embarassed to say that I had to turn around, as 3 months of travelling finally caught up with me and I got quite sick. The scenerey was so unreal, and I as sad to say goodbye to my travel companions. I got a ride to the other end of the trail, where I lied in bed waiting for the strength to meet my friends. Turns out we started going the wrong way on the trail, and after I left they kept going the wrong way!! Luckily, they too turned around, and after a few days made it back safely. I'm so glad because I would have been a useless rescue squad.

We got a bus ride back to Shigatse with other Tibetans and a leg of lamb in the seat infront of me. It was good to give the Tibetan driver the money instead of some Chinese Tour Jeep. The road back was just as bad as the road to Kailash, with hundreds of people working to build a better road. One thing i've noticed about TIbet is that soon there will be highways across it, linking it to Lhasa and the rest of China. This is interesting when you take note of the people working on the road, as they are the poorest and hardworking people i've seen. Women work alongside men doing labour that I could only do for maybe 3 minutes. They work 24 hours, and get paid nothing. In fact, many workers are Han Chinese, and they get paid 4X as much as the Tibetan workers who do the same job. The government is definetly trying to keep the Tibetans poor and unorganized, something i've noticed throughout this province. Tibet is a wonderful place with the most wonderful people, but it is also a very very sad place. I am lucky to se it now when there is still some remnance of Tibetan culture, before it gets swallowed up by Chinese policies. A few days ago in Shigatse all the Tibetans living in Old Town (the traditional area of town) were ordered to put up Chinese flags on their rooftops. We sat and watched in disbelief while these people had to rip down prayer flags and replace them with the red-stared Chinese flag. The English speaking Tibetans that I have spoken to have all agreed; they are quite worried about the direction which CHina is pointing them, and saldy there is little they can do about their situation.

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