Tibet, Roof of the World - Part 2


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June 14th 2011
Published: June 15th 2011
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Second and last blog about Tibet :D

We went to go visit Tashilumpo Monastery on the morning of the 23rd of May. It was the Monastery I had walked around the day before, so it was nice to go inside and actually see it properly. Founded in 1447 by a nephew and disciple of Tsongkhapa (founder of the yellow hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism); who was retroactively named the first Dalai Lama. The original building was built above a sacred sky-burial site and is one of the four great Geluk monasteries in Tibet and at its peak, housed 4700 monks. It is still the largest functioning monastic community in Tibet today (probably because the Potala isn't allowed to be used).

The Tashilumpo monastery is the seat of the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama (though some see him as superior as their is less rivalry between them than the Dalai Lamas). 'Panchen' means great scholar and was traditionally bestowed on the abbots of Tashilumpo. The Panchen Lama is an emanation of Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light.

After visiting the monastery, it was lunchtime, where Maike (my roommate) and I made the mistake of ordering cheese momo (a Nepalese dumpling), made from yak cheese. Maike and I were warned that these momos were strong, but Maike had had Yak cheese momos in Kathmandu, and said they were really nice (I'd had vegetable momos there and really enjoyed them), so we ordered them anyway. There are no words to describe the taste of those momos, strong doesn't even do them a little bit of justice. I could barely finish one, let alone half a plates worth....so we started offering them out to everyone else in the group. The faces were priceless. No one liked them. Even our tour leader, Ashok, ate one, and he eats Yak cheese momos all the time, and he looked like he wanted to spit it out after taking a bite. His face was definitely the funniest!!!

After our interesting lunch, we went back onto our good ol' bus and it was off to Sakya. Sakya was this very small place that we were due to stay for one night. Once we had arrived and settled into our rooms, we went for an uphill walk to visit the only nunnery in Sakya. En-route we stopped at the brand new monastery, finished in 2009. It was weird to be walking around such a new monastery after having been in so many old ones. However, even though it was new, it looked an awful lot like the really old monasteries we'd been to see, proving that very little has change in the religion over the years.

The nunnery was tiny, but the nuns were ever so friendly. They wanted to have their pictures taken with us. When we were about to leave, they were really sweet and they gave us these little charms that they had made and blessed, to keep us safe and healthy.

Sakya was fun to stay in, as because it is so small and in such a remote place, all the water is heated by solar panels (a real problem if it is cloudy) and it frequently has power cuts. When the power cuts out, people just carry on as usual, as though nothing has happened, just a torch in their hand.

The next day was my little sisters birthday, and my group was off to Base Camp Everest! I was excited but nervous all at once. What would it be like? How hard would it be to be up that high?

On the way to Base Camp we hit the highest altitude that we would get to for the whole trip, 5248m above sea level, 48m higher than Base Camp! It was so funny to think that we were so worked up about Base Camp, yet quite happily drove through this random high pass that was higher....

Eventually, after 4 hours driving on an unmade, dirt road, we got to our camp where we would be staying the night. The camp was about a 1 hour - 1 1/2 hours walk from Base Camp. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so we couldn't see Everest, but Ashok decided we should still walk to Base Camp, as there was a chance the clouds might dissipate just before the sun set..

I ran inside the tent, rapidly unpacked my bag, and just about put on every item of clothing I had.

Then we were off!!!!!!!

The walk was much easier than I was expecting, only a gradual incline as opposed to the steep hike I'd been expecting.
We arrived in good time, but it was disappointing as we still couldn't see Everest. The Chinese guards were being particularly paranoid and strict, as a week or so before, a tourist had hung the Tibetan flag on the prayer pyramid there. This meant that the Chinese had closed Base Camp for a week (so we were really lucky to be there) and that even once it was reopened there were loads of things you couldn't do, and area you couldn't walk to/past. Sooooooooooooooooo frustrating!

My roommate, Maike, and I almost got into serious trouble, as we'd both written on t-shirts to have pictures take with them on at Base Camp. Mine said Happy Birthday to my sister...... Maike went first, stood by the Base Camp marker stone and took off most of her layers until she was just in the t-shirt. Before we knew it, Chinese guards were yelling at us, pointing and generally making a bug fuss. Guessing it was because of her t-shirt, Maike put all the layers back on.

After having seen the reaction of the Chinese soldiers, I decided to keep my layers on and just sneakily lift up my top. A few snaps of my camera and it was job done.

Our Tibetan guide came up to us later and said that if Maike had been any slower at putting her layers back on, or if I had taken mine off, then the soldiers would have come and taken our passports away!!! And we could have gone to jail! Crazy or what!?!

We stayed at Base Camp until the sun set, but Everest didn't make an appearance, so we headed slwly back to our camp.

The tents we were staying in were fantastic; there were these bench type things along the tent walls for us to sit on, and they were turned into our beds at night. We sat by a traditional Yak and sheep poo fire, much warmer than we had expected to be. Some local Tibetans cooked us dinner and served us jasmine tea all evening.

The sky was so beautiful up that high. Because we were so high and at such a remote place, there was no light pollution! I have never seen so many stars. I was standing there in my PJs, absolutely freezing, but reluctant to go inside because it was so spectacular! I saw shooting stars everywhere!

We got tucked into bed by the Tibetans who were looking after us. They made our beds, layer upon layer of duvets on top of our sleeping bags, and then a Yak blanket at the top of the pile, just to make sure we were warm enough.

I slept surprisingly well, nice and warm and not a headache in sight! The only issue I had was when I needed to go to the toilet during the night (stupid diamox!!!) and had to try and wiggle out and then back into my sleeping bag nest, without waking anyone else. Not easy when it is pitch black and freezing cold, and you have to try and find the toilets in the dark..... Turns out the next morning that I probably trod on a dead pigeon on my way to the toilet too......Bad times!

The next morning Everest had appeared! It was huge!!! And so magnificient. We got up at sunrise, as we were told that this was our best chance of seeing a clear Everest. Words can not describe our excitment at seing it. Made it all worth braving the cold.
Looking at it, I found the concept of people actually climbing it totally mind boggling!

Unfortunately, we couldn't spend all day looking at it, and we had to get on the bus to start descending down towards Nepal.

On the way to the place we were staying for the last night in Tibet, we stopped at one last high pass. While we were there we saw some other Westerners who were wearing Everest jackets. These people must have actually climbed Everest (least we assumed they had as they all had huge beards!!!). Noticing that they had a Russian website address on their jackets, we sent one of the Russian ladies from our tour to go investigate.

When she got back the news was not what we were expecting, and it certainly shocked me. The guy she had talked to said that climbing Everest had been awful, 6 weeks of hell! And that they'd left one of their team at 8800m. The poor guy had died only 50m from the summit! Not wanting to ask more after finding this out, our Russian spy quickly retreated back to the bus.

The bus was a lot more sombre when we set off again than it had been when we arrived at the high pass. I reckon we were all thinking
The last high pass we went toThe last high pass we went toThe last high pass we went to

Where we met the Russians
of our own mortality.....

We continued on, and eventually arrived at Nyalam where we'd be staying for the night.

At dinner, who should walk in to the hotel restaurant but the Russian Everest crew. We discovered that two of their number were actually English speakers, one from America and one from Ireland. They were so excited to have other English speakers to talk to after 6 weeks in a mainly Russian group.
It was from them that we heard the full story of what happened to the other unfortunate member of their crew, and learnt what climbing Everest was like.

The guy that had died was some Irish millionaire, who had just successfully finished battling cancer, and who tragically died just days after his third child was born. It was his second attempt at Everest (we know this because the Irish guy we were talking to had been with him on the other climb as well, as his guide); he'd paid to go to 7000m or so a couple of years before, had reached that point and decided he wanted to go for the summit. As he didn't have the right permits etc. he wasn't allowed to go any higher, even though he tried paying his way.
He'd therefore gone back to Everest, determined to go all the way this time.

Close to the summit he had started to become very unresponsive, and the team couldn't get much sense from him. Sadly, he slipped and fell off the side of a cliff, and he was hanging their, suspended by his safety rope. He wasn't responding, couldn't pull himself back up, and the team couldn't pull him up without his help. They tried and tried. The American (only 25 years old), sat there talking to him for 45 minutes, telling him that he had to live and had to get himself back onto the ledge, for the sake of his new child.

Eventually the decision had to be made to leave him, as the team had to continue on, or risk dying themselves. They reached the summit at around 2am (and only stayed there for about 3 minutes before beginning to climb back down), as just about all teams attempt to reach the summit at night, as it gives them a higher probability of having good weather (and more importantly lots of daylight), to climb back down in.

They had to use a radio telephone, and phone the Irish man's wife to tell her he was dead. What was really sad, was that soon after she had been told he was dead, she received a text from him that hadn't sent when he initially sent it, as there had been no signal. It said, " I'm at EBC (Everest Base Camp), I'm OK". So the poor wife had the sudden hope that he was actually alive, only to have it confirmed that he was definitely dead.

I knew that climbing Everest was dangerous, but it was very different having people who have been and done it, tell you what it was like. Apparently, you walk past loads of frozen, dead bodies, perfectly preserved because of the cold. You just have to step around them and keep going. That poor Irishman is now just one of many on the route up to the summit.


We crossed back into Nepal, over the friendship bridge on the 26th of May. Half of the bridge belongs to China (Tibet) and the other half belongs to Nepal. Once we crossed the white line at the middle of the bridge, we all started talking loudly about how we had hated the Big Brother feel of the Chinese in Tibet, watching our every move, checkpoints everywhere that we had had to go through, and not being allowed to talk to the Tibetans for too long. It just seemed to incomprehensible to us why China was so desperate to keep Tibet. It is so barren, wild and hard to live on the roof of the world, so why not give the land back to the people who know how to live there and want to continue living there (OK, end of rant.....)

We stayed at this place called the Last Resort, where there was the option of whitewater rafting, bungy jumping, and lots more. Most of the activities were well out of my budget, so I opted for a traditional Nepali massage, with mustard seed oil. I really enjoyed the massage, but it was totally different from the Thai and Chinese massages I had become accustomed to. it involved a lot more rubbing; they'd rub your arms and legs rapidly with oil until the friction created a pleasant heat sensation.
The oddest experience I had was when I was
Our foot!!!Our foot!!!Our foot!!!

My bit is written on the middle toe
asked if I wanted my chest and stomach massage. Naively I thought she meant the top part of my chest, the bit around your collarbone.... Next thing I knew, the towel was removed and I was laying there, exposed, just in my pants! It was bizarre having my chest (breasts!!!!!) massaged, but it was all very professional and I didn't feel (THAT) uncomfortable. However, I'm not sure I'll be agreeing to that again any time soon.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and getting used to the heat and having more than enough air to breathe again. Because there was so much oxygen, it felt like I barely needed to breathe at all....very strange!

The next day it was back to the chaos of Kathmandu. We were told we might have problems getting back into Kathmandu as there were strike going on..... Still we made the best of it and a bunch of us climbed on the top of the bus, to experience riding a bus Nepalease style! It was so fun sitting on top of the bus, clinging on for dear life, a great way to see the scenery.
You have to be sure to watch out for branches and low wires, and you have a birds eye view of the many crashes your bus is almost in.....Definitely a little bit hair raising!!!! LOL!

We made it back into kathmandu, after taking a bit of a round about route, to bypass the many protesters.
Maike and I decided to do a little bit of shopping before meeting up with the rest of the group for a last meal.
We went to this restaurant which has feet all over the ceiling and all over the walls. The feet are signed by people who have made it to Everest, any part of Everest, which meant we got our own foot to drawn on and sign! We wrote/drew the things we will always remember about Tibet/Everest, and signed our names and dated it.

The people who reach the summit of Everest get to sign and put their picture in a special book, and get to sign an area behind the main bar. They even have Ed Hillary's signature!!! Some of the first people to climb Everest and then go to the Rumdoodle bar, signed their cardboard foot, and then broke off some of the toes to indicate how many toes they lost to frostbite while climbing!!

After hearing about Everest from the American and the Irishman, I have no desire to ever try and get my name in that book (not that I had been considering it before I talked to them!). I'd rather keep all my fingers and toes thank you very much.
Hopefully no one I know will ever get thecrazy notion of climbing Everest into their head, otherwise I don't know what I would do!

Anyways, that is it for my blogs about Tibet. I hope you liked it, sorry it was depressing at times but I wanted to portray what Everest and climbing it would really be like.
Next blog is about Nepal!
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15th June 2011

Sad but great to read
Great blog, Don't worry I will not be climbing Everest any time soon after your blog, would love to make it to base camp though. Keep safe. Love Mum
6th August 2011

Hi - sorry to comment on your blog when I don't know you but I am going to Tibet in October so I found your account really interesting and has made me quite excited. I was just wondering which company you did your tour with? I do have a tour booked but yours sounded really cool. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your trip!
7th August 2011

Hey Sion
Hello Sion, I did my tour with a company called Gap Adventures. The tour was called 'High Road to Tibet'. I had such a great time on it, a fab tour. But I'm sure you'll have a great time in Tibet however you go with. Best Wishes!

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