Everest Base Camp, Tibet

We drive along the Tibetan plateau. The land is cold, dry and barren. We reach a pass and the Himalayan Range appears, dominating the horizon. It is amazing.

We drive on, climbing slowly but surely. After 4 more hours we arrive at the tent city at over 5000m. From here we will walk the final 3.5 km to base camp.


It's sunny when we begin so I start off with a thermal shirt but it's not long before the temperature drops and I start to layer up.

We travel up the rock mountain valley. There's a small icy river nearby. Occasionally there is the clitter clatter of rocks from the nearby slopes. We don't see anything so we assume they are rock slides on the other side of the hills.


We see a few deer and then a few more and then maybe as many as fifty here and there.

The wind picks up and clouds roll over. I rug up further until I am comfy and press on.

Base Camp is cold. Everest is overcast. It is wonderful. I have a modest sense of achievement. Okay, we drove up most of the way. Two years ago I did an 8 day trek to base camp in Nepal which was way more challenging. Way more.

Still, not too shabby. My mobile has reception so I phone my brother in Australia - so he can share in the experience. (Or am I gloating perhaps the tiniest bit?)

It's a 7km walk back to our accommodation. The weather clears up so we have great views of Everest behind us.

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The next morning we have a beautiful view of Everest in the chilly morning air. 

We drive back the way we came. I guess I hadn't thought about it but Everest isn't likely to be the best way to get across the Himalayas into Nepal.

We head back over the pass with the panoramic view and travel further East before we approach the mountain range again.

As we descended there are still a lot of high mountains in front of us and I wonder how we are going to get over them.

We don't.

We drive into a valley that gets steeper and steeper - a gorge that gets more pronounced, and more temperate as trees start to appear on the steep sides.

There is a lot of mist. The river sinks down quicker than the road and our bus drives down many switchbacks, twisting and turning on the steep path.

There are a lot rhododendrons on the other side of the valley - a beautiful mix of pink and white trees.

Eventually we come to the border town of Zhangmu - the last stop in the Autonomous Region of Tibet.

Tomorrow I will cross the friendship bridge into Nepal. I will be in Kathmandu a week earlier than planned and I still don't know what I will be doing for the next week.

(The next part of my journey is told out of sequence a year later in "Children of Nepal" after my trips to Paris and Borneo.)

Tibetan Highways

Early Tibet, Early to Rise.

 

The next morning we journey all day to Gyantse. The morning air is crisp and fresh and we travel along a beautiful river and stony hills under a clear blue sky. We leave the river and we have to stop for about an hour as the road is blocked. A crane is recovering a bus that has run off the road.

Later in the day we stop half way up a mountain because of road works. We are in for a long wait so some of us leave the vehicle and go for a walk along the road. The views are wonderful. A light snow falls. The snow stops then starts again heavier. It's not a problem and the wind is mostly at our backs.

At the top of the road we reach a pass with a view of a beautiful lake and not long afterwards the road is clear and we were picked up by our bus. We descend and have a wonderful drive around the lake.

We drive up through snow covered mountains, over another pass and on to Gyantse.

The following morning we visit the Palcho Monastery (a.k.a. Pelkor Chode) and climb the 9-tiered Kumbum, sticking my head into as many as possible of the unlit rooms containing statues and wall paintings.

In the afternoon we visit the enormous Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. It was founded by the first Dalai Lama and is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama. In the temple is a large picture of the PRC approved 11th Panchen Lama.In other parts of town such as the restaurant where we have lunch it is more common to see a large picture of the 10th Panchen Lama.


After our visit, three of us decide to walk the kora around the outside of the monastery walls. The sacred path is several kilometres. Cold weather is heading in and as we ascend the hills behind the monastery we contend with sporadic hail. At the top there are great views of Shigatse and the Shigatse Fortress.

Prayer flags on the hill behind the Tashilhunpo Monastery spread out like cobwebs.

I am starting to lose count of all the monasteries.



The next day we visit the Sakya Monastery. We see a great library of over 80,000 ancient books. Each volume is huge - about 90cm by 30cm and about 20cm thick. They are stacked high on huge shelves that cover a huge wall of the monastery.  From what I have been able to figure out they were lost for hundreds of years hidden behind a wall.

Tomorrow we visit Everest Base Camp and from there we will travel on to Nepal.

Lhasa Tibet

We arrive at Lhasa around 9pm and are met by our local guide and our driver. we take a mini van to our hotel. The Potala palace is lit up by floodlights and looks beautiful. In the foreground are many brightly lit flashing neon signs. It looks gaudy. We drive past the Potala Palace. Directly in front of it on the other side of the road is the "liberation" square.

In the morning we visit a 7th century Buddhist temple with many rooms and many statues - the Jokhang temple. There is a strong smell of yak butter everywhere. Each small room has an urn with yak butter candles in it. Visitors carry thermos flasks of melted yak butter which they add to the urns. The floor is slippery with yak butter. Monks carry large canisters of yak butter. I'm grateful they didn't make us take of our shoes.

 View from the roof of the Jokhang temple.

The Potola Palace can be seen upper right.

In the afternoon we visit a monastery where we watch the monks debating. The monks are all in a courtyard and are mostly in pairs. One monk sits passively and answer questions. The other monk that asks questions is very animated and appears aggressive. He stands on one leg with his right arm raised as of about to attack. He lunges forward and shouts his question and land as his right hand hits his left hand in front of him. There are about 100 monks debating like this.

The younger monks in the foreground are animated and energetic.
Older monks sitting further back in the courtyard are more laissez faire.

The next day I visit the Potala palace, the home of the 14th Dalai Lama before his exile. It is inspirational and I feel honored.

 The view overlooking Lhasa when leaving the Potola Palace.

After lunch I return to my hotel room, rest and read and take a nap. After I wake and shower I head back to town and wander the streets. In front of the temple a young girl of about nine is prostrating herself before the temple. She has sort of plastic covered wooden mittens on her hands. She joins her hands together and touches her head, her throat and her chest. She then dives to the ground. The mittens slide on the stone floor and she touches the ground with most of her body including her forehead. She gets up and repeats this slowly making her way all the way around the temple.

The streets of Lhasa. The foot traffic is one-way around the temple.

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We plan to have a home-stay by a lake but there has been snow on the pass and we cannot make it. Instead we visit Ganden Monastery which was founded in 1409 by Je Tsongkhapa, the teacher of the first Dalai Lama. After the visit we take a walk on a path around the monastery and have wonderful views of a large valley. As we return it starts to snow which adds to the magical spiritual feeling.

 Clothes and belongings of the deceased are littered beside the path.

 Sky burials are performed in this area.

When we return to Lhasa we discover that there has been a problem with our permits. The authorities have decided we must leave Tibet. We must follow our original itinerary over the course of the next few days directly to the border and then we must cross over into Nepal. This is very disappointing for everyone as it cuts short our time in Tibet by a week. This is the second disruption to our itinerary as we have already been refused the trek around Mt Kailash.

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Journey to the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China

South of the Himalayas the Kathmandu valley is relatively low. Nepal has hot weather and jungles with elephant and rhinoceros. The Indian land mass moves north and under the Chinese land mass pushing up the Himalayas. North of the Himalayas is an enormous plateau with with an average elevation of 4,900 metres. High land that climbs gently up from China.

It is a thirty hour train ride from Xian to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Within a few hours we have left the city behind and we are passing through a dry arid empty land.

I sleep restlessly overnight. In the morning when clear light is coming through the windows, I climb down from my top bunk eagerly. Nicole, our tour guide had described to us how wonderful it is to wake up in Tibet and look out on the grass lands with wild yaks. Outside the window is a vast desolate plain. I look out in wonder and take it all in. It takes about twenty seconds, then I go back to bed.

They turn the lights on. That's reasonable as people may be wanting to get up and attend to their breakfast. The train is still quiet when the turn on the intercom and pipe music and information. What's this about? Why won't they just let us sleep? It's not like they are going to feed us a meal nor do we need to get ready to disembark. I remember Nicole saying how in college every morning they were made to get up to do exercises. Perhaps this is part of the same philosophy. No sympathy for layabouts. Everyone get up and be productive.

When I next get up there are some low mountains and - is that some patchy snow on the top? Soon the snow on the mountains is obvious. We pass over many frozen streams. The ground is dry, cold and barren. The grass is barely visible.


The altimeter on the train goes up from 2300m to 2800m to 3300m and down again to 2700m. Inside the train it is 20 degrees. I wear a tee shirt, trousers and flip-flops There is well made double lane sealed road winding along side the train track, perhaps 500m distance. There is usually one or two tired looking trucks travelling in either direction. We approach some impressive snow covered mountains rising perhaps 1200m above the plain.



We pass a couple of glaciers - tongues poking out from the valleys between the mountains.




Nicole tells us we are still in China. This is disappointing. (Although we haven't reached the Autonomous Region we are on the Tibetan plateau inhabited by Tibetan people.) The train is running several hours late. She points out a rabbit by a fence. It is tan with lighter belly.A few minutes later I spot a solitary yak.

4200m, 4800m, 4500m. Now the ground is covered with patchy ice. We see a herd of about fifty yaks including calves. Nearby is the yak herders low tent. There is more snow and the land is covered in a white threadbare blanket with patches of dirt. The dirt becomes stonier and redder.





The landscape continues to vary. Flat land and and hills are the norm but the ground clears and low green grass appears. The snow becomes fresher and less icy but at most 5cm deep. The world turns white and then clears again.





I see a few deer. we pass through mist and occasionally there are patches of blue sky. I pass the day chatting and snacking, writing these words and taking photographs.

We reach the highest pass which is over 5000m. There is extra oxygen pumped into the train to reduce altitude sickness but even so I am often short of breath. We start to descend. We pass a beautiful clear blue lake with a backdrop of snow covered mountains the sky is blue with white clouds. It looks like it is snowing on the distant mountains.


On the other side of the train there are smaller lakes, clear blue with a white two metre ring of ice around the shore.





Lakes are holy in Tibet. When people die in the lake regions they are buried in the water. The Tibetans do not eat fish. When people die in the mountain regions they are buried in the sky. They are chopped into tiny pieces and fed to the birds. The Tibetans do not eat birds.



It is twenty past six and we are passing many small streams and rivers and herds of yaks every few minutes and some times herds of sheep and some horses here and there. The grasslands now only stretch about five kilometres to the mountains that are drawing closer.











The train has been further delayed so we are still two hours from Lhasa. We pass several small villages. Square buildings of brick and cement. Prayer flags fly from the tops of the buildings.



I just asked Nicole. "It is quarter past eight. Why is it still daytime?" She laughs "China is a big country. We only have one time zone." We have travelled so far west we have extra hours of light.

So now I put down my journal as I prepare for our arrival in Lhasa.