EBC......Journey to the Roof of the World
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2009
1
181
209
Trip End
Ongoing
Tingri, Xizang, China
Monday, June 28, 2010
We snoozed on the way and were periodically woken at checkpoints. At the second checkpoint there seemed to a problem with our permit. The officer left his post to consult his superiors, after a 20 minute delay he finally consented that we could pass. Apparently because one of the stamps on our permit wasn't very clear he had a problem. Even though they had signed the permit stating that there was a problem with the stamp and the permit was still valid. Finicky buggers.
Our plan had been to sleep until Everest Base Camp but it wasn't long before we hit not just dirt roads but boulders.
As dawn approached we past vast mountain scenery with little villages scattered around, it was a beautiful morning.
We arrived at Rongphu Monastery and were rewarded with the most amazing views of Everest. After a light breakfast of pancakes we started our 2 hour trek to EBC (we could have caught a bus but you know us).
Breathing seems to be okay now but climbing up and down from the gullies still seemed to take a lot of effort. Even though it is a very easy walk we still needed breaks every 20 minutes. By the time we reached Everest Base Camp the clouds had come in and we could see nothing but a glowing white. We were the only ones up there and we decided to sit around and wait to see the beauty again. We had one last peek at Everest before we turned our backs. We had been really lucky to have seen Everest cloud free and the early start had been worth it.
From base camp we made our way very slowly to Old Tingri. We don't properly know how to explain this road to you, in all honesty we aren't even sure it was a road. We were having flash backs to the Mongolian bus ride from Hell. It was 5 hours of holding on to the seats. It was a hot, dry and dusty day. Our arses were in air more times than attached to our seats. Dip after dip with the exhaust pipe scrapping along the ground it soon camp off with the spare tire. Daniel was the one to crawl under the car and reattached the offended piece of metal. It came off another 2 times, once more when we were in a mini sand storm and the second when we were crossing a small stream. Despite all this the scenery was amazing.
We arrived in Old Tingri starving, it was close to 7pm and we hadn't eaten since mid-morning. Old Tingri is a one horse town, a couple of ox's and tones of stray dogs. The 2 of us and Michael had to decide stay in this place or head out with the other guys to the Nepali border. We had a quick bite to eat fixed up the disheveled van and headed back on the road again. We drove out along the Friendship Highway, one of the most spectacular roads we had seen with Everest glowing in the late evening sky
It was a 3 hour drive to Nyalam, close to the border but not quite there. It was past 11pm when we arrived and somehow we managed to stay at the shittiest place any of us had ever seen. You could smell out the outside bathrooms, just by opening your door. The wallpaper was held up with sticky tape. Matt and Florence's room had the graffiti "It rains in this room" scrawled on the door and although it wasn't currently raining their beds were still wet from the last down poor. The floor boards were so warped you could see into the next room if you dared to lay your head on the ground. The walls were even less thin than cardboard, we could talk threw them as if we were face to face. We were told we couldn't get a key to the door as there wasn't one. We didn't even look in the showers.
It was going to be a long night..........
