At Mt. Everest
Around noon, we left Pang La pass, and drove a dust road towards everest basecamp. In fact, I have just read in the newspaper that the Chinese government plans to change exactly this small road to a wide highway before the Olympic Games in 2008. I wonder when they will start building the first cable car onto the summit of Everest ...
When we arrived at Everest basecamp, it was surprisingly empty. We were told that the mountaineering season was over since a few weeks, and thus all the many supply tents, restaurants and even guest houses that can be found there during summer had just been removed recently. As a result, it was also not possible (or not recommended) for me to put up my tent at the basecamp itself, but rather at Rongbuk monastery, about 200m lower, where also some other people (mainly cyclists) were camping.
Me at the completely empty basecamp of Mt. Everest, at an altitude of about 5200m
I continued walking beyond the basecamp, with the original aim of hiking to camp 1 (about 5400m), which is known to be easily accessible also to 'ordinary' people. However, besides one Swiss guy who was hiking the other direction (he had just cycled all the way from Usbekistan to Mt. Everest), I didn't meet any single person, and thought it would be a bit too dangerous to be hiking around in this terrain and at this altitude all by myself. So I walked up some of the moraines, trying to get a better view of the Rongbuk glacier.
Several of these small lakes can be found at the end of Rongbuk glacier.
A small cemetary, reminding of the mountaineers who lost their lives on Mt. Everest.
In the evening, I walked from the basecamp to the monastery, but somehow entirely underestimated the distance of 8km between the two points. This was the first time that I really felt the effects of being at an altitude beyond 5000m. In total, I must have hiked a distance of around 16km this day, and my body was really, really tired. I put up my tent near the monastery, and a small girl actually came to collect an alleged 'camping ground fee' of 1 Euro (after which she gave me a hand-drawn receipt).
My tent, put up near Rongbuk monastery, at a altitude of about 5000m.
The sunset at Mt. Everest.
The next morning, on the fifth day of our jeep trip (and my birthday!), I was woken up by a strange noise near my tent. It sounded as if somebody was snoring, but at the same time the noise was far too deep and too loud - and also started coming from different directions. I opened my tent to find out where the noise came from - and there were two yaks standing in front of my tent, as if they want to congratulate me for my birthday!
The first view in the morning, when I opened my tent.
Later in the morning, I did some hiking with the Israelian couple, and we walked through some ruins of towns that looked as if they had been destroyed and buried by landslides. In the early afternoon, the conflict with the driver and guide escalated again, as they both insisted that we still had an 8-hour drive to Shigatse before us this day and thus had to leave immediately (while we had told them all the time that we wanted to stay overnight in some other place and drive to Shigatse the next day). Well, in between it happened that the argue became so bad that I saw my baggage flying out of the jeep, and the driver wanted to leave my behind. Only after I took my cell phone and threatened to call the agency and the police, I was allowed to enter the jeep again, and the trip continued. What a great birthday!
A view down the Rongbuk valley.
Rongbuk monastery, supposedly the highest monastery in the world.
The next night, we stayed in Lhatse, and drove back to Lhasa on the last, 6th day of the jeep trip. In total, I must say that we passed through a surely amazing landscape during the jeep trip, and we were very lucky with the weather, but the joy of the trip was of course strongly decreased by all the trouble we had with the driver and guide. After 6 days, we were all really fed up by all the lies of our guide (he always told us entirely wrong information about the time it would take to travel certain routes, just in order to modify the agenda according to his wishes). And also, I must say that our experiences with the Tibetan people during the trip was also quite bad. There was hardly any restaurant or hotel where people didn't try to rip us of, so after a few days you feel really exhausted of never being able to trust enybody except other tourists.
I would really like to come back to Tibet one day, but then try to travel far off the touristy areas. The probably only way to do this under the current political situation in Tibet is to travel by bike, because then all the hassle with driver and guide can be avoided.
On October 15th, I took the train from Lhasa back to Xining, then flew from there to Beijing and from Beijing back home. So, this was the trip. I hope you enjoyed the photos!
See some photos of Tibetan people on the next page >>