Everest

This morning wake up at 6:45, we drive from the
monastery to the base camp and from there we hiked to
the 2nd camp 4 km away (and higher). The sunrise on
the Everest was absolutely stunning.



The sky was deep
blue, the air was freezing (as much as in the bedroom
without heater :) and the mountain gigantic, making us
forget how high we already are. The trip took us
a few hours and only 2 of us could actually go, the
other suffering from the lack of oxygen. I was pretty
happy to realize that I wasn't loosing my breath and
that I did acclimate rather quickly.




Makalu, Everest, Cho-Oyu and this time blue sky !

I wanted to stay there forever but the driver
reminded me that I had to be back to Lhasa in 2 days
so we drove back to Shigatze, not without piercing a
tire on the way. That's when I realized that the car
was not the driver's, without me he was unable to find
the tools to lift the car (with the fact that he
didn't really know the road, afterwise it looks a bit
scary:).

Going to Everest base camp

This morning we leave Shigatse for Everest base camp, but unfortunately the
Chinese need some additional paperwork to go there
because they don't hold a foreign passport (...).
After one hour of administrative offices bumping we
got all the paperwork done. I was actually impressed
it was much faster than in India and despite the need
of a middle-man it didn't seem to need any corruption
to get the thing done fast (I was really impressed by
the experience of seeing Rajani go through the process
of getting an international driving licence in India).


Morning view of Shigatse


Morning blue sky



The road starts to get narrower and narrower, and
loose more often its asphalt. We buy the permits to
enter the National park where Everest is, pass one
last police control and ... here start the gravel road.
It took us 3:30 to reach Everest Base Camp, going
through a pass over 5000m, a few isolated villages and
driving on a "tole ondulee" surface. I didn't think a
car can get any more shake, vibrated, and even broken
piece after piece that we got.


Cloudy, but that's it ! Three 8000+ peaks on sight.

However the last hours
the view was fantastic, we could see all the chain of
snowy spikes over 8000m from the Makalu to the Cho-Oyu
and with the Everest in the middle. The weather was
getting more and more covered (it is the same
everyday, the sky is pure in the morning and clouds
form from the sun on the snow, and all condensates and
disappears the next night) but we could still see very
far.
Once arrived we chatted with a few tourists from Hong Kong around a hot boiler. Most of the people
went to bed in their freezing room early, but I stayed
close to the heat until late and chatted with Natalia,
a Russian businesswoman traveling alone after a
business trip, on her quest to see the summit of the
world.

From Lake Namtso to Shigatse

This morning starts my trip around Tibet. I rented a 4x4 with 2 other Chinese for a 4 days trip.
This is going to be an interesting trip as the driver
doesn't speak a word of English and the 2 Chinese are a
deaf-mute couple that doesn't speak English either :).
We head first to Namtso Lake, a few hours later we
stop at a pass (at 5000m) with an impressive view.



Then we go down and follow up the river that flows in
Lhassa to Shigatse. Sometimes the riverbed is only a
few dozen of meters wide between rocky cliffs
sometimes it is a dozen of kilometers wide leaving us
under the impression of being on a plateau. All day
long great scenaries.


Houses near the river


Meeting tibetans along the road

We finish the day with the visit
of Shigatse monastery, and even after seeing the giant
gold statues and autels in Lhassa I got impressed by
the 21m high all-gold buddha statue they hold in a
chappel.


My travel-mates in front of Shigatse monastery

I had dinner with the couple and we went through 5 or
6 pages of paper doing little drawings to tell each
other's stories. I realized that it was actually
easier to communicate with them than most chinese as
they understood much better the meaning that could
hide behide a gesture or a small drawing (other
attempts to communicate with signs with chinese people
had been really inconclusive). I learnt a few obvious
sign language "words" and we are able to hold
conversations.

Visiting temples

Today was the monastery visit day, but not only. April
is supposed to be the driest month of the year in
Lhasa but it started to snow in the morning. So we
visited the Potala under the snow, then moved to the
Drepung Monastery where we met again the group of
French we met yesterday in the Jokhang. We finished
the day with the visit of a third monastery: The Sera.


The Potala palace after the snow


Drepung, back alley under the snow


Snowball battle at the Drepung


We ate at the restaurant situated inside Drepung, the dumplings were quite good but the kitchen was not for the faint of heart.


Sera monastery


Inside Sera

One thing strikes the visitor, these monasteries are
gigantic and did hold thousands of monks, but nowadays
they are almost empty (but not deserted). Drepung used
to have 10000 monks and now only has 700. It is
supposed to be related to the Chinese occupation as
since the Dalai Lama left no monks can be ordered.
The rich interiors of the chapels contrast with the
simplicity of the monks housing (and the extreme
poverty of the rest of the population). At the feet of
each statue lay a few bills result of a donation, and
as there are thousand of these statues, you are under
the impression that the chapels grounds are really
covered with donations.

Lhasa

Early morning flight to Lhasa, our "tour" organizers were perfect (you need an organized tour to get a permit to Tibet, however there are a lot of those fake organized tours where they just get you a ticket and the permit which let you enter Tibet without preparation), on time and we had no problems :). Once landed we took the bus to Lhasa (1 hour and a half away from the airport), got stopped on the way like all the traffic because of some official using the road at the same time, and admired the great scenery. It took us around 2 hours to acclimate to the 3800m altitude, 2 hours where we were slightly uncomfortable but fine, and now we just walk slowly to keep our breath.
Once in Lhasa we walked all around the city for 5 hours and visited the Jokhang temple (the holiest of Tibetan temples, in the heart of Lhasa). I start to really like Tibet.


The Jokhang


Inside the Jokhang


The view on the Potala Palace is fantastic.

I bought my return ticket :( and started to plan for a trip to the Everest base camp, it seems that I will team up with 2 young deaf-mute Chinese (that don't write English), I have the feeling that communication will be interesting :).