As a rule I like to travel with only a small bag, which is not such a good idea in Tibet in the middle of November sleeping at altitudes of over 4000m. Wearing everything that I owned was still not enough to prevent the cold from creeping in through every little gap in my defences. While the sun is shining you can get away with wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but the minute you enter the shade the temperature drops by so much that I am convinced if you put your toes in the shade and your face in the sun you could get frostbite and sunburn all at the same time.
Driving down from Lhasa towards the Himalayas and the Nepalese border was a great opportunity to see another side of Tibet that has been less influenced by the Chinese. The cities along the way all have palaces and monasteries that are in many cases as good as if not better than those in and around Lhasa. Our driver had been instructed to show us the less trodden path so instead of driving on the paved road we spent much of the time off-roading over high passes and through small almost forgotten villages. Our first stop was Yam Drok Lake whose turquoise blue waters lie at 4000m. Here the sun always shines and the only sound is the fluttering of the prayer flags carrying people's wishes over the waters and beyond. A young boy on a bicycle and his sister were the only life to be seen for miles around apart from a savage looking dog that was thankfully tethered to a post. Despite the blue sky and brilliant sun the wind had driven the temperature down to unacceptable levels so before long we had all bundled back in to the relative warmth of the car.
That night we stopped in Gyantse, which is called a city but is in fact little more than a small town. Apart from a huge concrete Monument to China in the middle of the town square, found in all Tibetan towns, this place is almost completely Tibetan. The buildings are all in the Tibetan style and there is a noticeably slower pace of life here. A hilltop palace and beautiful walled monastery with a multi storied pagoda make Gyantse an essential place to visit, although the smell of burning yak butter has now permeated my clothes and follows me always.
A little further down the road is Shigatze, Tibet's second major city. This too has a beautiful monastery which we opted to walk around with the pilgrims instead of pay an entrance fee go inside with the monks and tourists as I am beginning to feel like my monastery 'donations' are getting out of hand. It turns out the kora, walking around, is much more beautiful than the monastery itself and it afforded us spectacular views over the city and to the newly rebuilt palace that like so many others also stands atop a small hill. The Shigatze palace stands out as it has recently been repaired so even from a distance all the lines are all perfectly straight. There is not a brick out of place making it look very different from other Tibetan buildings which all retain a very handmade feel. (The Potala for example was built before the introduction of the wheel to Tibet giving it a unique un-uniform look)
A few days later long before dawn five people were stirring from their beds. They prepared themselves for the arctic temperatures that awaited them and made the short dash through the cold to the car. After rousing the driver they set off in the darkness across the Tibetan wilderness. Destination Everest.
Almost immediately it became apparent that the heater in the car was not working and within ten minutes the windows in the back had frosted over with a thick layer of ice in the inside. I can confidently say that this was the coldest I have ever been in my life. I had lost all of the feeling in my toes and had no choice but to curl in to a ball and wait it out as we made the arduous journey up to 5200 metres to Everest Base Camp in time for the sunrise.
The Chinese have various checkpoints to the road to the mountain including a kind of outpost at base camp where we had to show our passports and be registered. These unfortunate soldiers were huddled in a plastic hut in the shadow of the Chinese flag without even so much as a heater. Next to the largest mountain in the world on the furthest extreme of their territory in minus 15 degrees their posting was both wonderful and awful. I couldn't help thinking that the beauty if the location had been lost on these men and in fact this was a punishment detail.
In true Chinese dictatorial style even here at the very edge of existence there are still numerous rules including a ban on venturing any further than the army check-post so we had to make do with the view from where we were which was a huge shame as I was looking forward to walking right up to the base as far as possible, but alas it was not to be. Standing there atop a large pile of stones waiting for the sun to poke out from over the mountain seemed to take forever but when finally it came we all lay there soaking up the morning warmth and within a few minutes the feeling had returned to our extremities and we were all feeling vaguely normal again.
What can be said about the world's tallest mountain? Not much. To be honest it looks much like any other mountain, in fact I can think of many more dramatic looking peaks, but it has become one of those 'must see' things so I have duly obliged and seen it, all the while lining the Chinese government's pockets.
We spent a number of hours atop that pile of stones but there is only so long you can look at a mountain until the excitement wears thin so we headed off to our next destination, the one road town of Shergar where we waited out the rest of the day in eager anticipation of arriving in Kathmandu the following day.
The Road through the mountains down from the Tibetan plateau in to Nepal isn't exactly finished. In fact during daylight hours it is closed for blasting so anyone wishing to make it across needs to do so before 8am, which of course required another 5 o'clock, wake up call. Despite the cold and the darkness we managed to make it on to the final stretch of road before it was closed for the day only to stop for an extended tire change that took upwards of three hours.
In 2 weeks in Tibet covering thousands of kilometres of ground this last 50 km was undoubtedly the most dramatic. The unfinished road drops 2000 metres through a steep gorge with huge over hanging rocks above you and a thousand foot drop below you. The river in the bottom of the canyon is more of a series of tumbling rapids than any single flow being fed from all sides by enormous waterfalls that cascade down the cliff face from above you. In many cases the road actually passes through the water. All along this stretch of road perched on the edge of a ravine are workers laboriously chipping away at the mountainside. Everything on this mammoth job is being done by hand and the workers all live on site in tiny plastic tent communities that cling on to the rock with only inches separating them and the cold frothy waters below. Unfortunately this beauty all comes to an end in the border town of Zhangmu, which under any other circumstances would be a nice quiet mountain retreat but is in fact the largest traffic nightmare in Asia. The one small road that winds through the town now plays host to the daily struggle between trucks wanting to come up the hill in to china and those coming down in to Nepal. Needless to say it took us the best part of 2 hours to drive through this tiny little place as we spent much of the time reversing back up the hill.
Home sweet home...