To Everest and Back

I'm back from Everest, safe, sound, and ready for a good night's sleep. Despite being part of an organized tour group (as is unaivoidable because of the stupid Chinese government and their travel permits), it was definitely an adventure. The first day we met at 7am, rounded up the rest of the group from their hotels, and set out on our way. After what we considered at that time to be a bumpy ride, our first stop was Yamdrok-Tso (Yamdrok Lake). Well, that's not actually true - our first stop was a roadside stand with a bunch of locals and their yaks dressed up in some sort of ceremonial gear, asking us to take pictures and give them money. But our first stop of interest was Yamdrok-Tso. The lake winds around for miles alongside the road, and in certain parts it has a really beautiful green/blue color. It's sacred to the Tibetans, so of course the Chinese government has decided to dam it for electrical power. Since it's a dead lake (no outside source of water), that means it will probably dry up within the next 20 years or so. Some parts of the lake have already separated themselves from the main body because of sinking water level. Go China go.



[1 - The gang on our way to Everest, 2&3 - Yamdrok-Tso]

The next stop was Gyantse, the third largest town in Tibet (which isn't saying much). Apparently it is supposed to be unique because it is relatively free of Chinese influence, but we wouldn't be able to tell that because our drivers shepherded us through pretty quickly. We stopped for lunch at an overpriced restaurant, which was our first introduction to the system here in which the drivers cart all of our white butts around to specific restaurants or hotels so that we can overpay and they can eat or sleep for free. After our lunch, we had a little bit of time to check out the Pelkor Chode Monastery. The monastery's main attraction was the Gyantse Kumbum (a kumbum is a chorten/stupa with lots of statues and paintings inside). The Kumbum was cool, but I couldn't really appreciate all of the artwork because of my ignorance on the subject of Buddhist art and symbolism. After a while, a big gold Buddha just looks like yet another a big gold Buddha, no matter what position he's sitting in or what other statues are around him. Anyway, the place probably would have been a bit more fun if we'd had more time to explore; as it was, we had about an hour before having to climb into our vans and head out.



[At Pelkor Chode Monastery in Gyantse: 1 - A woman spinning prayer wheels, 2 - Sakyamuni in the Kumbum, 3 - A statue of Namba Namse (Vairocana), a Dhyani Buddha, in the assembly hall]

That night we stayed over in Shigatse, the second largest city in Lhasa. We checked into the Tibetan Farmers' Hotel (may the name live in infamy) and figured out that we were too late to see the monastery in town. When trying to figure out what the plan was for the next day, we had our first real problems dealing with the drivers. At first they said we had a long ride ahead, so we had to leave at 8am and could not see the monastery. They said that we could see the monastery on the way back; I tried to ask whether or not we'd run into the same problem (arriving late and having to leave early), but they blew off the question. Then one of the other people on the trip brought up the fact that our drivers were supposed to be getting our permits to go to Everest while we were in Shigatse. After repeated questioning, they admitted that the PSB office was closed and would not open until 9:30 - meaning that we couldn't leave at 8am after all because they had to get our permits at 9:30. Eventually we agreed that they would get our permits, we would go to the monastery, and then we would meet back at the hotel at 11am. Phew!

Starting with that discussion, I had fallen into the position of group spokesperson (I was the only one who spoke any Chinese). Not that my Chinese did me all that much good - our drivers were Tibetan, and were very selective about the times at which they would understand Chinese. For example, if I were saying that we didn't want to eat at the restaurant to which they'd taken us, they couldn't understand a single word I said. But if they were trying to get money out of a Chinese guy who ran into our Land Cruiser, all of a sudden they were fluent. It ended up being a bit stressful in the end, because the drivers always wanted to take us to overpriced places so that they could eat and sleep for free, and I ended up having to argue with them. I figured that we had paid for the tour (and the money we paid was supposed to cover their food and lodging), so we were in charge, not them. They also were a bit sketchy in other aspects. For example, we were never really sure if they ever actually got our permits in Shigatse or if they just made it up that we even needed permits; we also noticed that whenever we left food or water in the car overnight it mysteriously disappeared. By the end of the trip I had decided that I would rather travel independently and get fined if I get caught without my requisite tour group than have to deal with all of the hassles of arranging a tour through an agency.

Anyway, that night we found out that the Tibetan Farmers' Hotel was literally (excuse my language) a rat-infested shit hole. My room woke up at 1:30am to the sound of a rat fight outside; after managing to fall back asleep, at 3:30 I woke up again to the sound of a rat scuttling under my bed. The next morning we found out that in the other room one of the guys actually found a rat inside his bed. The bathroom was a complete disaster zone - there were feces everywhere (on the floor near the toilets, on the floor near the sinks, and even on one of the walls). We were very glad to get out of there the next morning.

We had a bit of time before we left to check out the monastery in town (Tasilhunpo Monastery). Tasilhunpo is reknowned for being the headquarters of the Panchen Lama, the second highest lama in Tibetan Buddhism, after the Dalai Lama. The Panchen Lama has been the center of a lot of controversy; the 10th Panchen Lama was raised by the Chinese to be a pawn, but he turned on them and spoke out against what they were doing in Tibet. When that one died, the Dalai Lama named an 11th Panchen Lama; the Chinese government didn't approve, so they locked him up somewhere in Beijing and made the monks at Tasilhunpo name a different 11th Panchen Lama. Anyway, the monastery is pretty active, so it was a lot of fun to visit. The monks were all over the place, writing, cutting out designs on paper, chanting prayers, writing prayer sheets, and carrying water back and forth. I wandered around the main temple complex for a while and found a lot of cool little side chapels. One room was a little library of slabs of stone with prayers carved into them. Another room had pilgrims lined up with prayers that they wanted the monks to read. They would pass the prayer over to a head monk, along with a small donation, and then the hall full of monks repeated the prayer that they pilgrim had written down.


[At Tasilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse: 1 - A young monk helping an older one, 2 - Cutting out paper decorations]


[At Tasilhunpo: 3 - Library of engraved prayers, 4 - Another monk]

After our excursion to the monastery, we waited for the drivers to get our permits for another hour and finally headed out on our way to Shegar. This was where the road really got bumpy. We figured it should be relatively easy to get from Shigatse to Shegar, as it was only about 230 km along the Friendship Highway that runs from Lhasa to Nepal. What we didn't realize was that the Friendship Highway was only really what one might call a "highway" from Lhasa to Shigatse. After that, it turns to mud, rocks, and construction detours. It took us 9 hours to drive the 230 km from Shigatse to Shegar, and our butts were definitely feeling it by the end. I was also in a bit of a bad mood because I realized that my iPod had managed to have (another) complete meltdown, and this time it was two weeks after my warranty expired. The prospect of not having any of my music for the next 4 months and then having to shell out a couple hundred for a new mp3 player was not making me very happy.

Shegar wasn't of much interest except as a stopping point on the way to Everest, but the hotel was clean and we all slept like babies. The next day we set out for base camp. Our cars couldn't enter after a certain point, so we took a public minivan from there up to Rongphu Monastery. The monastery is the highest in the world (4980 m), but most people come here because of its proximity to Everest. We got rooms at the monastery guesthouse and started the hike up to base camp. We were really really lucky in that Everest was pretty clear when we showed up. Apparently some people stay for days and still don't get to the see the mountain because of cloud cover. We had a great view all day, and that made the hike up to base camp really exciting. Well, exciting and exhausting. Our guidebooks had said it would be a straightforward hike of 90 minutes or so. It took us 3 hours and left us panting. I never felt so tired just from walking on a slight incline. Apparently the atmospheric pressure up there was about half of that at sea level, and we were definitely feeling it. Luckily none of us got too sick, as we had just ascended from Lhasa at 3595m to an elevation of 5200m at base camp. I was especially glad that the only problems I had were shortness of breath, since I hadn't even had much time to acclimatise to Lhasa's altitude before we left.


[1 - View of Everest from Rongphu Monastery, 2 - View of Everest from the hike up to base camp]

The base camp itself was a bit anticlimactic. As soon as we arrived we were assaulted by people offering us souvenirs and motorcycle rides back down. We all took our pictures with the sign to prove that we were there, and walked around the tents that were set up. There didn't seem to be people there who were actually attempting to climb Everest (it is not the right season, apparently), but there were tents set up offering food, tea, and lodging. The view wasn't really much different than it had been on the hike up, and it was starting to get cloudy and really cold, so we took the offer of a motorcycle ride and headed back down to the monastery. That night we had dinner at the larger hotel behind the monastery and used their telescope to check out the peak while the sun was setting.


[1 - A picture to prove I was there, 2 - Base camp]


[1 - Everest at sunset, 2 - Everest at sunrise (slightly cloudier, no?)]

The next morning we all got up to watch the sunrise, but by that time Everest had clouded up again. Once again, we were feeling really lucky that we'd had the view we did the day before. We took another minivan out to where our drivers were staying and got in the car for the epic ride back to Shigatse. The tone of the day was set fairly early, when we got stuck behind two construction vehicles that had broken down. We had to drive up a muddy embankment to get around them, resulting in a lot of back-sliding and a lot of mud flying everywhere. Over the course of the next 13 hours in the car on the way back to Shigatse, we managed to get stuck in a hole for 20 minutes, get into a car accident with a Chinese guy driving a brand new SUV, have to drive through a river to get around a jack-knifed truck, squeeze past a bus that had broken down in the middle of a town, and drive the last 3 hours in the dark with no streetlights and headlights that only worked sporadically. This was on top of the general bumpiness of the road and all of the construction detours. And to top it off, when we got back to Shigatse, the drivers tried to take us back to the Tibetan Farmers' Hotel. It took another hour and quite a bit of arguing to get them to take us to a decent place.


[1 - The Friendship "Highway", 2 - Stuck]


[1 - Waiting for our car to get unstuck, 2 - A local boy checking out the foreigners' car problems]

The next day was a pretty straightforward drive back to Lhasa on the bit of the Friendship Highway that is actually paved. We did get stranded for an hour and a half in some small truck stop because there was something wrong with our permits or we didn't have a guide or something. Eventually the drivers gave the police 500 yuan and we were on our way. We got into Lhasa at around 5pm and checked into our hotel. If any of you are going to Lhasa, you should stay at the Oh Dan guesthouse. The rooms and bathrooms are clean, there's solar-heated showers, the staff is incredibly friendly and helpful, there is a rooftop patio with a great view, and there's free breakfast every morning - all this for less than $5. After paying that much for a cold room at Rongphu monastery with no running water and disgusting bathrooms, or only slightly less for the Tibetan Farmers' Hotel, the Oh Dan seemed like heaven. We all went out to dinner, got some beer and sat up on the roof patio.

I'll probably spend a couple more days in Lhasa, running errands, relaxing, and giving my stomach time to settle. I'll let you know what I decide to do next...

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