Tingri:

April 1st, 2005

By day three, we were getting used to the early mornings and cold temperatures of Tibet. However, we were warmed by the spirits of our hosts at this particular guest house (Lhatse Tibetan Farmers Adventure Hotel).

First, they gave us a generous discount on our already cheap pancakes and jasmine tea. Then, the main man in charge gave us a lesson in a few simple Tibetan phrases including "good morning" and "very good", the later sounding somewhat like Fred Flintstone yelling "Yaba-daba-doooooo".

The drive was spectacular on this day, as was the weather. We went through a mountain pass of 5220m and entered the Qomolangma Nature Preserve, which is the official name of the park that includes Mt. Everest. In Tibetan the mountain is known as Mt. Qomolangma (pronounced "Jomo-Lang-Ma").

We got our first views of the massive rock from a valley some 100km away.

The gateway town to Everest Base Camp is Shegar and we stopped there for lunch to get permits for both the vehicles and ourselves to enter the park. Just outside of Shegar we passed a checkpoint (the Chinese love these) and had our passports scrutinized by soldiers who were so young their uniforms were 2 to 3 sizes too big!

Just past the checkpoint we experienced our second of three flat tires on the trip. Fortunately for us, both drivers are also master mechanics and can fix just about anything that happens to their vehicles. The flat tire was a piece of cake for them and we were on our way in minutes, reaching Tingri, our destination for the night by 5pm.

The "hotel" our drives took us to was a dive so a few of us walked down the road to try and find a better place. Along the way we encountered a guy who just arrived in town and was going to climb Mt. Everest. At first he seemed normal, but soon his answers were starting to sound a bit weird.

He was in a group of people who didn't know each other - all had just signed up from different countries. He also said he was going to climb without oxygen (which only the top climbers in the world do on Everest). And finally, when we pointed to the mountains in front of us, he wasn't quite sure which one was Everest (we didn't know either; we figured he would know since he was the one climbing it)!!!

Anyway, we ended up in the bad hotel, but more on that in a second.

Jess and I needed some exercise after being in the car for 3 straight days so we climbed to the top of the hill in town which took us close to 4700m above sea level. What we saw were spectacular views of Cho Oyu, a mountain rising to 8153m and way off in the distance we could see Everest which stands a massive 8848m. We didn't have our camera with us so we climbed down the hill, got our camera, and climbed back up for a second round of gasping as we fought the altitude to make it to the top!

That night we froze our asses off. The one light in the room didn't work due to a lack of power supply so we had to borrow a candle to just make our beds! Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night was nasty as the cold and wind made going outside painful. Although, that was counterbalanced by the beautifully clear sky over Tingri.

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