China - The Friendship Highway - Part II

Day 3 brought lots more beautiful scenery as we made our way towards Everest Base Camp.





Our first glimpse of Mt. Everest and some nice prayer flags at a pass...


Or - Our first glimpse of Everest and the busy freeway leading to its base.


Some more neat remote villages:


So we we had a Tibetan Travel permit, our Chinese Visa, a Mt. Everest vehicle permit, and a Mt. Everest tourist permit, BUT little did we know that we also needed a Mt. Everest Base Camp permit also in order to go to base camp. Gotta love those Chinese rules. So we drove up to base camp and immediately this Chinese military guy ran out to our car and told us to leave. He was very nice about it, but the whole thing is so ludicrous. So we drove back down the road a mile (to a better photo spot, I might add) and spent the rest of the evening taking some amazing pictures. With wind-chill it was about minus 30 degrees.


Well because we couldn't stay at base camp or the monastery next to it, we were forced to drive down the road a ways in the dark until we came across a small settlement. The driver asked a local family if we could stay with them and they were okay with having us in. It was a great time and we slept in their family room.

Here are some views the next morning from their rooftop:






Some kids joking around on a tractor:


We continued on a very rough dirt road (supposedly a shortcut) to get back to the main highway and the rough town of Tingri. We were supposed to spend the night here, but were disillusioned by the accommodations. So we continued on to the border town.

Jay taking some video along the way:


One of the coolest things I found in Tibet were the old decaying ruins of long ago days. These littered the landscape and were in various states of disrepair:


Eastern Washington, with Mt. Adams in the distance:


More locals along the way:


Finally we reached the last pass called... (Can't remember the name right now).
Here the Tibetan Plateau comes to an end, as the valley to the south leads steeply down into Nepal between the 8,000-meter mountains of Cho Oyu and Shishapangma. The road drops over 15,000-feet over a relatively short distance.


The last 30 or so kilometers to the border are massively under construction and generally look like this:


It didn't help that it started pouring rain, but we made it safely to the border town just before dark. Unfortunately, the hotel that we chose had a night-club underneath it and the thumping music lasted until 4 a.m.

The next morning we uneventfully crossed the border and hired an Isuzu Trooper to drive us to Kathmandu. What a change it was going from high, cold, and windswept Tibet immediately to lush, green, and warm Nepal.

We are now chilling out and relaxing in Kathmandu. We'll be heading up into the Khumbu region next week for some trekking and my photo assignment. We'll be going with two Sherpas who are Sherpa Adventure Gear's new athletes. Should be a lot of fun. The weather is the best I've ever seen it here. Very warm and amazingly clear (read less polution).

Oh and one more thing to remember if you ever come here:

China - The Friendship Highway - Part I

Wow, this has been another incredibly beautiful journey. We left Lhasa early in the morning on the first day.

Looking back toward the Lhasa valley from the first pass:

We first visited a really cool lake Yamdrok Tso (4488 m).
Here are a couple of the locals hanging around for some pictures:

Michelle was keen on seeing and Shivani spotted the rare and endangered Black Neck Cranes:

Way Cool:

Near the end of the day, we were waylaid by some road paving. We were forced off the road and required to wait a couple hours while the black-top cooled. Here are a few shots of the hard laboring road guys:

We eventually gave up waiting and started off-roading it through the river basin along with a caravan of other SUV’s. One poor group of people got majorly stuck, but they were too far away for us to help. We ended up crossing the main channel 4 times. Yes that is the river right out the window.

Eventually we were able to sneak back onto the road and it was smooth sailing on fresh black-top. We passed several large peaks with large glaciers coming down to near the road. Then came to another large lake, although this one was not natural.

There was a really cool “island” with an old fortress looking structure on it:

We eventually came to the town of Gyantse. Here there is a pretty cool monastery and also an even cooler abandoned fort way up on a hill:

We spent the night here and visited the monastery the next morning.

The crew eating dinner:

The monastery was quite scenic, the coolest thing was that it contained the largest Stupa in Tibet, which is 5 stories high plus the dome on top and has 108 rooms all containing some Buddha dude or another.




Michelle and Shivani winding their way up the oversized Stupa.


Looking up a prayer flag pole:


Another view of Gyantse:


We then moved on to the next town of Shigatse - a short drive away. Being all monasteried-out, we decided to visit a local carpet factory and take in some other sights.

The carpet factory was pretty interesting, here's a lady spinning wool into thread:


A few shots of some locals:






Finally we did some more shopping.
We decided this would be a good place to buy some stuff:


But we all agreed to avoid doing business with these guys:

China - Lhasa II

The weather has cleared up and we're taking in the sights. Lhasa has a significant number of monasteries and other historical places of interest. With only a few days here, we chose to see just four; the Potala, the Jokhang Temple, the Barkhor, and the Sera Monastery.

Here are a couple pictures of the Potala (we're taking the inside tour later today).




Prayer flags for sale in the Barkhor:


Each day starting well before sunrise pilgrims and the local community start the day doing koras around the Barkhor, which circles the Jokhang Temple. There are hundreds of people in the front of the temple with hand protectors and pads which they use to pray. Others prostrate one body length at a time all the way around the circuit; kora means to circum-ambulate an object of devotion. A few guys were throwing there bodies at least 4 body lengths using wooden blocks on their hands for speed. This goes on most hours of the day and night; with people of all ages.

A Tibetan boy prostrating in front of the Johkrang:


We went to the Sera Monastery to watch the Monks debate. This goes on each afternoon. This is part of the teaching of the Tibetan scriptures. The monks discuss the scriptures and debate the correct interpretation of the piece. It is a very lively (and loud) scene with hand jestures, clapping and a lot of jumping to get the point across.











At the Sera Monastery, Michelle tries out her teaching skills:


Finally we had some really nice...


and shopped for some...


We're leaving in the morning to take the Friendship Highway down to Kathmandu. We've hired a private landcruiser and will make the trip in 6 days. Along the way we'll visit some lakes, monasteries, and Everest base camp. We've hooked up with two other people for the adventure, Jay (from Toronto) and Shivae (from New Zealand, living in Vancouver, B.C.)