Oct 9, 2005 - Gyantse - Day 1 - Off to claim Mnt Everest for England

Up for the early start of the 5 day expedition to Everest Base Camp, hjumped into the crappy 1980's Land cruiser, with our driver Sani, Matt from the UK, Mike form Aus and old Dongi. The thing had heating which was much more than I expected. We slowly made our way up a long winding road up to a pass of 4990 metres, we stopped as the view was amazing, looking over Lake Yamdrok, the colour of it would change as the sun shined on different patches, it was lush. we got attacked by Yak and dog boys wanting money for photos, I eventually gave...

Aug 6, 2005 - Gyantse

Day two involved the long trip back along the same road that we had travelled for most of yesterday until we passed the turn-off back to Lhasa then headed off the Friendship Highwayand over a high pass to Yamdrok Tso or Lake. This pass was at about 4800m and being the highpoint of the trip so far brought on some altitude symptoms, mainly slight headache and shortness of breath. After lunch down in the lake valley we headed off to Gyantse over an even higher pass at just over 5000m, this one gave Joao an almost instant and severe headache...

Jul 26, 2005 - Gyantse

Lots of wonderful monastaries to admire and wander around, soaking up the atmosphere. The Tibetan artwork is stunning and watching the monks carry on regardless of the Chinese police was quite moving. Tibetans are a devout and determined people who you cannot help but admire. Rather interesting castle with an anti-British museum. We apparently invaded in 1904 with a few troops from Nepal over trade and killed 1000 Tibetans, due to a bungled effort by a Mr.Younghusband, the Brit in charge. The Chinese set this up and the emotive language...

Jul 5, 2005 - Lhasa to Gyantse

On Tuesday we headed out of Lhasa quite early and hit the road for a long haul to Gyantse, which was the next major town on the road back to Nepal. It was nice to be out of the city and to see some of the dramatic countryside. I had no idea what to expect from the Tibetan countryside. After about 2 hours of driving through red-brown mountains, we began to ascend rapidly. Our LandRover, however, chugged along and tried it's best to make it up the mountain passes! The first pass we came to was right at 15,000 feet, the highest any of us had...

May 21, 2005 - Gyangtse

This morning it seems we all woke up on a much better side of the bed than yesterday. We got up extra early 4:30 AM, to climb aboard our sweet Land Cruiser 4500 and take off for Gyangtse. Why so early? I guess their doing road construction and we had to get past the point where they close the road before sunrise or something. Anyway, it was dark and early, lucky for us we have a fantastic driver named Soto, who primary concern is our safety. You may think I'm kidding but I'm not, yesterday when trying to pass a truck, when another vehicle...

Nov 4, 2004 - Yakkety yak

More yak for tea, I do rather like it. No bloody breakfast though, as nowhere was open. Nevertheless, a last goodbye to Lhasa in the dark, pilgrims doing their stuff even then and flames shooting up in the darkenss from the juniper burners in Barkhor Square. And then all in our Toyota Landcruiser and off we go. Decent roads for about an hour and then off road via Kongkarchordi Monastery. The monks were in full swing, chanting, banging cymbals and drums, and blowing those big Tibetan trumpets. It was great, even darker than usual, even more...