The missing chapters vol. 1/2 From Lhasa to Kathmandu

So Here's one of the two entries I did'nt make because all of the husstle.
It's the six day crosscountry ride we made across Tibet with a truck we rented. I'd say it was certainly one of the most exiting thing I've done, but if I'd done it by my self I would've certainly taken more time to spend in a few places.

day 1

On the first day we headed first to see Yamdrok lake, witch had one of the most unreal views:





I also got to ride a yak there =)

Then we headed to a town called Gyantse -and wow!- I could have certainly spent a few days there, but unaccordingly to our contract the driver just drove us out after hurrying us through the monastary area(one of the nicest ones I've seen with this castle guarding the town from above).











We staid the night in Tibet's second town Shigatse. Did'nt really see anything worth photographing there.

day 2

The next day we headed to a town called Sakya, which was maybe the highpoint of the journey for me.

There was an old ruined monastary above the town, which we decided to climb onto.



If you look carefully you can see a dead hawk by the ruined stupa:



I stopped to meditate for a while on a ledge with a great view down to the town below.

Wandering around alone I found a spring of water the old monastary had probably originally been built by. I drank the water and filled my bottle with the clear nectar of the mountain.



this is the new monastary:

day 3

The next day we headed for hot springs nearby a town called Lhatse. It was supposed to heal many kinds of diseases and even cripples. The roof of the shelter surrounding the pool was full of crutches.
(pic later)
We stayded the night in Lhatse -another town with nothing much to see.
day 4

The next day was an exiting one -we headed to the Rombok monastary by Mount Everest. We climbed a peak when we got everest in view.


It was also the highest point I've ever been to. About 5250m said a german guy with an altitude meter(you can see him and his friend in the end of the panoramic videoclip).

Rombok Monastary by the base of Everest was astounding. Somehow it felt so high up, that I felt out of this world.

Actually the whole Tibet was so high up, that it felt like being on the moon or something. The light was so bright that everything was reflecting really brightly and the warmth of the sun felt really hot, but not the gentle kind of warmth you get in lower regions, because the air is'nt really warm at all, but a heat of radiation. The sun might even feel too hot and bright for you to long for a shadow, but when you go into the shade you discover ice. Unreal.

After heading down from Everest our driver decided to take "the shorter road" to Old Tingri, which proved to be a real thrill by itself. I've never been on a road like that. Up and down and left and right simultaneously sometimes with stone walls just a touch away on both sides. It clearly was'nt made for normal cars or as big ones as this one we were riding. We even got lost on a few occasions -two of them when the road dissappeared in a river and appeared somewhere down or upstream again. After dark it became a real effort for our driver eventually we found our way to old Tingri and we gave a well deserved applause to Mao our driver after his heroic struggle to find ourselves where we wanted to be.

day 5

The next day I was feeling sick. Lucily, because we had skipped Gyantse we gave Mao a day off and I could lay around feeling feverish and puking once in a while. I think it was a sunstroke I got for sitting in direct sunlight in the front seat the day before.

day 6

The next day we headed down to Zangmud at the border of Nepal. Coming down from the heights was really a thrill,

with green trees and waterfalls -none of which was to be found in Tibet.

Not that there were'nt any plants in Tibet, but maybe a grey struggling tree here or there and some kind of grass(brown) and something, that reminded a little of moss or coral. So driving down the winding road on the side of the valley with a river running below us really seemed like entering paradise.

So we reached Zangmud

but the driver would'nt drive us further and we even had to persuade him to drive us to the border, because we were so eager to finally get into nepal, that we wanted to be in Kathmandu on the same day. Turned out, that there was a four kilometer nomansland(or at least a serpentine road that long) so we had to pay for our ride to the nepali side and had a bit of a hassle, because the person we negotiated the ride with in two cars wanted to rip the other driver off. But yes, we got to the friendship bridge, officially entered Nepal and negotiated a cheap ride to Kathmandu on a landrover.

I bet the ride would have had really nice scenery aswell, but it got dark long before we got to Kathmandu, but we did and found a place to stay called Hotel Eden on the notorious Freak street(the place to be about thirty years ago.) But that's already Nepal and that's what my next missing entry is about.

Hasta luego amigos!