Friday, October 11, 2013

Journey to Everest Base Camp and our last nights in Tibet

The next day we drove to Everest Base Camp and spent the night in a yak hair tent. The scenery along the way was pretty amazing.

From left to right: Mt. Makalu (8463m), Mt. Lhotse (8516m), Mt. Qomolangma aka Mt. Everest (8844m), Mt. Cho Oyu (8201m), and Mt. ZiziaBangMa (8012m) 

Mt. Everest

Himalayas

Close up of Mt. Everest

I was upset I had to use the bathroom

Because this is what the inside looks like (and this is a relatively clean bathroom - I can't post the photo Paul took of his bathroom)

It was tough to walk up this hill

Paul was running up ahead

I was slowly walking up

Another shot of Mt. Everest

Slinky shot

We made it up that hill, here's the photo we got to prove it

Rocks

An even closer shot of Mt. Everest

Rocks and Mt. Everest

The altitude did not affect Paul

Another shot of stacked rocks and Mt. Everest

Prayer flags

Goat herd

More countryside

Bumpy dirt roads

A different view of Mt. Everest along with a bunch of sheep

Human fly at the checkpoint? 

He was freaking me out

Rastafari Goat

After a tremendously bumpy and dusty ride, we finally made it to EBC. Contrary to the description the tour company gave us, we were hardly "at the foot" of Mt. Everest - more like 40 kilometers from it. 

Here we are at EBC

Do you remember what country we're in? 

We got pretty luck it was a clear day

People like to make words with rocks

Looking back towards EBC (we had to take a bus to this area)

Yay! We are at 5,200 meters and I wanted to puke!

The "bathroom"

You know, just a carcass laying around with all the other trash by the river

We then got settled into our yak hair tent.

Our yak hair tent where we froze our hahus off!

Inside the tent

It sounded like a room full of Darth Vaders once we broke out the oxygen

I was hoping for a nice sunset shot but it started to get real cloudy

After a pretty cold and miserable night (I felt really nauseous and had a throbbing headache from the altitude), we headed to Zhangmu for one last night in Tibet before crossing over to Nepal. 

It snowed

It was cold

It cleared up as we drove along

I wasn't feeling well, can you tell?

We got kind of lost but the scenery was really nice despite the bumpy roads

Cows

A door along the side of the road

We stopped to get directions

The countryside was really pretty

We stopped again for directions and the kids swarmed around the car

Warrick gave out some chocolate covered wafers

The kids were very happy





Still lost but after this stop, we found the highway

Paul looking for a place to pee

We finally made it to Zhangmu and spent one last night in Tibet.

The streets are super narrow and our driver enjoyed going about 40 MPH - I was afraid

The next morning we headed for the border.

Looking towards the Nepal side

The Friendship Bridge - we got to walk across to Nepal after a very detailed inspection
of our bags - Andy's China Lonely Planet guide was confiscated.

The locals throw their trash into the river

3 comments:

  1. The pictures are absolutely beautiful. Curiously friendly children, awe-inspiring Himalayas, majestic Mt. Everest, and the human fly. The Human Freakin' Fly!

    On a serious note, I hope you're feeling much better, it's very worrying to see you suffering from altitude sickness.

    On a less serious note, you look just like Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet with that oxygen mask!!

    -Anonymous.."I'll send you a love letter, you know what a love letter is?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Manimus! "It's a bullet from a !$?# gun!" I can't tell you how many times I've quoted Blue Velvet for Paul. I just don't think other people appreciate that movie as much as we do. Thanks for your concern about my altitude sickness but don't worry, I felt much better after we left Tibet.

      I still don't think that the pictures capture how beautiful and amazing the landscape was or how scary the human fly was.

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