Kath McGuire

I’ve seen Everest.

I spent the night at Base Camp (actually it seems there are three base camps on the northern (Tibetan) side). I walked to the second base camp. I saw lots of cloud. And I saw Everest itself.

Ok, so the first Base Camp (where I stayed) is at 5150m. It is a collection of tents, two toilets and a car park. Cars are not allowed beyond this point. It was here that we checked into our tent. When I say tent, I mean hotel. When I say hotel, I mean tent. Anyway, there was a hotel (it was a tent with two rooms). The main room contained several beds and a central stove. The stove was burning dung mostly (odd bits of wood product too). The stove was boiling water as well as heating the tent. On each bed there were several blankets. I had dinner in my hotel. Fried rice. Very nice. And I drank lots of tea. The dinner had been cooked in the other room of the hotel/tent.

The beds were very cosy though at several points during the night I woke up and tried to cool down since I was too hot. The sleeplessness was probably due to the very mild headache and the altitude (the headache also due to the altitude).

There were two toilets. By which I mean sheds with gaps in the floor. And a note for all women who are planning on visiting Everest: Plastic does not degrade. If you are going to use sanitary items made from plastic, please don’t leave them in the ‘toilet’. Take them away with you and dispose of them properly. Better yet, don’t use them in the first place. (This is not an ad for the mooncup.) The toilets didn’t work after dark (I think the shed was locked). So it was a case of take a torch and find a bit of ground to call your own.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re all far more interested in Everest than in the facilities at Base Camp number 1. I walked the three kilometers up the road to Base Camp 2. This is at 5200m and is the highest point I’ve been to. The 3km walk took me about 50mins. Which is incredibly slow for me (at sea level) but seems is quite fast for people at 5100m. The walk was hard. It was very cold and the wind was howling down the valley into my face. It seems somewhat unfair when suffering from thin air and lack of oxygen to also be suffering from excess wind. But there you go. The road zig zags up the hill. I tried taking a shortcut and went straight up at one point. Bad idea. Definitely shorter but steeper and at that altitude even a few extra centimeters are hard!

I saw some mink. Well, I think they were mink, my guide later described them as the animals that they make fur coats out of by skinning them alive. Which sounds very unfriendly indeed.

I got to Base Camp 2. I went with my guide (she’d got the mini bus – sensible girl) to the military checkpoint to be checked. There are signs there that this is the furthest point that normal people are allowed. The third base camp is the one for mountaineers and that’s further up but you need a special permit for that. Well, 5200m is more than enough for me.

So lots of photos were taken. Some bouncing was done. The highest Kath bounce on earth!

Everest was not seen because it was too cloudy. But undaunted, I figured I could find a photo with a visible Everest and photoshop me into it. It wouldn’t really be lying! Honest. Hmmm.

My fingers warmed up just enough for me to send some texts. But several others were sent from the ‘hotel’.

We got the mini bus back down to our hotel. En route we stopped at a monastery and got a tour. I climbed down a hole in the ground to see a meditation cave. I clambered over rocks to see impressions in rocks and holy places. I saw one of the holy sky burial sites. I saw paintings and prayer flags and white scarves. I heard stories. I learnt a lot. I sat in the monk’s kitchen and drank sweet tea and ate peanuts. (The tea wasn’t as sweet as Sri Lankan milk tea, but it was as milky.)

Later that evening the cloud cleared a little and I saw a tiny corner of Everest. Excellent!!

The next morning I was up at 7:30 to see the sunrise on Everest. Instead of which I saw a lot of very low cloud (can cloud be low at 5150m?) and went to the newly opened toilets.

But by 9ish the wind (I love wind, I will hear nothing bad said about it) had whipped most of the cloud away and Everest bathed in early morning sunshine stood proudly in front of me. I could actually see it. And it’s incredible. And (as I’ve mentioned in another post) the summit is another 3600m above where I was. So I took some photos. My guide took some photos with me in them. And I just stood and stared till my fingers went numb and I had to go back to the hotel to warm up.

The valley that we were in was also incredible. And while Everest is Everest (can’t argue with the highest mountain on earth), there was a really great ridge to my left that was spiky and wonderful. The mountains on the right hand side were a bit rounder and gentler. In the background (or as my guide would say, at the backside) of these were some awesome snow-capped peaks. Down the middle ran a river that was white and foamy and looked freezing and not to be argued with. On the ground were rocks and stones and pebbles.

Not exactly a holiday destination I’d like to spend a two week break at. Not somewhere I’d like to go back to every year. But somewhwere I would love to go back to again (it seems May is a better time of year). And somewhere I am so very, very glad to have been able to get to this time.

Kath went to base camp. Bounce!!!! Grin!!!!

Well, I left Lhasa with one dropping eye and one auspicious one (to ruin a perfectly good Hamlet quote). I was sad to leave because I loved it there and I’m not sure if/when I’ll get back again. But I was happy because it meant I was moving again and it meant I was going to see a lot more of Tibet. Which I did.

The first day we went to Gyantse and crossed some passes in excess of 5000m. I saw Yamdrok Lake (which is holy and is a cool turquoise colour). I saw the Karola glacier and I saw a river that had been dammed for a hydro plant. All very exciting. Lots of driving. Incredibly scenery. Awesome.

The next day was a short drive to Shigatse. So I got to see the Khumbhum Stupa and the monastery at Gyantse as well as the monastery at Shigatse. I wandered around the monastery at Shigatse and ended up seeing the daughter of the 10th Penchen Lama who was attracting quite a crowd. I sat and watched for a while and caught a glimpse of her amongst the sea of very happy people. I also did a chora (clockwise circuit) of the monastery which got me up onto the side of the hill and gave me some great views of the city.

The next day was a drive to Sakya which included another high pass (this time the Tsoula Pass at only 4500m). We then visited the Sakya Monastery and later in the afternoon I went for a wander around the town.

The next day was the drive to Everest Base Camp. We crossed the Gyatso La Pass which I think is about 5200m (about the same height as the second EBC – more of that to come). As we crossed that pass I got a great view of where Everest would have been if it weren’t for the cloud. Who’s idea was it to travel through Tibet in the rainy season?

Not that I’ve actually seen much rain. Most days have started a little damp and cool. In some places I’ve had my fleece on. At Sakya I had two blankets on the bed. But most afternoons have been gloriously sunny. It’s been a bit colder at the top of the passes. So if I’ve needed my fleece.

I still haven’t really felt any ill effects of the altitude. A couple of very mild headaches at night and some slightly disturbed sleep. But I couldn’t figure out if that was down to me being excited. It certainly wasn’t anything too severe and nothing I’ve had to take medication for.

I’ve felt fine while I’ve been out walking at the high altitudes. But at the passes it’s been a case of walking about 50-100m at most. And I’ve had to do it slowly because I’ve been getting very out of breath. But that’s to be expected given that there’s about half as much oxygen at 5000m as there is at sea level. So a little breathlessness seems perfectly reasonable.

I’ve seen goats, deer, cows, yaks, hares, dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, little mice things, birds, and a thing that might be a mink (EBC). Many of the four legged things have caused the driver to have to slow down or in fact stop to let them cross the road or walk along the road. At one point we slowed down as a hare went belting across the road being chased by two dogs.

I’ve driven (or rather passenged) along some nice, smooth highway. And I’ve bumped and jolted along some very off-road roads. All great fun, if ocassionally a little splashy.

I feel that I might have been a little harsh on poor old Kazakhstan (and Russia) with my comments about the scenery. And to bastardise a Helen Keller quote: I know that the deserts and steppes have their own special kind of beauty as surely as the green refreshing fields and fruitful orchards. Or, for Kath’s epitome of beauty, mountains.

I’ve seen some incredible mountains. Small ones, big ones, thin ones, fat ones. I’ve seen mountains of the most amazing colours: green, black, brown, red, orange, blue, grey, purple (sometimes even on the same mountain). I’ve seen mountains with trees, grass, scrub, moss, rocks, boulders, snow, glaciers, stones, dirt, shale. I’ve seen soft, gentle, rolling mountains. I’ve seen cheeky, spiky mountains. I’ve seen scary, imposing mountains. And I love them all.

Now the one I really should mention is Everest. Can’t really talk about mountains without mentioning Everest. The amazing thing about Everest (when there is enough visibility to actually be able to see it) is that I was standing at Base Camp looking up at it. Base Camp is 5150m. That’s 5 kilometers above Cambridge. Wow. But that’s not the amazing bit. The amazing bit is standing looking at the summit of Everest and realising that that’s another 3600m above where I was! Now that’s incredible!

And Everest is a beautiful mountain. Shining gloriously in the early morning sun. Wow.

But, I must say, it’s not my favourite mountain. My favourite mountain so far is Sri Pada in Sri Lanka. Not as big. Not as imposing. But incredibly beautiful and awe-inspiring.

And my favourite scenery so far has been, without doubt, the amazing mountains, valleys and plains of Tibet. So colourful. So barren. So rich in life. So wet. So dry. So immense. So varied. Wonderful.

Today is my second full day in Lhasa.

And I love it here. It is a really nice city. Spacious. Friendly. Not too much crazy traffic. Not polluted. Clean. Lots of flowers. Lovely people. It’s awesome.

I’ve done a stack of sightseeing. That’s what I’m here for. I am the only person in my tour group. So I have my guide, Tsedan and the driver, Sonam all to myself. Tsedan is lovely, her English is very good. She does keep referring to the back of things (or behind things) as the backside. Which is quite funny. They do that in Sri Lanka too. It’s just odd when you see a statue of a Buddha and then “look at the backside you can see a statue of a king”.

I’ve seen the Potala Palace, the Tibet museum, the Jokang Temple, a nunnery (that was funny, many of the nuns there thought I was a nun, the hair really doth make the man it seems), the Norbulinka Palace (great gardens and a solar kettle and a fire hydrant with a hat on it and a lion in the zoo (I didn’t see the lion but I heard it)), the Sera Monastery (with the debating monks – that was really cool).

And I’ve had some time to do some wandering on my own which is nice. I’ve figured out the point of digital cameras. When the hotel has a map of the city on the wall (but none you can actually take with you), you take a photo of it and can then refer to your camera throughout the day if need be.

I found a western cafe that does hot chocolate and internet (where I am sitting right now).

The interesting thing is that now I am on a tour group and with a guide, I am going to western restaurants for lunch (the sort of place that has a menu in English and has Chinese, Tibetan, Nepali food and pizza, pasta, sandwiches), and this means I’m paying western tourist prices for things. For example, net here costs me 16RMB an hour. In Lanzhou it was 4. Lunch yesterday (rice, tofu with peppers, can of sprite) was 45RMB. A similar thing in Lanzhou would have been about 15. The exchange rate is about 10RMB=1GBP at the moment. So while things here are expensive by my recent standards, they’re not too bad. I can certainly afford them, they are within my budget. And coming here and spending money is part of the point of my trip. So I don’t resent it. And the hot chocolate here (20RMB) is really, very nice. I’ll go back to slumming it when I get to Nepal or India.

I’m at 3600m here. And I haven’t been affected too much by the altitude. I find I can’t skip up stairs like I normally do, and I get quite out of breath if I try to walk at normal Kath speed, but if I walk at normal normal person speed then I don’t feel it at all. My guide was saying today that I walk much faster than most of her other clients (I had been saying that I’d had to walk slowly.)

So I’ve seen lots of sights, lots of artwork, lots of religious sites, lots of sites of cultural heritage. It’s been fantastic to see them and to learn about them. It has made me think a lot about my own attitudes to religion and art and temples and monuments. But this post is quite long enough as is, so I won’t bore you with that stuff here.

Tomorrow morning we leave Lhasa and head overland. I should be at Everest Base Camp on Saturday and should be in Kathmandu on the 6th of September.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s drive and to seeing a lot more of the country, plus gaining some elevation (Lhasa is only 3600m, tomorrow I go over a pass that is 5000m).

But I will miss Lhasa.

As you know, I got a train ticket in Lanzhou for the train from Lanzhou to Lhasa. This was tricky. But when I showed them my Tibet Travel Permit it turned out to be remarkably easy. Though there were no sleepers left so I had to have a seat.

Which wasn’t too bad.

The train left Lanzhou 3 hours late. It wasn’t too full. I found my seat. I napped a bit. Night fell, they dimmed the lights slightly and at about 10pm stopped pumping the Chinese pop music through the train. I dozed a bit.

We stopped first thing in the morning and lots of people got off the train. So I had three seats to myself which was much more comfortable. So much for the train booking up in advance!

The scenery was fabulous!! But given my last few trips had been through Kazakhstan and north-western China, a field with a puddle in the middle of it would have counted as exciting!

But there were mountains and glaciers and lakes and yaks and snow-capped peaks and frost/snow. And the Chinese pop music began to be positively desired given it was such a nice break from the Chinese opera. To be fair, I don’t particularly like any other form of opera, so it’s unlikely I’d be a fan of Chinese opera.

The toilets (I know you’re all really interested in hearing about the toilets), weren’t too bad. A squat toilet. It did flush. It wasn’t too nasty. Except that the bin for toilet paper was overflowing and the floor was littered with cigarette butts. But a definite improvement on Kazakh train toilets.

There was hot water available on tap. Awesome! Cupasoup! I had biscuits and processed cheese (I’m becoming such a fan of processed cheese – it’s a bit disturbing) and cherry tomatoes.

There was a guy with a trolley who sold meals at appropriate times and a restaurant car (from which I bought water).

And 26 hours after leaving Lanzhou we arrived in Lhasa (20 mins early).

And Lhasa is a great city. But more about that later.

I’ve been asked how it has been travelling light. As you know I didn’t really bring much stuff with me. My bag is only 40 litres.

But I’ve decided next time, I want to do it with an even smaller bag.

The clothes situation has been fine (2 shirts, 2 tshirts, 2 pairs trousers, 3 sets underwear, fleece, raincoat, waterproof trousers). I haven’t used the waterproof trousers yet, but as I get further south and it gets much wetter, I’m sure I will.

I have loads of zip loc bags and they have been an absolute life-saver. I love them. And they’re small and light so I don’t mind carrying them either. Fortunately, they’re also easy enough to buy (Moscow and Lanzhou). In the essential category also comes antibacterial handwash, tissues and wet wipes. I did discard the toilet paper I’d brought because I can use tissues and they’re easier to pack, carry and replenish.

I have an issue with other stuff: printouts of bookings, tickets, reservations, information etc, notebook, pen, my palm (for reading), my phone, logic book, phrase book, camera, chargers, head torch, spare batteries etc. I’m not sure how much of this I could consolidate. Perhaps a smart phone is the way to go and just get rid of everything else.

I have several just-in-case things. String, spare batteries, first aid kit, malaria tablets (ok, I will need these in a week or two), etc. I haven’t used any of these but am not that keen on getting rid of them.

The main thing problem I have with weight and space is food. I could probably fit everything I need (except food) into a 20 or 25 litre bag which would be easier on trains and buses. But I still need water and snacks and for some train trips, meals.

I could stop carrying food and just buy it as I go. Which so far would probably have been ok. But I’m not keen on getting stuck somewhere with no drinking water and no food. So I think I’m happy enough to carry it.

The thing with my bag is that it’s too big to carry onto a coach, so I have to decant coach-essentials into my day bag and then put the half empty rucksack in the hold. But maybe that’s ok.

My bag isn’t too heavy. I don’t really want to carry it all day every day. But it’s not too bad. I certainly don’t feel that I have too little. There isn’t anything that I don’t have that I feel I want/need.

There aren’t many days that go by without me thinking how nice it is that I’m not famous.

If I ever have the misfortune of becoming famous, then this is what I wish for when I die.

Please, under no circumstances whatsoever, allow my body to be embalmed and stuck in a glass case for people to walk past.

I don’t care who I am or how important I become or how much people want it. Please don’t do it.

Also, monuments, stupas, statues, etc, are not something that’ll make me happy. Please don’t ask the faithful to donate money (so that they can accrue merit) in order to put up some fancy thing in my honour. It’s just not something that will make me happy.

Please just dispose of my body in the most environmentally friendly way possible at the time of my death. If my memory lives on then it will live on without the aid of monuments, if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. That’s the way of the world.

Fortunately, all of this is rather moot. And a long way off. I’m planning on living till I’m 125 (I upped this from 120 when I did the maths and realised that 125 gets me to 2100).

And most importantly, I’m not planning on becoming famous.
In fact, I’m planning on not becoming famous!

Warning: the following post contains an unmitigated rant. You’ve been warned!

I know some of my nearest and dearest have been known to indulge in the odd cigarette. And I know that my libertarian principles make it hard for me to support a smoking ban.

But boy, do I think a smoking ban is a good idea! I’m sorry to all you smokers out there (actually, I’m not that sorry), but it is (in my opinion) an utterly disgusting habit that leads to other disgusting habits (littering, spitting, etc).

Now granted, it does depend on how you do it, but chain smoking through lunch (cigarette in one hand, chopsticks in the other, bite, puff, bite, puff) isn’t exactly pleasant for those around. Also, puff, hack, spit (especially on to the floor of the train) really isn’t nice. Lighting your cigarette just as the doors of the elevator close is not a good thing either. Covering the floor of the train toilet with ash and cigarette butts doesn’t make them nicer to use, neither does filling the sink with butts. Someone said of the Muscovites during the smog crisis that they could quit smoking and just breathe through a straw. And boy, was breathing in Moscow unpleasant.

I’m in Lhasa now and there appear to be far fewer smokers here than there were in Moscow, Almaty, Urumqi or Lanzhou. Perhaps, at 3700m they have a finer appreciation of the joys of unadulterated oxygen.

As do I.

I’m spending several days in Lanzhou. Which is kinda nice because it gives me a chance to do some blog posts, and some shopping and some resting and some relaxing.

And some sightseeing.

I spent yesterday doing what Kath’s like best. I grabbed my map. I had a vague idea of where I wanted to end up and I started wandering. I walked along the Yellow River. Which was smelly in places but really very nice in the others. It was moving really fast and the water fowl were having a ball scooting down the river at top speed.

I saw the waterwheel park. Cool. They have loads of giant wooden waterwheels that collect water from the Yellow River and then funnel it along various wooden troughs to spin other wooden water wheels.

I saw the Mother River statue on the banks of the river. And the Zhongshan bridge. And I saw mosques and parks and shops and noodle bars and people with tiny little dogs, and crazy traffic, and kids with wierd two-wheeled skateboards (like a normal skateboard but only one wheel on each end and a pivot in the middle of them). And I sat in several parks and finished reading Emma and read more of Descartes’ Meditations. (And got sunburnt.)

I’ve decided against going to Bingling caves where there are 1000 (or 10000 depending on which language you speak) statues of Buddha. The reason why I’m not going is because it’s not really as close to Lanzhou as I had thought it might be (130km). And it seems it’s quite difficult to get to. I’ve got to get a bus for two hours to a lake, then I get a boat from the lake for another hour to so. Then I get to see the caves. Then I get to do it all in reverse. I don’t particularly feel up to trying to do all that navigating on my own. And I’m not Buddhist and not that interested in caves, or statues.

So I might put it on the list of things to do when I come back to China. Which I certainly hope to do, especially given I didn’t get to Beijing this time.

I’m in China. I’ve been eating Chinese food. Yay!

This is both more difficult and easier than I expected.

In the UK and Australia finding a Chinese restaurant is easy. The Chinese-looking building is probably a Chinese restaurant. In China, the Chinese-looking building is probably a building.

But all is not lost, there are lots and lots of little noodle bars all through Lanzhou. The only difficulty is deciding which one to go for. There are also restaurants (I tried one of those, expensive and crap), and today I found a little cafe-type place that does dumplings – nice one!

Getting vegetarian food is reasonably easy. Though the crap restaurant did have ham in it’s fried rice, damnit. I go into one of these little noodle bar places. I point to “I’m a vegetarian” in my phrase book. They nod. I point to “boiled rice” and “vegetables”, they usually then say no and point to something else on the menu. I say ok and wait for lunch. The bowls of noodles are enourmous. As was today’s plate of vegetable dumplings. And really tasty. And really cheap. Less than a pound usually. Yesterday’s noodles were incredible, they had mushrooms (I think) and seaweed and corriander and tiny eggs (quail?). So I’m eating one big meal a day and then snacking on crispbread, processed cheese, cherry tomatoes and fruit in the evening.

It’s a very happy world.