Everest and Namtso Lake – a short journey through the holy sites of Tibet

Cristina Ștefan, June 2005

It took three days to get to the Base camp and though the name of the road - Friendship Highway - implies that it is paved, it was quite a bumpy one.

A lot of construction going on again through various parts which made it even more difficult getting through. There was no rush though, enough views to admire and people watching.

Village.

The treat of the ride are the small villages on the way; no more than couple dozen houses, all built the same way, with the prayer flags on the top front corners, painted frames and built out of dirt...well the bricks they use were made out of mud as far as we could tell and each village had its own "brick factory" (just a courtyard with mud bricks laid out to dry).

Kids running around butt naked, when they are not trekking to the nearest school.

On the third day we reached the Pangla Pass from where you can see four of the world’s six highest peaks. Descending from the pass we reached Tashi Dzom, the last village where you can get some water and food before entering the park and reaching Rongbuk Monastery at about 5000m altitude.

We arrived at the monastery around noon and after we checked out the guest house and talked to some travelers that were returning from the base camp, we decided to spend the night in a tent at base camp, hoping our sleeping bags would provide enough of a barrier against the freezing temperatures everyone was warning us against.

Though there were ponies making the 8km hike to Base Camp, we decided to trek it instead. I think most of us regretted that decision minutes into it though no one wanted to be the first one to admit it.

The problem was not the distance but the altitude. At 5200m, our heads started pounding and we were running out of breath every few steps...by the time we made it to the base camp we were having trouble resisting the urge to take pill after pill just to somewhat soothe the pain.

Except for the excruciating pain, the 2.5 hour trek was quite pleasant. We were followed by a kid most of the way that could not have been more than eight. I gave him my sunglasses and he attempted to teach me how to whistle using any three fingers. No success though…

The Base Camp is just a collection of a couple dozen “hotel tents” and two of the most horrible pit toilets I have ever seen. We ended up staying at “Hotel California” where we beat our own record for getting the cheapest accommodation yet ...50 cents per person to sleep on a couch in the tents.

The tents were huge, with dirt floors and tea tables and they were burning yak “waste” to heat it up. I managed to stay up, while the others were taking naps to alleviate their headaches, and attempted to communicate with the 16 year old girl running “Hotel California.”

We didn’t need many words and she was friendly as she was resting her hand on my knee as I was showing her pictures of the rest of China she hadn’t seen yet. We spent the evening drinking gallons of tea and looking up at the sky that seemed so much closer. I don't remember the last time I have seen a sky so lit up by stars.

There was nothing to do at Base Camp except inspecting the few tents and getting as many pictures of Everest as possible...so we took off next morning for Namtso, the highest salt lake in the world (4200m).

The lake is a sea of varied blue tones, surrounded by snow capped mountains, whose peaks occasionally make it above the thick clouds.

Back in Lhasa I decided to stay a couple more days and risk a trip to Samye Monastery and Chimpu without a travel permit. We packed again next morning and got on a local bus hoping no one would ask for some sort of travel papers.

We reached Samye without any problems and spent the next couple days in what by now became our “Tibetan norm”: long meals, listening to the morning and evening prayers, playing with the kids and taking pictures of anything we felt was somewhat out of the ordinary.

Samye monastery was built in the 8th century and is considered the first monastery in Tibet and the spring of Tibetan culture. The hike from the monastery to Chimpu hermitage is about 13 km which we did in the back of a truck through a very bumpy road.

Chimpu is one of the most active and holy hermitages in Tibet: a collection of several high caves and small temples. As you hike up the valley you can spot the temples as white dots and prayer flags spread across the slopes, reaching as high as the peaks.

After an eventful flight from Lhasa, we flew to Shanghai from where we took a two-day side trip to the Yellow Mountain, partied it up in style at a Karaoke “Mall” and had the best Chinese food yet.

I left Shanghai about 4 days later and after a night in Nanning in a hotel that had two inch bugs (I barricaded myself under the mosquito net) I crossed the border into Vietnam with some problems.

The border control at this crossing had never seen a Romanian passport and they thought mine was a fake because the height on my passport did not correspond to my current height.

All the other ID's didn't convince them either. They finally let me cross, I guess they figured the Vietnamese could deal with me.

Friendship Highway.

Kids going to school.

Tibetan Girls.

Villagers with yaks.

Everest seen from Base Camp.

Our hosts.

Pangla Pass.

The Mighty Everest.

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