Nepal and Tibet

Not far along the road, we stop at a small village called New Tingri, Here we have to buy permits to be able to enter the Mt Everest National Park. We also fill up with petrol. This is a new experience. We drive into a yard behind a fence and there, inside the building, are the petrol pumps. The attendant brings the hose out through a window to be able to insert it into the petrol tank opening. No wonder we haven't seen any service stations along the way. Does the petrol freeze out in the open up here? As we leave the town, we can see the Shegar Chode Monastery at the foot of the hill. There are crowds of people there. They appear to be circumambulating the monastery. Karmar, who is travelling in our car today, tells us they are praying for rain. Sounds familiar!

For the first time we come across a Chinese checkpoint, just before entering the National Park. There in front of the sentry building is a soldier on a raised platform, standing to attention, his long rifle at his side. A boom gate extends across the road. The drivers go into the small building, with the permits and our passports, and, after what seems like quite a long time, they reappear. The gate is raised and we can pass through. We have two extra passengers, two Chinese soldiers who want a lift to a village close to Everest. In no time we see the sign pointing towards Mt Everest. The sign tells us that it is 101 kilometres to Everest Base camp. We are not going quite that far today as we plan only to go the Rongbuk Monastery, which is eight kilometres short of the distance. Tomorrow morning we shall be off to base camp. We turn sharply left and from there we begin to climb. In Australia, if we see a sign that says 101 kilometres, we estimate that the journey should take us an hour. But the drivers tell us that this last leg of the journey today, will take three hours. We have already been on the road for nine and we are beginning to feel tired and very stiff.

The road into Everest is new. It is unsealed, of course, and covered in thick gravel, which has not been rolled well. It is so thick and loose; a normal vehicle would be bogged in no time. The road is a series of hairpin bends. We are in the lead vehicle today, which we are very pleased about. The driver is an older guy, who drives very well. As well as Karma, we have another group member, an older guy, who is great fun! We have talked and laughed all day. As we rise higher and higher, we can see the other cars way down below us and they seem to be crawling along as well. The roads have obviously been built with the assistance of modern engineering. There are guide rails, something we have not yet seen on the roads. There are tunnels under the roads so that the melting snow cannot do so much damage, as has been the case on this route, until now. Karma looks in the direction of Everest and says that it looks like we will have a good view of the mountain, as the sky is very blue today.

As yet we cannot see the taller mountains. We can just see the barren, brown, rolling hills, we have become accustomed to, on either side of the car. These mountains, though, have a beauty all of their own. The closer mountains look like brown velvet but as they recede into the distance they take on a greyish hue before turning deep blue in the distance. Finally we arrive at another pass, Pang La where we stop at a lookout. Here, we are very high at 5 220 metres. There, in the distance, is a range of snow-capped mountains. We think we can see Everest but we are told it is Mt Makalu. We also pick out Cho Oyu, another of the famous mountains popular with world-class mountaineers. Just before we leave some distant clouds begin to separate and we can see that behind these clouds there is a massive mountain hiding from view. This, we are told, is Everest. We drive further along until we come to another high point and Karma announces, "There it is! There is Mt Everest!" We are very excited because, it is so clear, we can see its summit. There are wisps of thin cloud passing in front of it but it is almost totally visible. Our convoy stops so that we can take photos. We want to take photos whilst we can see it. We know that the clouds in the vicinity of Everest are unpredictable so we snap away whilst we can.