After some serious planning, many changes, gear sorting and translating to our Tibetan driver, we were off on an 8 day overland adventure with the highlight destination of Everest Base Camp. Michelle and I piled into a Toyota Landcruiser with Amy and Sarah from Australia, Alan from England, and Lhakpa, our driver.
Day one took us from Lhasa, up a really steep pass and to this location overlooking Yamdrok Tso. Another stunning colourful lake, and of course, all the locals up top wanting you to take photos with them and their animals for money. You can sneak a few shots in though! The lake is in the shape of a scorpion - 150km around. We had planned to camp in the valley, on the lake, but when we arrived at our intended location, the rains hit, so we decided to push on.
A super rough road followed, but with spectacular mountains and a fantastic hanging glacier behind a stupa with prayer flags. It was only a single lane dirt road, crossing rivers, along steep dropoffs and slicing through the mountains. I think our driver digs the offroad, as he seemed to go faster on the bumpy roads than on the flat asphalt! We did hit a bit of a snag when the single lane was blocked with a fresh load of dirt for construction. I gave them a hand shoveling briefly and then we pushed on 30 minutes later!
We arrived in Gyantse about 9PM, through some sort of dust storm and the skies were light and dark all at the same time. Very cool light. It was a good first day, but we found out our driver was a little finicky (sp??) and needed things his own way. This was obviously a little difficult as he spoke no English, but thank goodness for Sarah, as she was much more fluent in Chinese than she led us to believe. I don't know where we would have been without her - literally!!!! *Stub
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