Photos and videos at the end.
Everest Base Camp (EBC). It was cloudy in the morning, but we did manage to catch a last glimpse of Everest. Before we left, we visited the Rongbuk Monastery, the world’s highest-altitude monastery at 5154m (16,909ft). There are around 32 monks and nuns living there.
I thought I’d be tired of monasteries by now, but each brings something new, or a different perspective. It must be very tiresome for monks to have to put up with a procession of tourists while maintaining their daily practice. We had tea in the monastery kitchen. The oven was fired with yak dung as is typical with rural kitchens.
One of our group was suffering very badly from altitude sickness and had to spend some time in an emergency oxygen tent. I wasn’t affected too much, a very mild headache at times. My main discomfort was a persistent dry throat and blocked nose from the very dry and thin air. I picked up a tip to line my nostrils with vaseline before bed to get a better sleep. Before that, I would wake up in a panic in the night with a feeling of being underwater, forcing myself to take extra breaths until my brain was convinced that I was not suffocating.
We left EBC mid morning and down into the valley. We passed through the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve (QNNP), also known as the Chomolungma Nature Reserve (QNP), which is a protected area 3.4 million hectares (roughly a third the size of NZ north island). The preserve has the highest agricultural fields in the world at 4,300 meters.
Along narrow roads with many washed out sections, we stopped for lunch at Tingri, known for its views of Mount Everest, Mount Lhotse, Mount Makalu, and Cho Oyu, which comprise four of the six highest mountains in the world. Tingri was one of many austere frontier towns we would pass through on the barren plateau.
We then moved on to Ngari, perhaps the most mysterious region in Tibet, home to the sacred Mount Kailash and the holy Lake Manasarovar. On the way, we passed by Mt. Shishabangma (8027m or 27,050ft), one of the world’s highest mountains over 8000 meters. We stopped at Pelku Tso Lake with the magnificent wall of the Himalayas to the south under a stormy sky.
After crossing the grassland around Peiku Tso Lake, we reached Saga, a bleak frontier town and a trading hub for western Tibet. Here we stayed overnight. This marked our entry into the Mount Kailash region. The rest of our journey to Mount Kailash is at an average elevation of 4500 meters on the Ngari Plateau.
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