Shenzhen to Mount Everest

[futianshenzhen]

Riding into Tibet has been spoken about in my circle of friends since the first ever China bike trip we did in 2007 when we were very close to the border.

http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...Gorge-and-more

At that time we decided against doing it illegally because we had to get back to work and then after 2008 everything became much more difficult and it was put on the back burner. It was only after completing every other province on the mainland that I really refocused my attention on Tibet with a vengeance. I wanted to keep it as close to a normal China bike trip as possible and my mate Joe suggested calling an old student of his 'Godzilla' who used to be a high altitude guide, has summited Everest 4 times and now runs a travel agency in Lhasa. This proved to be the key piece of information as Godzilla said he could arrange the permits and that our basic outline of a plan sounded feasible.

To begin with there were about a dozen people interested in coming along and the idea was for the Godzilla to sit in @Tombaxer's sidecar (JH600-B), and being a brave, adventurous sort of chap Godzilla readily agreed. Unfortunately people dropped out one by one for various reasons, I particularly felt for John who had his bike nicked, and we were left with just 3 - Tommy, George and myself. Tommy and his sidecar were obviously the most important members of the team and with a couple of weeks to go disaster struck, he had to back out for work reasons. I tentatively asked Godzilla if he'd be happy to ride on the back of my bike and he said no problem....Phew! Tommy planned to fly out to Lhasa, hire a JH600-A and join us for the base camp leg but in the end he couldn't escape the office even for that. A real shame as he was part of the plans right form the beginning.

This is roughly the route we took
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Shenzhen - Guilin - up through Guizhou

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Through Chongqing and up the Tibetan plateau in Sichuan, then across Gansu and into Qinghai

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Qinghai lake and then to Golmud

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From Golmud south into Tibet proper and Namtso Lake

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Namtso Lake to base camp via Lhasa