Shenzhen to Mount Everest

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Swimming in a sacred lake...ooops. We were later told it's for disposing of dead bodies!



20


Over dinner the night before we'd decided to have a look at the S202 which Nyima thought could be very bad but looked possibly epic on the map. Most of the roads in Tibet run through the valleys and we were all a bit bored and yearning for some twisties. We agreed we'd turn onto the road and ask about the condition, I wasn't keen to do it if it was all road under construction hell but keen if it was in reasonable shape. Overnight it had absolutely pissed down and it was still raining in the morning but this didn't discourage George in the slightest, after some rigorous discussion we decided that if the road was in good condition and the rain had stopped then we'd do it. When we were loading up the bikes however Nyima put the kibosh on the whole deal saying that the police had been in touch about our speeding and that we were to stick to main roads the whole day. I was privately pleased by this development, George less so! I could imagine 100 kms of wet, muddy, beat-up mountain roads with over loaded bikes not getting any traction over steep passes and basically having a total nightmare of a day. George, to his credit was well up for it! With hindsight maybe we should have enquired as to the state of the road, and I have to admit by this stage I was quite looking forward to Lhasa, a rest day and a skinfull of piss!

We had to backtrack over the same pass to rejoin the main road to Lhasa and today it was totally covered in fog, freezing cold and raining steadily. We really had been with lucky with the weather on the previous day and our blind luck would continue in this department. We stopped at the junction for some Tibetan noodles at Nyima's mate's shop and he bumped into a few buddies, suitably warmed by spicy noodles and fresh bread we bashed along the main road to Lhasa. The rain stopped and we made good progress despite being warned for speeding by some coppers who flagged us down. They really were out in force and reducing people's speed was the order of the day, almost certainly due to the two fatal bus crashes that had happened in the area in the previous couple of weeks.

We made a rest stop at the checkpoint just before Lhasa and chatted to the friendly coppers for a while before removing our cold weather gear and riding into town. Godzilla met us at the hotel at 2.15 pm with the traditional white silk welcome scarves. We had made it to Lhasa! This felt like the end of another section of the trip and we were all looking forward to not riding the bikes the next day. Godzilla was wonderful; so laid back, friendly and really going out of his way to make sure we had everything we needed. You knew he had some inner steel hidden away though, to have summited Everest 4 times! The hotel was on him, as was a fantastic Tibetan dinner with local band. George brought some whiskey along and he, Nyima and I got quietly sozzled (Godzilla is teetotal) in the restaurant before sampling the local nightlife.

210 kms today, 5080 total.

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At the hotel in Lhasa, Godzilla greeted us with welcome scarves

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21

George went off early to see a temple and the palace, I stayed in bed all morning and saw the palace in the afternoon. I'm totally templed out and hope never to visit another as long as I live! Godzilla and I also swung by the train station to show them my bike, they said no problem for shipping – about 1500 quai to Shanghai and Shenzhen.

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We needed to change the oil on George's bike but unfortunately the shop with all the foreign bikes was shut so we rode to Chinese bike showroom street and found a CFmoto shop with nice oil. After finding a dead bird in George's bashplate we managed to head out of town at 11 am. The traffic was dreadful in Lhasa and once we finally got out of that mess we went straight into a properly flooded road and a huge traffic jam. We managed to cut up the inside and some douche in a land rover didn't like that so he sped past us on the outside (in really deep water) and his bow wave went right over us, luckily we had our waterproofs on or we'd have been soaked to the skin. A petrol stop took an absolute age due to lack of teapots and things didn't improve when there were police cruisers on the road doing 30 km per hour and not letting anyone passed! They really weren't messing around with the whole speeding thing, Nyima had never seen anything like it and it really slowed us down but you could understand why with around 20 deaths in the last 2 weeks. We pulled over to let the police get ahead of us and passed the time looking at tourist tat by the side of the road. After 10 minutes we set off again and then I noticed my shifter had fallen off, luckily I managed to get George's attention and I pulled my bike off to the side of the road and he doubled back to find it. He soon returned with the shifter with bolt still attached and we were off again.

30 kms before Xigatse I saw a road heading off into the mountains so we found ourselves in a tiny hamlet which at first seemed deserted. The inhabitants eventually emerged to stare at the strange men on bikes, at first they seemed a bit nonplussed and probably concerned as to what the hell we were doing there but they soon came around and in the end didn't want us to leave. One old lady even measured George's height using her forearm!

In Xigatse there is apparently a very good value 4 star hotel for a few hundred but after my indignant protesting we ended up in a reasonably priced (140 quai) 1 or 2 star place. We went to a Tibetan restaurant where we sampled some yak liver then on to a local drinking hole where the waitress came around and forced you to drink, she didn't drink herself but would fill up our glasses and tell us to get a bloody move on!

Checkpoints had ceased to be an issue by now, we went through about 6 that day and had to stop at a couple. George and I would have a 5 minute chin wag while Nyima dropped off the photocopies and we'd be on our way.

5393 total.

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Thank god George found the shifter otherwise I'd have been in trouble

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This was taken when we did a short excursion near Xigatse

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Som more shots of that short excursion outside of Xigatse featuring some very surprised locals
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23

I needed to tighten my chain first thing and we left at 11 am in miserable rain. The first pass of the day was 4530, the next 5245, after which followed 40 kms of cratered road works. We went through a normal police checkpoint then a military one in quick succession and had to deposit photocopies at both and then we saw it...Everest. George was so excited he dropped my bike haha! We'd been riding along and i'd saw the unmistakable pyramid poking out above some hills in the distance, my biggest worry about the whole trip was the mountain being shrouded in cloud and my heart missed a beat when I saw it. I slammed on the breaks and asked Nyima if that was Everest and then followed lots of backslapping and dropping of my bike hehe. Nyima then said there was a bettwe view from a nearby hill and we sped off and took more pics. The whole time I was fearful of the clouds coming back in, which is common at that time of year but we were lucky and it staye clear all evening so we returned and got some sunset pics after dinner.

There was only one hotel in Old Tingri, George paid 200 for a room with toilet, I paid 70 and shat in a less glamorous surroundings.

5679 total.

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On the way to Old Tingri
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Still on the road to Old Tingri
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Our first sighting of Everest just outside of Old Tingri

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We then rode up a hill in the centre of Old Tingri for a better view of the mountain
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There was a construction site at the top of the hill, no idea what
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We went back up afer dinner to see the sunset

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