Lhasa to Kathmandu

On Tuesday (10 October) morning Ben and I met up early to begin the trip. A couple of Danish girls from my hostel said we could ride with them for a couple hours if it was okay with their driver. As expected it was not okay with their driver for some reason or another. So we resorted to plan 'B', the public bus. We went to the bus station where we were told, "we can not sell tickets to you foreigners." Apparently the Chinese want all foreigners to book expensive land cruiser trips so forbide them from riding on buses. Add that to the long and growing list of things I don't like about the Chinese. We were then being ushered to the more expensive minibuses when the next thing we know we are being put on a public bus and the bus attendent is buying the tickets for us. Score 1, Lhasa to Shigatse, Tibet for 50 Yuan, about $6.25; magically by public bus. Ben and I were pretty happy with how the trip was starting.

When we arrived in Shigatse about 4 hours later we checked into a hostel/hotel. We got to the room and I immediately recognized the other people's gear. The gear was Brian and Rob's (the Canadian guys biking from Lhasa to Kathmandu) bikes! Small world. We eventually ran into Brian and Rob and they were equally surprised to see us. Its amazing how you keep running into the same people when traveling. It really happens all the time. Then Ben and I went to the monastery in Shigatse which was pretty cool. We spent the afternoon there before returning to the hostel.

That evening we met some people who had rented a land cruiser for the next day and they said we could hitch a ride with them as far as we needed to go, which was Tingri, about 7 hours away. We weren't that optomistic about our chances but at least we had a chance.

So the next morning (Wednesday, 11 October) we woke up early and met the couple who had rented the land cruiser. What turned up surprised us all. It was a bus, not a land cruiser. That was fine by us and the driver and guide allowed Ben and me passage to Tingri for 100 Yuan ($12.50) each. A real steal as it turned out. So that evening we arrived in the tiny village of Tingri, Tibet. It was a tiny town but popular with tour groups traveling along the Friendship Highway between Lhasa and Kathmandu. Tingri is high, dry, windy, cold, and desolate. Where goat carcasses hang from racks on the side of the road and cows eat cardboard out of trashcans along the main road. Kids greet you with the only english they know, "hellow money" and stray dogs prowl the one and only street. Tingri is not a place you want to spend any amount of time in. The toilets there (a shack with a too shallow hole in the floor) would make you pray to go outside. Luckily we were planning to start hiking to Everest Base Camp the next day.