The Ride to the Base Camp of Mt. Everest | Todd and Ziqin's Travels

My husband is with me in Beijing at this moment, for my birthday, Valentine’s Day and Spring festival. I wont go into detail about how much weight I have put on during this period. I am also a little behind my schedule, so without further ado, let’s get down to business.

We spent the entire day on the road the third day in Tibet. You can see what he wrote about this part of the trip here. After checking out at around 7 that morning, we headed to the base camp of Mt. Everest. By the way, Mt. Everest is called Mt. Qomolangma within China. This is what we learned from our publisher composing our Beijing book. I could tell that the altitude sickness began to kick in as we ascended higher and higher. The previous night, I woke up in the middle of the night, kind of in a panic. It was pitch black dark and it was difficult for me to breathe. What’s worse, the harder I tried to breathe, the more oxygen I needed, I felt like I was drowning in the hotel bed surrounded by the forbidding darkness. I called Todd to switch on the light, and I sat up and tried to calm down….

The next day we left the lively city life, marched into the mountain area, where the roads were rough and winding. I was glad we sat at the front row of the mini bus, or I would probably have a bad car sick. Maybe I should save the word “rough” for later use because compared to what we would be through later that day, this was really nothing. We stopped by the YamdrokTso Lake, one of the three sacred lakes in Tibet.

Unfortunately it was cloudy, so we were not able to see the beautiful side of her. But I kinda enjoyed the way it was, for it felt like some Loch Ness Monsters might emerge above the water and say hi.

 

After quickly answering the call of nature at the public toilets not far from the lakeside we resumed our trip. From there on, the nightmare of filthy pubic toilets haunted us the entire trip.  Of course, I can only tell my side of the story.  Most toilets were filthy, reeked, piled, and freezing cold. Me and two Singapore girls had to stuff our nose with tissue before we dared to use them. Some of the public toilets charged 1 or 2 Yuan (0.16-0.32 cents), where situations can be better. We asked the driver how the locals deal with the problem. He laughed and answered, and I quote “This is not a problem at all, they pee wherever they want, and the nature handles it well. The concept of toilet is brought in by the tourists.” How ironic it is. We think we are more civilized yet all the conflicts with Mother Nature were triggered by the modern society.

The second stop of the day was to check out the snow cap at a closer distance.

The guide told us the cap used to be by the roadside, it was only within the last couple of years that it started moving  up, up and up all due to the global warming.

We arrived at our first check point, where we were asked to get off the bus and hand our IDs to our guide. We had to line up at the check point and wait for the officers to call on our names. It took less time than I expected to go through the pass.

After that, it was unpaved roads. We passed the rivers, the dams, the mountains, and prairies. Very few pedestrians were seen during the ride. The further we were away from the hustle and bustle society, the less people we saw.

The only few tents we saw belonged to the nomads. I am sorry, we did meet some kids by the road. Our driver stopped the bus and shared out candies to them. Later our guide told us it was a tradition for the Tibetan people to do so, since the kids rarely were cut off from the outside world and candies were like a huge treat to them. So the next time we saw the kids by the road we handed out whatever we have to them, chocolates, chips, cookies, and pops.

There were not much beautiful scene to check out compared to the places we had been to in Qinghai. Just endless mountains in the distance. However, the scene deterred me in its own way, and when I checked on the pictures we took, I actually found them fascinating. The road was bumpy and rough. The rocks on the road made it feel like we were experience an earthquake throughout the whole trip.

The German guy sitting in behind said he had been thrown into the air a couple of times.

It was not until we went through the third check point did we see the Mt. Everest for the first time. Todd was so excited, he could not stop snapping pictures.

I just wanted to get to the base camp asap, cause the altitude start to take its toll on me. I was cold, my head was aching, so was my stomach. We finally arrived at the base camp, it was so cold there that I had to put on all the clothes at hand and asked Todd for his jacket. The base camp we would spend the night at was the second one, the third one was the one further up Mt. Everest. We dragged our stuff into the tent. Actually, it was referred to as the highest hotel on the world and it was actually better than I expected. There was hot water and electricity inside and most importantly, it was very warm inside the tent. In the middle, there was a stove where the owner of the tent added the dried yak dung to heat up the room…and cook. One tent can accommodate 7-8 people and each one of us were given 2 thick covers and a sheet, and was informed that there would be no heat during the night.

After the quick check in, Todd went with a few foreign visitors to hike a bit up to the Mt. Everest while I and some others decided we would cheat by riding the mini bus. And I managed to snap a picture of me bundling up with the sign of the base camp.

Todd asked me if he should stay with me to ride the bus, but I knew it had always been his dream to hike at Mt. Everest, so I let go of him. What a sweet wifey I am! (Note from Todd: she really is such a sweet wifey! and we’ll see if she notices I inserted this into her post 😉 )

I will write more about the night we spent at the base camp, now gotta watch a movie with my hubby. Again,What a sweet wifey I am!