Everest and then to Shigatse

The heated dinning room, bar and lounge at the monastery accommodation.

Mt Everest at dawn.

The Rombuk Monastery that owns our accommodation.

Our rectangular accommodation from the road.

Clearing off frost with a CD.

Rob in extra clothing trying to warm up from a cold night.

The switchbacks back up the passes.

A snowy dog at the hightest pass.

The nomad huts in fresh snow.

Tuesday, May 15^th

I had another rotten night sleep, or rather no-sleep. It was cold or too hot with the electric blanket. I went to bed fully dressed, I mean fully dressed. All the clothes I wore outside including my down jacket, toque and boots. There was no way I wanted to get up in the middle of the night and try to wrestle the boots on while two other guys were sleeping. Plus, it would be very strenuous, and I would be out of breath. The washroom here was dreadful. Three long drop rectangular holes that smelt awful. I had no intention of using them other than to pee, but not during the night, I hoped. My feet got so hot in my boots on top of the electric blanket I had to poke them out of the thick blankets onto the bed beside. It wasn’t until about 3 that I finally made the effort to turn off the blanket and bring my feet back onto my bed. I had another altitude headache so listening to music wasn’t much fun either. Both Nick and Yannick got up twice but I didn’t. They didn’t sleep well either.

In the morning there was a clear view of Everest from the road right in front of our ‘hotel’. It was amazingly impressive. I took a couple of photos, and a few people went to visit the monastery that was right across the street too and then we loaded up in the truck and got out of there. Rob was really feeling the effects of the altitude this morning and had a pretty severe case of dizziness. In fact he didn’t bother to get out of bed to see Everest in the morning, didn’t eat all day, and even more telling took no photos the whole day!

Today was a driving day. We retraced our steps to the two sets of switchbacks that led to other views of the whole range of the Himalayas, but unfortunately the clouds had moved in. There was fresh snow at the two passes and it snowed off and on as we drove. Then it was a long drive. Rob and I dozed off and on all day and skipped both breakfast and lunch. We just sat on the bus while everyone else ate lunch.

Then we dozed the rest of the way and finally arrived in the hotel in Shigatse about 5:00. The group was going out for dinner at seven but Yannick, Rob and I wanted to eat earlier so we could go to bed. So, we walked down the street to the Tashi Restaurant and had ginger lemon tea and a soup. We walked back, stopping at a supermarket to buy a few items, showered and finally cleaned our teeth and went to bed.