How to quit your job and travel around the world

PHOTO: Passing the La Lung-la Pass, with Himalayas in the distance.

I blame it squarely on global warming. We had our first major disappointment and couldn't make it to Everest Base Camp. The town of Shegar (read: one restaurant with yak noodles and one dusty corner store with a packet of ancient of Oreos) had closed the road to Everest because of flooding, so we pressed on to Tingri. Again we attempted an alternative route to base camp in the Land Cruiser (which, by the way, is BEAST - we had earlier in the day plowed through a gnarly boulder field while I howled and clutched my bowels in the backseat). Again, we were denied. The snow melt had swollen the rivers to impassable levels. We were quite disppointed to not get there and a little frustrated that the tour company would not a) refund the entrance fees b) have an alternative plan for the days we already paid for and c) didn't tell us earlier that this was a possibility as the SNOW MELTS EVERY YEAR. Anyway...we made a silk purse our of a yak's ear and decided to make a run for the border instead. Once our Everest dreams were dashed, we wanted to just get on with it. The overland trip down the Friendship Hwy. is stunning - as we approached the Himals we did get a gorgeous champagne sun-colored view of Cho Oyu, another 8000 m. plus.





We reached a town caleld Nyalam around 9 p.m. (the name means 'Gateway to Hell') where you start dropping off the TIbeatn plaeau at an alarming rate. The smart thing would have been to spend the night here... but our drivers seems energetic after the Red Bulls and chain smoking. The next 30 km to Dram at the border are the hairiest you'll ever see... or not see, since it was monsoon raining, foggy and night time. The road is barely a single track and under major construction - you drop 1300 meters in about 20 km, so it's switchbacks and hairpins all the way. Our first dilemma came when one of the Land Cruisers was stuck in about 3 feet of sucking mud. An hour of digging out the mud in the rain and we were able to pull it out with a cable. Then all came to a stop.





I should mention here that the Chinese have an unbelievabvle belief in man's ability to conquer nature. Thus brining a major river to a halt or building a four-line highway into the side of a Himalayan mountain cliff is par for the course. To accomplish such feats they bring in bulldozers, dynamite, huge dump trucks and disposable workers. And they work 24 hours a day. So to find a bulldozer, dump truck and four major Deng Teng 18 wheelers on this small steep mud road was not really a surprise. And when one falls off a cliff, well, throw some workers at it and move it out of the way. That's what happened - a truck overturned (no one hurt according to our driver) and blocked up traffic for about 4 hours in the night. All the while, the workers and drivers band together and miraculously do something and clear the road. We presed on to the sketchy border town, arriving at 3 a.m. We found rooms at a hooker hotel (the only one open) for 60 yuan (that being the exorbitant tourist price) and passed out.





The border crossing from China into Nepal is a small miracle of colliding culture. Never in my life have I seen two cultuers so quickly morph - you come down the mountain from Dram, passthrough immigration (my passport, FYI, seems to cause great interst in China and is always being taking in the back room, which I don't really liek) and then come on to the Friendship Bridge. A big red line halfway cross marks the border. And naturally I had to jump back in forth playing the "I'm in, I'm out" game until a Chinese border guard came and shooed us into Nepal. Bam. It's like India (but different!) all over again! Shanty towns, lush foluiage, naked children, people smiling, men oogling, funny English, curry in a hurry and Bollywood hits blaring. After some weird wrangling with a driver, we made the amazing trip down to Kathmandu...

Dropping in from Shigatse for a brief update...we have been on an incredible trek and now on route to Everest.

NB: I am retroactively posting this photo from the monastary in Shigatse. Well, it's a photo of a photo. Look familiar? Yep, it's Steven Seagal! A little know fact: the action figure is actually a reincarnation of a Lama and recognized by the Panchen Lama's people as such. Stunning.