Some of us are feeling a little worse for wear this morning, even ironman, Alex, who forgot to take his Diamox last night and woke in the wee hours with a headache. 250mg of diamox, a few hours, and he was back to his jolly self. Almost the same for me, except in my case I hadn't drunk enough fluid yesterday and was dehydrated; I had to wait for breakfast before popping an ibuprofen to ease my pain.
We're playing musical beds and my roomie for last night, Mark, felt even worse. He had some bug before coming away, and the altitude isn't helping. Coughing most of the night he takes longer than me to boot his OS.
After breakfast and once on the road (and beyond YAFC) my malaise disappears as I enjoy the brisk ride in the cool sunshine. Sweeping roads through the valley floor, next to a wide river bed whose only occupant is a rather meek looking river. The width of the river bed and the large boulders strewn about suggests that the meek river turns into a monster come rainy season (early autumn).
Heading up as we go, it gets cooler. The soft Himalaya mountains are deceptive, and as I said yesterday, this could be north Wales with smaller rivers cutting deep channels in the hillsides to get to the valley floor. And still we climb, the asphalt becoming less reliable with whole sections either transformed into dirt tracks or pockmarked with large potholes, or collapsed or collapsing.
And finally we reach the top of the road and we've arrived at a wide gate opening proclaiming entrance to Mt Qumolangma (Everest) National Park. We pose for pictures with the gateway making an excellent frame for the snow-capped mountains beyond and there's the usual trinket sellers with the deepest tans ever.... We're now at 5200m.... Wow, just wow! I've never been that high before (flying excepted). I feel great and now I'm really in the Everest mood. Bring it on!
Moving on, but now down, we reach a vista point for Mount Everest. It's cloudy in the distance so not much to see, but occasionally the clouds clear a little and there it is, way off, Mt Everest! Or at least part of it, the clouds never clearing enough to see it in the whole. But it's definitely Everest! Copious photos follow.
Setting off again and it's more of the same sweeping roads. At one point with a nice view, Steve, Danny, Chris and Swiss Martin stop and take several shots with bikes lined up on the road and the mountains behind (not Everest).
Eventually the river bed in the valley gives way to a much wider plain with fields almost ready for planting. Several teams of horse drawn ploughs are turning the sod ready to be planted with seed. But the weird thing is that they are ploughing in circles. Aussie Chris, Martin and I stop to take photos and shortly after, the farmers break for a well earned lunch sitting in circles by the roadside. We greet them in our best Tibetan and it raises toothy grins from their weather beaten tanned faces. It's a hard life here and it shows, but the kids are as inquisitive and happy as ever, Arthur entertaining wherever he goes. Everyone loves Arthur!
Eventually we reach our destination for the night in Tingri, Hotel Mt Qumolangma. We park up the bikes and settle in. I find Mark already laid out on the bed snoring. He wasn't feeling 100% on the way up, so chose to sit out the ride and his bike was hitched to the trailer.
We've arrived early enough for me to consider going out for a run. I have a 20k race when I get back and surely a bit of high altitude training (at 4300m) would go down well? Six kilometres later, I'm not so sure. During my run I meet the lads who are buying up a shop's entire stock of bar muffs to keep their dainty digits toasty on the sub zero rides ahead. However, by the time I get there they've run out, but Steve, my hero and saviour, gives me his. He rarely feels the cold and often rides in a t-shirt and jacket, while I have six thermal layers. The fur-lined muff design is something I could see Grayson Perry mounting on his chopper if he ever came to Tibet, but they will be very effective. Danny, also too late, is not so lucky, and in desperation persuades a local to sell him his used pair, which apparently smell like "yak piss"...
My run is an education: gasping for oxygen 6km feels like 60km and takes me 48mins, which is about 14 mins longer than usual for that distance. I'm convinced km are longer at this altitude.
Seems like both Mark and Mick won't be riding with us for the rest of the trip. The high altitude is proving a match for them. They're both big guys and the it takes a harder toll on them; I'm surprised they've done so well so far considering our aggressive acclimatisation schedule. At least they saw Everest and ventured over 5000m. We'll see them again in Lhasa.
Early start tomorrow, we're off to Everest Base camp and will spend a night in a dormitory next to a monastery only a few clicks from Base Camp itself. Apparently we can't ride to Base Camp ourselves, which is a shame, but we can catch a shuttle bus/jeep to complete the last few km. I reckon that will be a cold night.
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