Everest

I think the last time I blogged I was in Shegar. Well I wasn't actually in Shegar at the time but at any rate. We got out of Shegar without much todo. Well Dawa, our driver, was anxious to leave. Up for several hours, he was, just waiting.

We got into the 4x4 and got on the road. I don't remember if I this came before Shegar or afterwards but anyways, we were supposed to stay in some town, Tashi Dzom, I believe. There wasn't much there so we kept on going, stopping only for momos. What Tibetans call Chinese dumplings. We ended up at the base of Everest. Well not exactly the base but the Rongphu monastery with Everest right in sight. We really didn't do very much there. We got out of the 4x4 and went to the guesthouse across the road from the monastery. We put our bags in the room and noticed our splendid bathroom. Actually it wasn't a bathroom at all, okay technically it is, but a little stone cube with a narrow slit through the floor. Squat toilets didn't look nearly as bad as they did before. There were 2 slits I believe but one was covered over with... waste, shall we call it. The other one was practically right at the door, from which, you could see people standing about on the sidewalk in front of the guesthouse. So I kind of positioned myself in the best possible fashion pretending there was no way I could be seen. There was another bathroom but both holes had vanished so business was just done in corners. Pleasant way to start my journey to Everest right?

After that, we headed across the street to the monastery. It was a nice little monastery but not all that special aside from Everest being right there. The monks and nuns were a bit cold and tried to buy clothes from some of us. They gave us some bread and we told them we'd come back tomorrow. We didn't though. We just wanted to lie to Buddhists. Okay, the lie wasn't intentional.

We went back to the guesthouse and hung out in the kitchen with every other person who had come to Everest from the Tibetan side. We ran into almost all the people there at some point later in the trip. A Welsh guy traveling with 2 Koreans who didn't know each other previously, an Irish and Aussie girl who were downers for their group, 2 middle aged Frenchmen, and others. A Dutch guy I had met in Chengdu was there. I ended up just playing cards most of the night. Some Hearts and then Presidents and Assholes. I won a game of Hearts and was president for most of the night. I had quite a few beers at high altitude. Beer goes a long way at 5200m. I was toasty warm the whole time too being right behind the stove. Everyone was all bundled up and I was down to a t-shirt. Then they kicked us out of the room and we took the game to our chilly non-heated room. We took extra care to duct tape the holes and gaps in the glass. We had our little lightbulb though..... for about 10 minutes and then very slowly the light dimmed to blackness. I don't know why but we were obsessed with the game and everyone went to get their headlamps. We played for 2 more hours I think. We were noisy. Not that it mattered. Nobody slept at all. I'd been sleeping fine the whole time except for that one night. Even with all the alcohol the decreased oxygen in the air and the cold made it impossible to sleep. I also couldn't quit thinking about cards.