Day 101 - 10 November 2009: Tibet, crapping on a yak

China insists on having only one time zone for the whole country, and we hit the road in darkness, riding along a bumpy dirt road overlooking deep valleys. Those on the valley side of the truck have some nervous moments of group gasping.

As the road gets higher though, it becomes one fit for a Top Gear (British car show) driving challenge, freshly tarmaced across long barren landscapes. We are aiming to get to the north side Everest Base Camp in the coming days. We go over Mt Wula Pass which is 5000m high, the peak point being marked by Buddhist flags.

Everest is now in site, and we stop for lunch at a small town used as a base by hikers and climbers. Laurie and I go for a walk on a road away from the town leading to who knows where to get a better look.

remnants of an old fort

In rural Tibet, living conditions are basic, with people living in cement or clay block dwellings with roof often made of yak dung and are reliant on coal (or yak dung) fired stoves for their heating. My first experience of Chinese toilets was at the border control, where they were standard unsanitary and, um, muddied squat toilets. Here, they are outhouses with holes in the ground. At the hamlet where we stop for lunch, there are three holes in the room separated only by short doorless barriers a couple of feet high. There are a number of us desperate to go and this leads a strange sort of male bonding. The holes drop down into a field which is inhabited by a yak. There is no delicate way to put this. The yak seems to have a taste for human faeces and situates itself below us. I can say that it doesn’t like toilet paper or wet wipes though.

I go into the restaurant where everybody has settled for lunch and order yak noodle soup.

While gathering back on the truck, we see some sheep being slaughtered with a knife to the throat.

We drive on, but the truck breaks down at the bottom of the road turning to Everest Base Camp. On top of this, several people are suffering from altitude sickness. We are still about 4,000m above sea level.

Escorted by Gaz and Kevin, our Chinese guide, Caroline and Rhiannon get a lift from a friendly passer-by to the hospital in Tingri. The rest of us end up bush camping where we are. The temperature drops to -15°C and I don’t get any sleep. Also, I get an upset stomach in the middle of the night. There are some small dry ravines in the landscape, so there is some shelter, although I have to be careful as I am aware that others might have used the facilities already. Nonetheless, it is the coldest toilet moment of my life.