And all the time we dreamed of Tibet.
But we weren’t the only ones. The closer we got to the border, the more Westerners we met, all intent on making the same journey. ‘Have you noticed beer is cheaper than bottled water?’ was a common greeting. There was a sense of camaraderie among the Europeans which meant we operated as one: we were tourists from the same place – the West. We arrived in Xinning and then went onto Golmud, the end of the railway line, which resembled a film-set of dusty nothingness. It was an eerie place. Behind us the sun disappeared in clouds of dust and I fell horribly ill after eating a yak burger. Lying in the hotel bed, thinking I was about to die, I became obsessed with a need for apple juice.
‘I want apple juice!’ I moaned.
When Andrew appeared through the door, hours later, with a tin can of fizzy apple juice, I thought I was hallucinating. Gulping it down thirstily, I felt instantly better.
By the time we arrived in Golmud we were among a group of 10 Westerners from Canada, USA, Switzerland and the UK – a big bunch of backpackers. We were herded into a hotel by the notorious CITS, who told us we would have to pay £200 each for a three-day trip into Tibet – ‘guided’, of course. As we wanted to travel through Tibet and on into Nepal this represented a bit of an issue, never mind the cost. After discovering one of our group spoke Tibetan, we could scarcely believe our luck. Now we could improvise: we could smuggle ourselves over the border, which was exactly what we did.
Serendipity has a funny way of taking over in situations like this. You just need to know roughly where to look and be prepared to pay for it. Before long, we had found a local bus driver who was driving the scheduled bus long distance into Tibet. We were smuggled out of the hotel in the middle of night when it was pitch-black. At the Chinese checkpoint where we left Golmud, the driver turned off the bus lights.
No one spoke English.
It was real cloak-and-dagger stuff: we were disguised in cowboy hats and cloaks provided by the Tibetans. The biggest problem was my blonde hair, which I had to stuff inside my hat. When the bus stopped we were herded out to walk around potholes too deep for it to be driven across, some stretching 20 feet long. We were conscious of passengers being beaten by Chinese soldiers but no one asked why.
Then we passed into Lhasa.
‘Not in China now, no passports,’ the hostel keeper informed us.
Grinning from ear to ear, we dumped our bags on the floor. We’d made it, though we weren’t entirely sure how it had happened.
The next morning – a crystal-clear day – we woke up in Lhasa and gazed up at the Palace, which sits on a ridge and was framed by the mountain range with slopes of snow and rock. It was as if we’d stepped back in time. We got dressed, had some tea and went for a walk. In silence, we gazed up at the stupas containing the bodies of all the Dalai Llamas.
‘Psssst!’
We turned to find a young monk behind a pillar.
‘You speak English?’ he asked (it was illegal for Tibetans to learn English).
‘Yes.’
He showed us a book.
‘AD,’ he said. ‘What does this mean?’
‘Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. Have you heard of Christ?’
His face lit up: ‘Ah, the Pope!’
Although we always hoped to get to Tibet, the prospect of climbing the Everest Foothills had been a distant reality. It only began to sink in as we packed our rucksacks with supplies for the trip. I’ve got a photo of Andrew sitting on the bed in the guesthouse studying the guidebook. Beside him on a wooden table is a pile of cans and packets, the tallest stack being noodles. (In the high altitude, the water wouldn’t boil and we had to eat them still crunchy.) Next to the noodles are cans of spam, lychees, peas, a jar of redcurrant jam, powdered baby milk that we drank with melted chocolate squares on top (delicious!), sampa (barley rolled in yak milk to make little balls of dough like a solid porridge) and loo rolls. We had to buy it all from the Friendship Store (a store only foreigners can use) as nothing was available locally. It meant playing along with the Chinese, using their currency rather than the local Tibetan Riminbi and pretending we were just tourists there for the day.
It’s amazing to think this is what got us up 5,208 metres, along with Andrew’s quiet insistence.
‘Come on, Sally. Just a little bit further!’
After a few days in Lhasa, during which time the big Nepal earthquake had injured more than 16,000 people – and we ourselves felt the tremors – we caught the local bus to Gyantse. When the driver tried to overtake a lorry on a hairpin bend, I found myself sitting above the rear wheel as it spun over emptiness. I let out a loud scream.
‘Try not to let your imagination run away with you,’ advised Andrew, the voice of calm.
The driver accelerated hard enough to send the truck hurtling forward, away from the precipice and on into Gyantse. From there, we hitched a ride west to Tingri, lying flat in the open back of a lorry like fugitives. It was exciting, even though the journey seemed to take forever. Every so often the driver would stop, enjoy a few more bottles of beer and gamble with the householders who had provided the refreshment. Arriving with blackened faces from the exhaust, safe but sore, we felt like real adventurers now.
‘Come on, Sally. Just a bit further!’
The aim was to get to Rombuk monastery. At 5,000 metres above sea level, it’s the highest monastery in the world. By now we were a group of seven. Together, we hired a couple of yaks and a guide and stayed in yak-skin tents, which have a hole in the top to allow smoke from the yak-dung fires to escape. We drank yak tea (or ‘yuck tea’, as it came to be known). Made from tea, salt and yak butter, unless drunk very quickly it congeals on your tongue. The climb was slow and hard work; we all suffered forms of mild altitude sickness but one of our group actually had to go back as he was clearly unwell and the only cure is to descend. At one stage we had to cross a roaring river via a crumbling stone bridge that I was convinced would collapse beneath our weight. Otherwise, there was just silence and fluttering prayer flags, the rumble of prayer wheels (wooden wheels reputed to accumulate wisdom and good karma as they spin) and the occasional flap of bird wings. It’s a desert region: food is hard to come by and there is no green, just mile upon mile of rocks and Everest shrouded in mist in the distance, drawing us ever closer.
Arriving at Rombuk monastery is unexpected: after a two-day walk up the valley, you turn a corner and the ridge flattens out. There it is, clinging to the side of the Everest valley like a beleaguered fortress. The monastery is still inhabited by a community of monks and nuns whose lives are dedicated to God and survival. With their lined, weathered faces and faded tunics, they seem to belong there on the mountainside. We stayed in a platform hut built on dried mud, with Tibetan rugs and the best loo with a view I’ve ever encountered. From there, you could see Her Majesty. The monks also operate an efficient black market currency exchange and charged an extortionate amount for their eggs, which just goes to show everyone has to survive somehow.
As soon as we arrived at the monastery, I looked at Andrew and knew from his set jaw and gleaming eyes that he’d decided to go on. Now the plan was to get to North Everest Base Camp: just seven kilometres of rocky terrain with heavily loaded rucksacks away. After a fitful night’s sleep on a hard floor and more green tea, we set out the next morning.
‘Just a bit further, Sally.’
CLICK!
I took a photo to remember the spot, the exhaustion and the sheer elation of being on top of the world (well, almost!). Here’s Andrew in his Harris sweater knitted by my dad (we had one each) and walking boots. He looks every bit the gentleman explorer – no different, in fact, to