Now a “wee” lesson for some people back home, the highest point in Britain is Ben Nevis which stands at 1,344 metres! We are now on the Tibetan Plateau which is rarely below 4,000 metres and have passed over roads which are around 5,300 metres and the air pressure is around half that of at sea level. Due to this we are having to drink around 3-4 litres of water a day to ensure we are getting enough water in our systems and flushing out all the toxins etc……..this means a lot of peeing! The call from the truck every 30mins “STOP the truck I need a wee wee” and asap the truck is stopped and every ditch is in use and if no ditches are available its boys at the front of the truck and girls at the back, which I’m sure a few other drivers have had a shock coming round the corner. God it’s so much easier being a guy!
Anyway bodily functions aside…..as expected we had to reroute as the road we wanted to use was closed to tourists, so the long way round was used adding an extra 1,100km onto our journey. Long driving days basically and not much happened apart from some locals trying to extort us out of 1,000 yuan (£100) for camping on “their” grounds, that’s roughly the budget for us all staying in a hotel for a night. The local drunks then threatened to call more locals, so a quick packup and scooted off in the pissing rain to camp in a paddock of some sort. All good fun though when we look back!

Stopped off in Golmud which is basically a transit town on the route to Tibet and since the new railway was built a few years ago (the highest railway n the world) it seems every man, woman and yak has moved to Lhasa. We spent the night in a hotel with pot noodles for dinner and managed to download some new stuff to watch on the laptop…mainly flashforward! Breakfast the next morning consisted of Bread, Jam, Broccoli and cakes which was an experience, ever fancied broccoli on your cornflakes? I think not!

After Golmud we started our ascent to Tibet and hit various roadworks, mud tracks and bizarre speed checkpoints where I reckon the police had a wheel similar to the wheel of fortune to decide the speed limit e.g we were given about 2 hours to drive 96km then 30 mins to drive 36km. Plus it was our first exposure to the famous prayer flags of Tibet at various vistas along the way which made for some stunning photos.


Rolled into Lhasa eventually after a slight detour from Miss-Information and passed the Potala Palace (or the Potato Palace as it’s been renamed by our Tibetan guide) and checked into the “Yak Hotel” and scored ourselves a deluxe suite for the 4 nights we are here - very swish. Lhasa is amazing with such a different atmosphere around the place compared to where we have been before. Described as the spiritual centre of Tibet, many Tibetans follow pilgrimage around the province ending up here while prostrating (basically hands up, dive on the ground then stand up, walk forward 3 paces and repeat.) It can cover 100’s of kilometres and take months even years to complete.

The mains sites we have visited are the Jokhang Temple, Potala Palace which was the residence of the Dalai Lama until he had to go into exile and the Sera Monastery where we seen the debating monks. One thing which stands out about Lhasa is that it has been “Chinesified” as apart from the old town which maintains quaint little streets and stalls, the rest has been modernised which is a shame. Also almost every corner has soldiers placed to monitor what’s going on even snipers on the roofs making sure the Tibetans don’t step out of line. A real shame!


Next few days is going to be the next real highlight as we are heading to Mount Everest, lets hope the clouds clear as its currently supposed to be raining when we arrive but fingers crossed it clears for a while so we can glimpse the highest point in the world!