I hope this works. The internet cafes here are poor and this may come out all funny. So if it comes out weird....I'll fix it later.
Tibet.....SUPER-FANTASTIC!!!! I cannot believe this place exists on earth! Apart from the cold weather, VERY poor roads, altitude sickness and the torturous mountain climbs, I have nothing bad to say. We started in Lhasa with three days for acclimatization, which didn't help. Now three weeks later we're on the border with Nepal and couldn't feel better. In total we cycled through 8 mountain passes, 7 of them were around 5000m in height. We soon found out that at this altitude you start to feel funny. Not funny in the good sense, but funny as in painful headaches, nausea, dizzyness and insomnia. After we bought some recommended "special" bark tea, these symptoms were generally curbed.
We've now completed over 1000km of hard cycling, in Tibet, and with many highlights...hopefully I don't miss any. The number one highlight, of course, is arriving at Mt. Everest Base Camp. The cycle in was probably one of the worst roads I have ever ridden on in my life. Surprisingly our bikes held out, except for a quick tie-wrap job to my rear rack and strangely, Julia's seat broke 4km away from base camp.....I told her not to eat that last cookie....
On the way through we met 4 men from the UK who were travelling with van support. They had all their gear packed away with the drivers, a personal cook and a professional guide with them. They must have had pity on us and our over-packed bikes, brutal "mystery" noodles and a look of wanting to fall over and die. They invited us to join their comfortable camp on more then one occasion and made our "side" trip to Everest much more enjoyable.
Another highlight was the free camping. Tibetans are so friendly and easy going, (except for a couple kids who like to throw bottles and rocks at moving targets) that we felt comfortable to camp almost anywhere. For the last 3 weeks we might have showered twice and I'm telling you I've never felt better. It's great: when your this dirty you just stop caring. Don't get me wrong, we tried bird baths in local streams, but it's just too cold and I'd rather stink then expose my most valuable assets to those dreadful elements.
The views were another incredible highlight. Last night Julia and I made our final push over the 8th pass at 5200m and were stunned by the sheer beauty of the Himalayas. Before us stood 3 mountains well over 7000m piercing through the 4800m clouds, "we had made it to the top of the world and survived", I thought. That night we slept in the clouds...at least tried to sleep. We had on every piece of clothing that our little panniers carry, and we were still cold. Today we woke up extremely chilled and started the next highlight of our trip "the longest descent in the world" with a 4110m altitude drop over 160km. The road is mostly dirt, rock and mud with terrible headwinds and torrential downpours, but it's mostly downhill and fantastic!!
If I can think of anything more to say I'll update again in Kathmandu: 3-5days. Life is great and I hope it's treating everyone just the same!!
