We woke up at around 5am to catch the Everest sunrise. Before setting off to that hill we went yesterday, I went to shit in the WC first. It was still very dark then and the only light was from my torch. It was really an unforgettable experience to shit in Everest. 1st it was damn cold; my ass was shivering like mad. 2nd it was freaking stinky. The WC was nothing but a drain piled up with shits.
After I had done my business, we went to that hill. It was a disappointing sunrise. Misty. This was the 2nd time we had a lousy sunrise. First it was at EMei. We waited for an hour or so for the mist to clear but still the view was a let down. Finally, we decided to leave as our ZK was waiting for us outside the Everest reservation zone.
There was a little commotion regarding taking the horse cart back. Apparently the Tibetan owners wanted 4 people to share 1 cart, which was really unfair to us. We said in that case we pay only half the price but they refuse. There were 2 German and 2 American tourists too and all of us made noise regarding the arrangement. In the end, the Tibetans gave in and took us down using 4 carts.
On the way down, 1 of the Germans vomited as he was feeling unwell the night before. And he sure was in a foul mood. JH turned around and took picture of the Germans with Everest at the background. Halfway through while we stopped to rest, JH went up and talked to the Germans, trying to make friend with them. He told them that he had taken their pictures and asked if they would like to exchange emails so that he can send it to them. That sick German replied rudely, “Why the hell you took those pictures for?” JH was really pissed and walked away. Poor JH. I only knew of the incident when we reached the bottom.
While taking the eco-bus out of the reservation zone, we met 2 Americans, Brent and Lennon; a young man of our age and another fat old man. I was unfortunate to be sitting with Lennon, the fat elderly, who kept talking to me about corporate issues, taxes, IT jobs, standard of living, etc. So boring. I never liked such topics. I want very much to share travel experience with other travelers. So I started to open up on this topic and asked Lennon where in Asia he had traveled to. He said HK and started to talk about HK economy. My God.
We parted with the Americans and rendezvous with ZK at the place where we boarded the eco-bus yesterday. Then we went back to the same town we been to yesterday for lunch. While waiting for our lunch, 2 girls came and stood beside us asking for pencils. They just stood there and kept begging, despite the fact that we told them we had none. Tibetan kids would beg for 3 things: $, sweets and pencils. I can understand the need for the first 2 items. But I couldn’t figure out why do they need so many pencils? Some of the kids didn’t look as if they had gone to school. Although I shouldn’t think this way, somehow I guess that their parents had something to do with it. Perhaps they asked their kids to beg for pencils so that they can sell them to schools. I hope I am wrong.
After lunch, we continued on our journey and had to go over a mountain. Somewhere in the middle, a truck while coming down, was stuck in the trench at the side, just at a turn on the mountain road, thereby blocking the passage. Vehicles from both directions couldn’t pass through. A lorry behind that truck was loaded with workers who got down and started making an alternative path using their tools. After about 20min of work, a rudimentary path was created which would bypass the truck that was stuck in the trench.
The worker-loaded lorry came through via that path, which allowed only 1 vehicle to pass at a time. When it was our turn to use the path, the workers stopped us. They said the path was built by them and demanded $ from us. 10rmb. Although it was only a small amount of $, we didn’t expect them to ask for it. We thought that since we were all travelers on the road, esp. in harsh places like Tibet, we should be helping one another out in times of crisis. Why talked about $? The Aussies Kayakists we met the other day didn’t ask for $ when they laid the side track. We were reluctant to give that $ but then a snow storm was advancing from behind and so we had no choice. When JH passed the 10rmb note to them, he said to them, “你们中国人样样都讲钱！” Well said. But that shameless Chinese just took his $ with a big smile and went on to collect $ from the rest of the cars behind. They were really nothing less than robbers.
After we had passed using the 10rmb path, the snow storm still caught up with us. At full speed, we reached DingRi rather early and by then the snow had stopped. We had a good hot bath and everyone wanted to rest early since we didn’t sleep well the night before at Everest Base Camp.
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