Top o' the World to You
by Cass Gilbert
The three amigos - Joe, Trystan and I - leave Shigatse and rejoin the Friendship Highway, dodging Chinese tractor trailers careering round its streets. 'Highway' is a loose use of the term: it's a gravel track cutting across desolate Tibetan plains. We outrun a storm that is darkening the sky and break for an early dinner at a truck stop, greeted merrily by inebriated truck drivers staggering and stumbling back into their cabs. Shepherds are heading home for the night and we weave our way between goat and sheep tailbacks before camping beneath a sky bursting with stars.
The haunting melodies of Tibetan singing awake us from our sleep. Breakfast is a bowl of tsampa, in a dusty village. Tsampa is a sort of powdered 'All Bran', the staple diet of Tibetans. Reaching the top of a pass, a bone dry valley stretches before us, a hundred shades of brown. We enjoy a brief moment of solitude among the prayer flags before a convoy of jeeps arrive and unload tourists, who photograph the view and tear off. Apart from cycling, Toyota 4WDs are the only way to travel around Tibet reliably, ferrying passengers from Lhasa to Khathmandu, leaving a trail of dust in their wake.
Joined by David, a Levi-clad cyclist from France, the four of us climb our highest pass, 5520m, and contemplate the Himalayas. The descent is exhilarating, slowed only when the road dissolves into a muddy bog. Gleefully, we pass the stranded jeeps who overtook us on the way up.
It's long past nightfall before we arrive by torchlight at Rongbuk Monastery, exhausted and humbled by a rock-strewn track, climbing and plummeting over 1000m at a time. I've never felt so drained of energy. Mount Everest rises before us, lit by a full moon. We collapse inn perhaps the world's highest restaurant and its owner, Doji, a laid-back long-haired Tibetan, plies us with pancakes.
Morning comes; the clouds veiling Everest dissipate. At 8840m, the North Face towers almost 4000m above us. Ancient pilgrims in ski goggles perambulate the monastery as we pitch tent at Base Camp, 5200m. Breathing is no longer difficult, having cycled over so many passes. A cold, windy night leaves a crust of ice, crackling the tent when it moves. Cocooned in my sleeping bag, I need not dream. I am living what I dreamt of all those months ago.
My chain is almost worn out, and limited to just a few gears; climbing passes is difficult and frustrating. Inspiration comes from the panorama of the sweeping Tingri Plain, enclosed by mountains, set against a deep blue sky speckled with clouds. We stop in a Tibetan village and eye the selection of instant noodles, yak cheese and Chinese biscuits long past their sell-by date. Children circle us and pull out handfuls of carefully wrapped fossils, setting about their sales pitch relentlessly. We race off, yet more heavily laden, and camp amongst ruins on a hill. Satellites glide across the cloudless sky as we listen to the silence of Tibet.
A burst of sound awakens us as runny-nosed kids peer into the tent. After breakfast we struggle up on e final double pass against a gale force headwind. Cresting the summit, we gaze for the last time out to distant peaks that surround this high altitude desert, and begin our steep descent off the plateau. The landscape changes suddenly and dramatically; mist hangs over waterfalls and cascades over shiny vegetation.
Behind us lay Tibet; ahead lies Khathmandu, Nepal and the road home.
© Cass Gilbert
Cycling Plus,
January 2000