Author Archives: d4vid

Debbie and I kept crossing paths with a small group of travelers from an Australian tour company.  We met up with them — in the freezing cold — to watch the sun set on Everest from the Tibetan-side Everest Base … Continue reading →

We stayed at the guest rooms of a Nyingma (a “red hat” school) monastery called Rongbuk, highest monastery in the world, just 8km away from Everest Base Camp. The monastery was cold and relatively desolate.  Saw about as many sheep … Continue reading →

Our first glimpse of the Himalayas from one of the high passes. That large peak just left of center is Mount Everest at 8848m (29,000 ft.) above sea level, highest mountain in the world. Also visible are Lhotse (4th highest), … Continue reading →

The entrance to Qomolangma National Park, gateway to Everest and the Himalayas, stands at 5248m (17,200 ft.) The wind tore at the prayer flags.

We overnighted in Pelbar aka Shelkar aka New Tingri. Accommodations (as the criminally misleading “Snowland Hotel”) were what I would consider “unloved motel”-caliber……but with water disconnected from the sink, shower, and toilet to prevent freezing.

The Shigatse Dzong (seen here in another of my famously shitty photographs) echoes the architectural design of the Potala Palace.

In Shigatse, I loved the particular shade of blue on the stone sign out front of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.The monastery is supposed to be the home of the Panchen Lama, the highest ranking lama after the Dalia Lama in … Continue reading →

Our “three star” hotel in Shigatse was so ornate, so over the top, so Chinese that it looked almost Korean. 

A glacier at 5020m (16,500 ft.)      

Yamdrok Lake, one of the sacred lakes of Tibet. The color of the water was almost mesmerizing. 

At 4900m (16,000 ft.), this was the first of the high passes we navigated.  It looked like the shittiest parts of California to me.  One of the recurring disappointments of Tibet was that most of it was brown & dry … Continue reading →

Somewhere between Lhasa and Shigatse, we made a pit stop.  The facilities were…rudimentary. This cow was the town plumber, as far as I could tell.

The air in Tibet was frigid, but as arid as any desert.  The thin atmosphere meant the sun beat down brutally.  It was common for my skin to burn in the sunlight and my body to shiver in the shade. … Continue reading →