Whoa, whoa, feeling on top of the world!

Steve and Lea surrounded by prayer flags on a mountain pass
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We piled into 4WD's and left Lhasa, whereafter things got pretty rugged and remote.

We spent a night at a small monastery town called Samye. Spent a funny afternoon playing outdoor billiards against some locals.

We had some amazing (yet long - around 10 hours a day) drives through the Himalaya mountains in the 4WD's. All the peaks and mountain passes were littered with the Tibetan prayer flags. The diversity of terrain was incredible - we travelled through sandy destert, snow and Canola fields! Luckily, our iPod speakers (thanks Kath and Fe) managed to drown out the Tibetan classic tapes played by the drivers.

Himalayan vista
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Other highlights included a quality night out in Shigatse with a couple of people from our tour group. We went to a local Chinese cabaret club and told them it was Lea's birthday. We were shouted drinks all night and managed to convince the club owner to let us sing a few songs on stage. We belted out a very poor rendition of "Advance Australia Fair" and "Waltzing Matilda" and received a huge ovation.

Next up was the Mt Everest National Park. We had an amazingly off-road 4WD adventure to "Tent City", about half way up Mt Everest.

Lea plays pool against the locals (she lost, for the record!)
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From there we commenced our trek to Mt Everest Base Camp. Lea was suffering some altitude sickness (we were at 5000m) and was advised not to climb as she hadn't eaten much for the few days before. However, in true style, she downed two chocolate bars with a bottle of Coke and did the trek anyway.

Was bloody hard work climbing to Base Camp, but very rewarding. Base Camp was practically deserted as the climbing season was over. There was only a small commemorative plaque, a few police officers and an armored truck mounted with a water cannon. Standing at base camp (5500m) the peak of Mt Everest still looked huge and intimidating. We were amazed that it is possible to climb.

Steve rides a yak at a mountain pass.
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To celebrate, our group all spent a cold night huddled together in a large tent affectionately called "The Yak and Yeti Hotel" drinking yak-butter tea. It was a rough night as some of the local nomads had too much rice-wine and came to our tent looking for a fight. Luckily the "hotel" owner dispersed the crowd before we had to take up arms.

The next day we started a two day whirlwind drive to the Nepali border.