East Base Camp

We left Shegar at 8am to head to the East Base Camp of Mount Everest.  We stopped on top of a mountain to get some photos of the mountain but it was pretty cloudy and we only got a couple glimpses of the peak.  In the meantime, the locals camping there followed us around demanding we give them money, food, coffee or whatever we had in our hands.  My tetris game suddenly started singing Ode to Joy and one Tibetan teenager came over and said "La la la la Gimme!".  We had some noodles and cookies and gave them the rest.

We stopped at a small town on the way for lunch and ate in a traditional Tibetan house which has the bed/couches all around the outside and the cooking fire place in the middle.  The Tibetan bread we ordered were just big fat yummy pancakes.

We arrived at the national park gate and informed our protesting driver we were going to sleep at Base Camp and not the hostel at the bottom that gave him commission.  Then we embarked on the walk up.  At this altitude (over 5000m high) there was 45% less oxygen in the air and Emma and I soon lagged behind the others with James slowing down to be our sherpa and carry Emma's pack.  Climbing one part was really hard, we could hardly breathe and could only move slowly, but we eventually got there and the snow tipped mountains around us kept us happy.

We left our packs in the tent we were staying, The Yak and Yeti, and went out to view Everest, but it was hidden by clouds.  We built little rock castles and then Edde decided to build Australia with rocks.  We left him to it as the altitude was affecting us with tiredness and headaches.  Once Edde had finished, he felt ill from the exertion.  The toilet block there had squat toilets overflowing with human waste, so once again we were hiding behind rocks - there were no trees.  The Tibetan girl at our tent cooked us dinner and then all her friends came in and sat and watched us and played cards with our deck.   Eventually we managed to shoo them off so we could sleep, after a brief glimpse of Everest in the setting sun.  Some othere people we know had to hide in the kitchen when the Chinese officials came around as the Chinese government takes all money for lodging there and the Tibetans only keep money from food provided.

On the trek back down we managed to get a good view of Everest, some blue sheep and some surly yaks.