Tibet III: The Road Home, Part I

From Everest we drove Emma, our British friend, to Tingri, which is close to the Nepal border. From there she was going to find a ride over the border, then take a bus to Katmandu. She's quite the independent adventurer.

Now, about Jennifer, our driver. We started calling him that (I think it was Nate who came up with the name) as a way to vent our frustrations. He spoke basically no English and never caught on to the joke. But he was an interesting character. He was very rude, very uncooperative, treated Emma poorly, and tried to pull a fast one on us.

By which I mean, he suddenly said that no, he wouldn't drive us to Tingri, that the plan had been all along to go to a different town (which wouldn't work at all for Emma). So we had to call his boss, with whom we had worked out our whole Everest trip, to rectify the situation. His boss said of course, Jennifer was to take us to Tingri. That was the plan from the beginning. So it was very strange how the itinerary took a sudden turn.

We later realized that Jennifer was probably trying to avoid the road to Tingri, which was basically a 4x4 trail at some points. The suspension on Jennifer's Land Cruiser was a little worse for wear, so we figure he was worried about it. But it was really not cool of him to try to scam us, to take advantage of our vulnerability, especially because Emma really had to get to Tingri; it wasn't an option, as her China visa was nearly expired.

Anyway, it all worked out, Emma made it to Tingri, we made it back to Lhasa (after spending a miserable night in what was easily the most miserable, fithiest "motel" of our trip), and we were rid of Jennifer. And good riddance, too.

Then we had four days of down time, waiting for our permits to drive from Tibet back into China. I got the flu, was out of it for two days, then we were back on the road, with a new, much friendlier driver (and a guide who was also a nice guy), through some really amazing country. It was much less arid than the road to Everest. Here are some shots:











Here we are exploring a cave we saw from the road:



Drew wishing us peace:

Turns out it was pretty shallow, not the labyrinth we were hoping for. But still fun to climb up to.

The terrain changed dramatically every time we turned a corner. We went from the high desert, to the Rockies, to the jungle, to the Sierra Nevadas in one day. Crazy steep slopes, plunging gorges, rushing rivers, and lush vegetation -- the road had it all.