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The ride from Zhangmu to Nyalam was very nice as usual. The road is simply spectacular, comparable with the wonderful Karakoram Highway in Pakistan: steep cliffs & dusty switchbacks take us from the green valleys straight through a weakness in the mighty Himalayan chain to the grey and dusty surroundings of Nyalam, 3700m above sea level.

Our group is so big, we will have to split up and stay in 2 separate hotels, but we al eat at the Snowland Restaurant. The food is great, Chinese food as it should be, and Kama, the waitress works like crazy to serve all the different groups at the same time.

After lunch we go out for a quick hike to acclimatize a bit, Kevin stays in Nyalam for some shooting. Thomas is doing great and together with Milan we go up from 3700 to 4050 quickly and easily.

The views from the narrow ridge are nice and Thomas has little practical problems yet with the altitude. His vision is slowly deteriorating; he cannot read the small fonts anymore at this time, but he is happy with the current situation, it is still better than expected. Fortunately the ‘Himalayan Hamster’ Thomas encounters in the toilet is so big, it would have been spotted by Stevie Wonder wearing sunglasses

Hi all you friends and followers.

Here’s a small update from the chilly Himalayan Hamster Hotel in Nyalam! While Thomas is resting after a nice hike up into the hills around Nyalam, Milan & I are working on images to show you this side of the world. Here is a quick update with video, text and images.

13th April: The friendship bridge to Tibet: Zhangmu

As mentioned we arrived in Zhangmu without much problems, the long line at the friendship bridge was not as bad as it seemed, the many porters carried all our gear over the bridge without problems and getting all our gear through Chinese customs went smoothly as well.

Last years the no-photo policy was strictly enforced, but now it seemed to have lightened up a bit, see this little impression.
Zhangmu is a dirty small bordertown, complete with vague bars, cheap hookers ditto hotels and many restaurants. Not a place to stay too long.

Day before yesterday evening we had our team briefing, followed by our traditional dinner on top of Rum Doodle, a great party where it was clear that this team will supply more stories in the next few months

Now I am on the roof of the Vaishali hotel, trying to get the DSL working. The luggage has been collected, in a few hours we will be off!

Update: it is now 13th April, 19.50 local Chinese time. Yes, we have arrived in Tibet! This time without people getting blown up, everybody is safe and sound here. Also Lance and Jamie and the Peace project are here.

We left this morning at 05.15 and beat any traffic that there might have been. The roads were quite clear, and we made good time, only being stopped a few times by the odd (army) roadblock. But generally all went well and quick. A group our size means lomng lines at the border posts, but all went well and everyone and everything is now in Tibet and in good spirit. We are off to dinner now with all old and new friends.

Tonight we stay in Zhangmu, tomorrow we will go to Nyalam, home of the Domesticated Himalayan Hamster!

Day before yesterday, Kevin, Thomas and I went to the Monkey Temple, Swayambunath. Though the Nepali were not allowed to go on the streets between 12 & 17 hrs, we could walk freely and were greeted overenthusiastically by the army on the streets, quite a strange sensation.

Thomas has a very hard task ahead: not knowing how and when he will still be able to see, his climb will be so much harder than those of the others. The wonderful and quiet Swayambunath temple was therefore a welcome place to visit, so we could rearrange our thoughts and priorities.

The complex is a great mix of Buddhism and Hinduism, a great example for many other of the world's religions.. We made a small impression of our hours at the temple, this is how Thomas felt:

(though Milan stayed in bed as he had been feeling a little ill past days, he again edited our material quickly and great!)

Following are some of my photo-impressions of the temple and its people:

The flight back to Kathmandu was great. I had already enjoyed the uphill landing at the mountain airstrip at Lukla, taking off was at least as spectacular. The plane taxied to the start, nose pointing downwards. Then it used full throttle and at max power, released its brakes and we shot forward, leaving the runway, just before it ended and flew back to KTM between green hills filled with terraces and villages.

That day I picked up Milan and Kevin from the airport. I thought they might be in trouble as they had not come out of the building one hour after landing, but in the end it turned out that they had been filming inside the Jet Airways plane and everything was fine. That is until we discovered back in the hotel that one Peli Case was missing! Seems I am not the only one who loses stuff in strange places

We had to go back but all counters and offices were closed.
But the next day our strong Peli Case, filled with TNF sunglasses for the team and Sherpas was still undamaged and we had everything back.

The next days were mainly fi

lled with picking up other teammembers at the airport, up to 4-5 trips per day. As you know, the 7-party strike was superceded by the King’s curfew, which made it all both harder and easier. We were stopped at every street corner, but the streets were completely empty, no other cars on the road, so in the end it was quite quick.

Only when Lorenzo’s brother Guiseppe (Pino) was missing we got into trouble as the permit had expired and we really had to explain every 100 meters in the dark streets of KTM…
The strike and curfew have made life a lot harder here. Not just for us as it is very difficult to even send out emails and get laundry and supply shopping done, but much more for the Nepali who have to have their shops shut, during busy season..

Dear friends & followers; you will have to wait for the full trekking report (I did the 17 days Lukla-Chukhung-Khumbu-ChoLa-Gokyo trek in about 11 days) as we have been to busy the past few days with preparations to write a decent report.
But I want to share a small photo report from the last section before completing the circle at Namche: Khumjung. A nice little town, made ‘famous’ as Sit Edmund Hillary built his school here (and the hospital is close by as well).

Ang Furba was clearly tired as we had no rest days in 11 days of hiking and today we had come from Machermo, over the steep hill at Phortse Tenga (with a brilliant view of Ama Dablam

, just before it got engulfed by clouds). We passed some mountain goats

and we were finally close to Namche again. But when I saw the track going to Khumjung and asked him if he would like to go there, he was glad; he had some friends there and loved the place, so up we went again and entered the small town.

Only then Ang Furba said that he knew a man who was the one of the cooks or kitchen boys on the 1953 Everest expedition and that we could try to find him. After a nice welcome by one of his other friends, Mrs Minga Sherpa (who immediately served us very tasty potatoes and milk tea) we went looking for him. But first we had to go to the famous monastery.

Namaste from Namche Bazar!
It is totally crazy, but of you can read this, then I have managed to connect my laptop to the satellite Internet cafe in Namche Bazar, 3450m above sea level, and a few hours after I viewed one of the most spectacular sceneries in the world!

So how did I end up here? Though it appeared that I might not be going at all as many small things needed to be arranged, suddenly a lot of things did fall in place and 5 hous after I closed my laptop at the internet cafe, I carried it on my back on the lookout for a taxi, early morning of the 26th of March 2006. Normally the taxis run you over constantly in Thamel, the busiest tourist part of Kathmandu , but at 5 o clock in the Sunday morning, even they were asleep in the dark city. But the guard just kept on blowing his hard whistle (sorry to all the people that woke up and 5 minutes later a dark taxi appeared from nowhere. It took less than 15 minutes through the dark streets, and I was dropped of in time for my 1 hour check in with Sita airlines, one of the many small companies flying from Kathmandu to Lukla.

I paid the cab, took my duffel and walked inside. Then I stopped as I nearly had a heart attack...