We headed towards Golmud as we climbed in altitude and away from the desert heat. The first of many long days, we set up a bush camp way off the road and after a 13 hour drive were thankful to be off the truck. Unfortunately some locals, which are usually very happy to see us turned nasty as they said that we were camping on their land (we weren't) and we should pay them 1000 yuan (£100). This was crazy money as it's the cost of the whole group to stay in a 3 star hotel for the night, so Pete flat out refused to pay. They weren't happy and starting shouting abuse at us and kicking our camp stuff. Our poor guide, Lily was in the middle of the dispute as translator so Pete decided that we would quickly pack up with our dinner half cooked, in torrential rain, and go, in case they caused more problems such as slashing tyres overnight.
All packed up and with Mike and Neill in the front cab in case they caused us problems on our way out, we drove down the road in the pitch black to find another camp. This camp ended up being a construction site for a railway line. One dismantled fence later and we were camped and enjoyed the rest of our dinner. What a night!
The next day we were headed further towards Golmud and into the mountain passes where we hit 3800m, our highest yet. Not much happened as we drove for the entire day and found a camp site by crossing a low river. After a night of heavy rain the river was considerably higher and we couldn't cross back to the main road. After scouting the river bank we eventually made it across by finding a bridge further down.
As we are gaining altitude the way to beat AMS is to drink lots of water, at least 3 litres a day which is hard when the weather's cool. It means many toilet breaks but everyone seems to be coping fine as we climbed steadily. We arrived in Golmud in time for dinner and everyone was pretty thankful to be in a hotel for a night to dry out after all the rain. There wasn't much in Golmud which is very much a stop over city but some of us were adventurous in our meal choice in the evening, going to a restaurant with gas burners in the centre of the table. The menu all in Chinese, we did some pointing and dodgy translation and ended up to my horror a seafood stew and the beef and chicken never turned up. I was pretty hungry and ended up very proud of myself as i ate some noodles picked from the stew, something I would never do at home. Luckily the amount of chilli in the meal meant that no fish was tasted! The seafood was then taken out and the broth used to boil/deep fry potato and spinach which I hate to say was quite nice. A meal experience I'll never forget!
The hotel in Golmud gave me my first experience of Chinese breakfast which was noodles and veg- I'm not sure they really understand cereal and toast! It was also my birthday so it was nice to wake up in a warm bed. We started to climb into serious altitude today hitting 4000m over some of the passes so I started taking Diamox along with the rest of the truck to try and beat the symptoms. It worked a treat and all I was left with was a side effect of tingly limbs! We saw lots of prayer flags on the side of the road. The flags are pre printed and are hung everywhere so that when the wind blows them, the prayers are released. We arrived in camp a little earlier which was nice and I had a birthday tea of curry noodles. The group got me a little gift of a stuffed panda and chop sticks which I was delighted with and some vac packed chicken feet (not so delighted with, but I will make everyone try!).
Another day on the diversion to Lhasa and we were set back even further by landing ourselves in a 3 hour queue of traffic (we were in the middle of nowhere) as we headed over the 5000m pass and into the autonomous region of Tibet. The Tibetean people look completely different to the general Chinese- long hair in plaits, dark skin, men wearing cowboy hats and the woman in very multi layered traditional dress and some spinning prayer wheels as they walk. The roads in Tibet are also crazy as you are timed, and then fined if you go too quickly, but there are no standardised speed limits. At one point we had a really good road and had 2 hours to drive 96km, and then an equally good road 30 mins for 46km. If you go too quick you get fined. Thank God for toilet stops!
We finally rolled into Lhasa mid afternoon the following day. We have 4 nights here and the city really isn't what I expected. Potala Palace doesn't dominate the skyline like I thought (It probably would have 100's of years ago) and the city is much busier and there are far less westerners as well. Anyways there's lots to do here so I'm sure I'll be kept occupied!
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