Into thin air

By Andrew Raven
Publisher:The Straits Times - Publication Date: 14-02-2008
At 5,200M above sea level - about half the cruising altitude of a 737 - just about everything is hard.

Including what seems like an easy stroll from our weather-beaten colony of tourist tents to the foot of Mount Everest, about 4km away.

The air here is starved for oxygen, making each step along a winding gravel path feel like a 30m sprint. It is mid-October, almost the end of the climbing season, and the temperature at the base of the mountain has gone into a tailspin.

The sheer walls of the world's highest peak are almost totally covered in ice and snow. Incredible winds hammer the sparse valley below, which somehow supports a few shrubs and scattered herds of yak.

Now four days into a road trip across the rugged Tibetan Plateau, I marvel at how the animals can survive in a place like this, harsh even by local standards. But this rugged landscape is what brought me to Qomolangma National Park in the heart of the Chinese Himalayas. Here, with close to 200 tourists, I will spend a night at the bottom of the top of the world.

Despite the altitude, the weather and its remote location, Mount Everest is one of the hottest tourist spots in Tibet, which is in the middle of a massive - and often criticised - push for modernisation.

As it is no longer the reclusive Buddhist kingdom of yore, tourists are flooding into the province - many on a new multi-billion-dollar railway - to see places like Mount Everest, the holy capital of Lhasa, and other spectacular sights once reserved for the well-heeled and well-provisioned.

For most, China is the launching point for a journey into Tibet. The province sits on a 3,000 to 4,000m-high plateau separating Central Asia from the Indian subcontinent. For five decades, Beijing has ruled the fiercely Buddhist Tibet like a colony, flooding the region with ethnic Chinese and smashing any hint of rebellion.

The result has been an explosion of karaoke bars and noodle shops, say locals. The 'Chinese occupation', though, has also brought roads, power and most recently, a direct rail link, the Beijing Lhasa Express.

For about S$150 (US$106) a head, my girlfriend and I spent 48 hours on board the train, packed into a sleek, cream-coloured cabin with four others. It cut across 2,500km of Chinese countryside, racing past wheat fields, limestone hills and stubbly forests, before shooting up 3,000m to the Tibetan Plateau. For the last stretch, oxygen was pumped into the cars to ward off the effects of altitude sickness - a condition common in the thin air of Tibet.

After two days on the train, the cool air of Lhasa felt like a slap on the face. The city of 250,000 is the seat of Buddhism, a sprawling riverside town brimming with monasteries, temples and pilgrims.

It was here, in 1959, that Tibetans rebelled against Chinese rule, prompting Beijing to send in the army and drive the Dalai Lama into exile.

Despite China's iron grip, the city's old quarter remains largely Tibetan. Yak-meat hawkers, cloth sellers and bicycle taxis clog its narrow cobblestone roads, lined with centuries-old white-washed houses. Every day, thousands of Buddhist devotees from across China flock to Lhasa's spiritual and commercial centre: Barkhor Square. The faithful - who run the gamut from Tibetan herdsmen to Shanghai bond traders - parade around the square's Jokhang Monastery, chanting and spinning prayer wheels.

Lhasa's holy circuit includes the Potala Palace, a 13-storey fortress and shrine built on Marpo Ri, a towering hill in the city centre.

Thousands of pilgrims pray here at the former seat of Tibet's government, sliding along the palace's sidewalk on wooden planks lashed to their hands and knees.

After in a week in the city, we hit the road. Like a growing number of tourists, we paid about S$1,400 (US$987), which was split four ways, to hire a jeep and driver for a five-day, 700km road trip across the southern part of the province.

The journey would take us through the Tibetan heartland to Mount Everest and eventually the Nepalese border.

Our route from Lhasa followed a modern highway that climbed for hours through dusty villages, where, aside from the occasional satellite dish and power line, life has remained unchanged for centuries.

The timewarp extended to hotels in these small farming towns. Unlike the plush guesthouses of Lhasa, most were unheated - a definite 'issue', as a friend said, when the night-time temperature dropped to minus 15 deg C.

One night, I made the mistake of forgetting to shove my contact lenses into a sleeping bag. I awoke the next morning to two tiny blocks of ice.

Three days after setting out from Lhasa, we finally reached the edge of the Himalayas. We spent the night in the tiny town of Lhatse, where the evening's highlights were dodging horse- drawn carts and staring slack-jawed at our S$15 (US$10.50)-a-night hotel's woebegone outhouse.

As the next morning dawned bright, early and cold, we piled into our jeep and began the steep ascent to Mount Everest, zigzagging across a harrowing road with only sporadic guardrails.

We crossed another pass - this one at 5,000m - and suddenly a series of snow-capped peaks exploded onto the horizon. In the centre was the hallmark triangular peak of Everest, known to Tibetans as Mount Qomolangma, or Goddess of the Valley. It was buffeted by two other 8,000m mountains, their tops lording over a puny-looking layer of clouds.

From the pass, it was a bumpy ride to tent city, a community of 50-odd canvas shelters set up by Tibetan families hoping to cash in on the tourist goldrush - at S$7 a night.

Here, hundreds of visitors, some armed with spray cans filled with oxygen, gathered for an assault on the base camp.

We decided to skip the horse-drawn carriage convoy heading to the mountain and began trudging along a twisting gravel path.

For most of the walk, we watched the 8km-high peak play hide-and-seek with fast-moving clouds.

Suddenly, Everest's famously fickle weather changed, and the mountain's nigh-unclimbable North face caught the sun.

We tried to imagine scaling the mountain, wondering how 120 people reportedly make it all the way up each year.

An hour later, we couldn't fight the cold anymore and began the long trek back to our tent. But we couldn't resist one last gaze, watching the evening sky bathe Everest in pinks and reds.

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