23RD - 27TH JULY

Well after a good nights sleep we awoke at the crack of dawn, eagerly awaiting our overland journey. We had breakfast at the hotel, and Anna and Jessie turned up telling us that Eric had changed the plans and they had to meet him earlier because they were now going to the airport on a public bus, so they had no time for breakfast! Eric showed up and we said our goodbyes to all and went to wait for our land cruiser to turn up!

Full of apologies for being 6 minutes late, our guide made an appearance, and we were off. We were very pleased to discover that both our guide and driver were Tibetans, and straight away the guide said that they did not like the railway that the Chinese were building because, and I quote: “Too many Chinese are coming”! Around 10 minutes through the city, we came to a road block. The driver then did a U turn, and made for a little side road,

only to find that someone had built a brick wall across the road!! It seems that when a road is closed in Tibet, it is very closed!! So we headed back half a mile or so, and veered off down this mud track. Up until then, we’d been thinking “you know, the ride in this land cruiser is not bumpy at all!” We soon realised that that was just on the road!!

As Lhasa faded into the distance, we caught our first glimpse of a snow capped mountain, only a small glimpse through the clouds though, it was clear that it was not ideal mountain viewing weather. We drove across this big valley, and then started heading upwards on a hairpin road, up the Kampala Pass, 5000 meters high. Now we’ve driven up passes in the UK, and even a few in Switzerland, but nothing prepared us for just how long the road up to this point was. We seemed to go up an endless series of hairpin bends forever! About halfway up