Going up.

we have finally been able to get tocamp one, about 7000 metres.Spent a night there and then descended for a few days.We were very much saddened by the deaths of the three sherpas on the south side.Our thoughts are with their families.Hoping that with suitable wather we may be able to summit about mid May.we are all well.Blair.

the road to base camp

hi all,
well right now i am in tibet. nylam(3700m) to be precise. we left ktm 3 days ago. our journey started early morning on the 5 april. the plan had been to travel to the border town of koadri in nepal. then pass over the friendship bridge( a very misleading name indeed) to tibet/china.
but somewhere during the 3 hrs to the border our gear truck broke down. and we were forced to spend the night in kodari. which is really horrible place. wet, dirty and noisy. but we really had no choice in the matter at all.
the next day after more waiting we finally travelled over the friendship bridge. but our liason( escorting ) officer was no where to be seen. for 3 hrs we waited for him to arrive. i made the mistake of taking a few photos of the people and surrounding area. i was then forced to stand there as a 18 yr old overweigth chinese policeman screamed at me for a few minutes. i guess he was telling me to not take photos.
the same policeman then proceeded to kick, hit and punch every nepalese porter carrying cargo across the bridge who did not do things the way he wanted them to be done. god bless the chinese. you have got to love them. their human rights records speaks for itself.
anyway, we made up to the frontier town of zangmu(2300m) that night. the raod was a a total mud pile all the way up the hill. and several times we had to get out and ush the cars out of the mud.
zangmu was comfortable enough. we were only ther efor a night. we had a nice lunch and dinner with excellent chinese food. then turned in for the night. the next day we would travel to where i am writiung to you from now.
tomorrow we travel to xegar( 4500m) and will stay there for a couple of days. then its on to everest(chinese base camp). and then the real expedition starts.
until then everyone, take care and speak to you soon. i will try to send photos when i can . the chinese are not too stoked about me plugging camera into their computer. they get very angry and yell at you in chinese. but then again they do this for just about everything.
take care all.
blair