Listening to this story left me with a bad feeling about what laid ahead. All of Jay’s problems represented things that I did not want to confront. I could handle the lack of food or water, the bumpy road and the sand, but I did not want to even get close to a situation where someone held a gun to my head. We talked for a while longer. Jay told me about all the places where I could find food and what I could expect to buy. We both thought that the best thing for me to do would be to totally bypass Drongba. He drew me a map of Drongba, the surrounding area, and my possible alternate routes around the town. As I left his hotel room, Jay turned to ask me just one favor. He requested, “Ray, for the last fifteen years it has been my dream to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Mt. Kailash. Unfortunately I was not able to make it this time, but maybe you will be able to complete the pilgrimage. If you do make it to Mt. Kailash, will you please say a prayer for me? Will you please say a prayer that in the future I will have the good fortune to get to Mt. Kailash?”
Later I found two young American women from San Francisco who had just returned from Mt. Kailash by truck on the south road. Road dust, grease, and sweat coated their faces and clothes. One of these women had just spent the last year living in Nepal with a Tibetan family. She came to Asia under a wonderful program run out of the University of Wisconsin. This program allows undergraduate university students to live in either India or Nepal and have it count as one year of college. She had learned enough Tibetan in the last year to enable her to get by competently. They both related a story that sounded familiar to me. They had found a truck just west of Shigatse in the small village of Lhatse. They tossed their packs up into the metal bed and climbed on top of the grain sacks that filled the back of the truck. For the first hour they yelled and hollered as if they were riding a bucking bronco, having a good time. After a couple hours, their bodies grew weary of the constant pounding from the truck bouncing over the dirt road. Unfortunately, they knew that the journey to Mt. Kailash required at least another five days of riding. Once they made the kora around Mt. Kailash, they found another truck returning via the “south” road, a somewhat shorter route. About a third of the way back, their vehicle became stuck in the mud for three days. Toward the end all of the passengers started to run out of food quickly. At least a hundred miles separated them from the closest village. I asked if they thought it would be possible to bicycle on the road they just returned on. They answered with a hesitant “well, maybe.” Everything they told me still sounded better then what I had heard from Jay.
The luxury of smooth pavement ended at Shigatse. I resumed the slow pace required by Tibetan dirt roads, but at least it was a route that I knew. I had traveled this section of road a few times in trucks, and one time before on a bike. Even the nasty dogs and stone-throwing kids still lived in the same places, some things just do not change. For some reason that I have never figured out, on the section of road between Shigatse and the Nepal border lives a large number of children who ask for Dalai Lama pictures. When they do not immediately receive a picture they throw stones at you. My guess is that it has to do with the fact that hundreds of foreign tourists travel this section of road to see Mt. Everest. It may also have to do with the fact that until the later part of this century most foreigners who entered Tibet were robbed and killed by gangs of Tibetan thieves. It was not a country that particularly welcomed foreigners. It has always remained a closed land. Only since the 1980s has Tibet periodically been open to foreign travelers.
A couple hundred yards ahead I noticed a truck on the side of the road. As I got closer, it looked like a Westerner was climbing out of the back of the truck. Sure enough it was. On the roadside rested a broken down truck full of mostly Northern Europeans and a couple of Americans who had received a special permit to take a truck out to Mt. Kailash. For the first time the Chinese government issued permits for Chinese trucks to take foreigners to Mt. Kailash. The funny thing was that it was still illegal for foreigners to ride in the back of Chinese trucks, so they traveled in a quasi-legal fashion. We chatted for a bit on the roadside. All of us wanted to get to Lhatse for the night. Their Tibetan truck driver seemed competent, so I took off and left them to sit and wait for their truck to be fixed. Another hour down the road, they passed me again, just as we started to climb a 14,800-foot [4512 meter] pass. Chinese trucks broke down ridiculously often. They all possess underpowered six-cylinder gasoline engines that can just barely make it over the high altitude passes. I said hello again and started the 2000-foot [609 meter] climb. This was certainly one of the easier passes. As I slowly spun my cranks climbing and climbing, the other trucks would barely move a couple miles per hour faster than what I moved. After I made it to the top of the pass and had a little time to rest, my friends in the truck finally caught up to me. One woman asked to trade her place for my bike, since it seemed like I could cover more miles than their vehicle could or at least I had fewer breakdowns. By evening we all had made it to the hotel in Lhatse. Everyone enjoyed a fun evening of eating together and talking about the adventure that awaited us all. While I packed up in the morning, I saw a familiar small blue and white jar of Indian peanut butter in one of my packs. This was one of the best presents anyone could have given me. I thanked them all and started the two-day climb up the 17,000-foot [5182 meter] pass separating me from Mt. Everest.
The last time I climbed this pass on bike I had brought a Frisbee with me. While on that trip I cycled with two English guys who rode Chinese one-speed bikes from Lhasa to Kathmandu, yet another trip that many people insisted was impossible. At the top of the pass we all played a quick game of Frisbee, while two young Tibetan shepherds watched and laughed in amazement. I set a personal record, my highest Frisbee toss ever, 17,000 feet [5182 meters]. The relaxing downhill consisted of a nice easy grade for about 20 miles. Toward the end of the descent, I came around a corner to see the massive sight of Chomolangma (Tibetan for Mt. Everest) in front of me. The first time I saw this peak I did not need anyone to point out to me which of the hundreds of peaks was Chomolangma, it was all too obvious that the highest peak in the world towered before me. I know of only one road in the world where you can ride your bike and look up to see the largest mountain in the world before you, and I was on it.
There is a tiny hotel in the village of Tingra called the “Everest View Hotel.” This has functioned as the jumping-off point for most of the recent climbing expeditions up the north face of Mt. Everest and Cho Oyu, another 8000 meter peak just to the west of Everest. The “Everest View Hotel” has what I call the “Everest View Outhouse.” It is one of the few hotels in the world where you can go to the bathroom and gaze at the highest mountain in the world all at the same time.