Day 12 – Shigatse to Everest View Point to Lhatse

We had breakfast at Manasarovar Hotel.  The buffet was decent and my compatriots seemed to enjoy the hard-boiled eggs.  I have no special affection for the bouncy-rubbery-oddly-shaped item.  It’s difficult for me to appreciate the taste, the texture, the dryness and the slight rotting smell.  I thought I imagined the last bit until I found the following at eHow:

Chicken eggs produce a sulfurous smell when they are boiled for too long. Overcooking the egg coagulates the egg’s protein and creates an excess of hydrogen sulfide in the whites of the egg. The sulfide reacts with the iron in the yolk. This leads to an unpleasant odor and a green sulfur coat on the yolk.

Maybe I never had a professionally cooked hard-boiled egg before.

But I think it’s good to try food which you don’t like once in a while. Your previous dislike might have been prejudiced and you are giving the food and yourself another chance.  One would have a more convenient life with less dislikes.

Just the other day, I bought some soya bean drink.  Nothing special but I specially picked an almond flavoured one. Now, I am known to dislike the taste of almond flavoured items like almond pudding and almond jelly.  But for some particular reason that day, I decided to retest my taste buds.  Well, I still don’t like it but it’s not so bad that I couldn’t finish the drink.  Maybe it is an acquired taste.

At 9am, we set off from Shigatse for the long road to Everest View Point.

The kilometer stones I have grown to depend on for my riding trips can be found in Tibet.  Over in Tibet, the distance is calculated from Shanghai.  Why not Beijing?

It would be nice to ride like them.

We stopped at Gyatso pass.

It’s 5248m, the highest altitude of our trip!  It’s even higher than Everest Base Camp.

After some obligatory photos, we carried on with the 4WD ride.

Without the sign, I would not have known that the nondescript building was the Everest service center. Qomolangma is the Tibetan name for Everest.

Lunch at Tashi Restaurant in Baber (or was it Shegar?).

Checkpoint for Everest.

Start of gravel roads.

After a lot of twists and turns, we finally reached Mt Everest viewpoint.  Can you tell which peak is Mt Everest?

We stopped at km 22 before turning back.  We weren’t too keen to spend a cold night at the Rongphu Monastery.  Our guide and driver were pleased with our decision.

Back at Shegar, we took some photos of Shegar Dzong before heading to Shanghai Hotel.  We were told that there was a power problem because the waters had mostly frozen and thus limited hydropower.  Being pampered urban folks, we decided to try for Lhatse.

Over at Lhatse, we headed to Shanghai Hotel of Lazi, supposedly the best hotel in town.  Unfortunately, there’s only one room left.  So we checked out Dewang Hotel and Lhatse Tibetan Farmer’s Hotel.  We picked the latter because we loved its name.

Doesn’t look too shabby.

Dinner at Farmer’s hotel.  Traditional way of cooking using Yak dung.

We tempted fate by ordering Momos again.  The whole plate ended up with Dawa. Haha.

Lhatse used to be part a major stop for tourists to Everest Base Camp.  But after the roads have been improved, travelling time has shortened and Lhatse is usually bypassed.

It had been a long day on the road and we slept early.

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