Going Down Yes it's nearly the end of everything. I've spent the last week in Tibet visiting monasteries, admiring mountain scenery and wondering why Chinese chocolate tastes so bad. We've attracted dozens of curious Tibetans to our camps. Most of whom just stand and watch or collect our empty cans and jars. It's quite a strange situation. Perhaps the highlight has been Everest base camp, or maybe the cultural festival at Shigatse or it could be the cr...

Sex, Drugs and Yaks on the Roof of the World Well there were quite a few yaks, a fair haul of aspirin and anti altitude drugs but that's about all really. Sorry for the misleading title. Anyway it's been 4 quite tricky days since leaving the mining town of Golmud. But then I'm sure these emails are most appreciated when I'm not enjoying myself 24-7. I suppose the main problem has been breaking all the rules of ascending at high alitude. And then the od...

Yak Enchilada Hmmmm.... it was gorgeous. Certainly better than the dodgy yak buger. Anyway just a quick update as there are temples to visit and pilgrimage circuits to ... well do whatever you do on pilgrimage circuits. I arrived in Lhasa four days ago from the high plateau and since then life has been one long round of monasteries and unusual food. It's been great. The Chinese haven't managed to make the Tibetans assimilate totally yet. It is sti...

It never rains but it pours Well I got the visa. And all it took was the completion of six hundred forms, a few dozen photocopies, the odd fax and an awful lot of queuing. The foreign affairs bureau in Beijing seems to exist largely to employ countless members of staff. I had to queue for visa consultatation, queue to get an application form, queue to get an application for an urgent visa (I wanted mine same day rather than the standard 5 working days). I t...

Rule Britannia The only people to come out of this well so far are the British consulate. Well that's not quite true but they have been a shining beacon of light in this murky bureaucratic world of pointless bits of paper, red ink and inexplicable delays. But to explain all this would be jumping the gun rather. Back to where we were, three days and 4000km ago I was in Kashgar. It had all seemed relatively straight forward, I would collect my police report o...