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11 June - Everest Base Camp to Zhangmu
We are awoken with hot water & pancakes for breakfast & then the walkers set off. R said it was a tough 4 kilometres as the road is inclining all the time.
I baled out & took the bus as wanted to see the base camp as was so near, but felt too terrible to walk.
The views are great but I must say that because we are already at 4000 m above sea level the mountain does not appear that grand.
We take our photos and head off for the 5 hr bumpy ride back. We stopped at a little village hotel for lunch, and the next part of our mystery tour is revealed. We are going to be dropped at the crossroads & taken to a hotel in a nearby village where we are going to be taken to Zhangmu - a border town for the night.
Sure enough we are dropped at the cross roads, our lift awaits & we disappear due west into the sunset. We arrive at the Snow mountain hotel, instructed to wait & have a meal. Our driver will be with us at 6pm. He duly turned up and off we went on the 3 hr drive to Zhangmu .
After a 3 hr drive along the friendship highway, starting at 4500 metre where the countryside is dry & barren, we drive along a valley, climb to 5000 m where our heads start to pound & stomaches turn then start to drop down to about 2500metres. The road clings to the side of the hillside & zigzags its way down like a corkscrew. The countryside gets greener & greener and we start to see waterfalls & evidence of landslides . We also start to smell our cars brakes !!!
As we approach the 3rd & final police check we pass kilometers of trucks awaiting to take foodstuffs & liquor across the border to Nepal.
This town is built on a hillside so the 'main road' snakes down the middle with buildings on either side. They are either clinging on for dear life or tumbling down the hill. The main road is barely wide enough for 2 cars so there is a lot of hooting & squeezing past. I shudder to think what happens when the huge transport trucks that cross the border, pass through town.
We arrived at our hotel around 9.30pm. It was dusk & as we needed to change money we dropped our bags & strolled outside. The money changers come to you, as we checked in R was surrounded by swarms thrusting calculators in his face with exchange rates...however, our guide has assured us we could get '15' from the Chinese so we ignored this lot. Our walk revealed some interesting sights.
A whole block of shop fronts were artfully illuminated in red & various hues of bling & had the lovely ladies of the night strutting their stuff. It's a real border town.
After a walk around we retired for an 8am start. .
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