More tea vicar...

Seriously, how much tea can one drink, and I'm British so I know about tea drinking. Suffice to say we are drinking a lot here! Well it is the done thing in these parts.

We've made a plan to do a round trip South of Chengdu. First stop lovely riverside city Zigong, famous for its salt mines and one of the largest concentrations of dinosaur bones. There were a lot of dinosaurs!

The salt museum was in a stunning building, like something out of a horror film.

Even the tea houses were impressive:

Sichuan Pepper!

We have ten days in the Sichuan province to enjoy some Chinese food and see some last sights before we fly home. The capital Chengdu was a nice surprise. It's the fifth most populous city in China with four million people. We had read it is very polluted, but compared to Nepal where a mask was an essential accessory, it seems a breath of fresh air!

We went to see the lovely Wenshu Temple:

Got excited by a spontaneous queue at a food stall!

Drank tea which is the favourite past time here.

And ate traditional hotpot, bibby included and dastardly Sechuan Pepper! We are not too keen on the numbing effect of this pepper which creeps into most dishes here.

We also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Sichuan Opera. It is more like a variety show than opera, the face changing masks was my favourite bit, changing in a flash before your eyes!

48 hours to Chengdu

Inspired by our train journeys in Australia, we looked forward to spending two days travelling 3,360km to Chengdu. The train left from Lhasa's impressive train station. It went up to 4,500 metres which hit me hard. I was seriously suffering from altitude sickness and didn't take my tablets soon enough, so the first day was shocking. Much better on day two.

The scenery was impressive, certainly on Tibet side, with lots of snow and yaks. It was hard to tell when we had crossed the border, but by the start of the second day we had clearly dropped altitude as I felt much better.

We were the only westerners on the train and no one spoke English. Mealtimes were very interesting, as were the squat toilets and all the men smoking on the train!!

Australia was better, especially Gold Service!

End of Tibet

Natalie left for Beijing a couple of days before our train, but not before we squeezed in the largest Monastery in Tibet, Deprung.

After a tea break in a cave....

...we headed to Sera Monastery where we saw monks debating.

For our last day in Lhasa, we did not one, but two walking tours, taking in lots of sites including more temples and stopping next to a lake with a temple in the middle to give the locals plenty of time for a good stare at us! You don't see many like us in Tibet!

Our favourite bit was the end of the day when we found a holy stone that you rub different body parts on to heal. We both spent a happy ten minutes rubbing our entire bodies!

We then saw a painted rock carving in front of which lots of people were prostrating and a Chorten built from 1,000 painted Buddha images.

Happy birthday Selina!

After EBC, Lhasa was our highlight, a gem of a place.

Our hotel was well situated next to the Old Town and the Barkhor Circuit, a route around Jokhang Temple that literally hundreds of pilgrims walk round praying and spinning their prayer wheels all day long.

Selina's birthday was a great day, starting with a look round Potala Palace in our one hour time slot!

Then on to Jokhang Temple.

Selina loved the fried meat and potatoes in this local place:

But I preferred our supper in House of Shambala:

The most intriguing part of the days was a strange rainbow halo around the sun. I really want to know what created this effect.

Although it is obviously a special something I organised for Selina's birthday!

Long road to Lhasa

On the drive through Tibet to Lhasa, the capital, we stopped at various small towns, villages and monasteries. The monasteries were interesting, but the towns and villages all looked the same with a large main road through the middle, lots of modern concrete buildings, a heavy Chinese police presence and no character.

Tiny Ronbuk Monastery with Everest in the background and a yak out the front!

We hit snow between Lhatse and Sigatse. Us with our driver Pembar and our very cool guide Lobsang:

In Sigatse, we visited Tashilomphu Monastery with a fascinating network of streets where only monks live.

On the way to Gyantse we saw Kumbum Stupa (with its unusual squat style and hundreds of small chapels) and Palkor Monastery. As with all monasteries, we couldn't take pictures of the chapels inside, so we only have photos of the outside!

We visited a true local bar in Gyantse where our waitress had an arduous job refilling our beer into literally shot glass sized glasses, one way to keep people employed!

On the way to Lhasa, we stopped to enjoy the amazing turquoise Lake Yamadrok and an impressive glacier. 

Next stop the capital......

EBC....yes, we did it!!

This was our first good look at the mighty Mount Everest from the Tibetan side (Mount Qomolankma in Tibetan).

We stayed in a tent about 4km away from the Everest Base Camp

Night time temperatures got down to minus 10 degrees, there was a hole in our tent and we were hopelessly ill prepared!

Inside our tent:

At sunrise the next morning we set off for Base Camp. I was wearing 12 tops, 3 pairs of trousers and 4 pairs of socks. Neither of us had a pair of walking boots, we did it in sandals and Pete was wearing socks on his hands as he had no gloves! 

We had climbed 5,200 meters in 2 days and I was feeling really rough. We were taking altitude sickness medication, but I felt really weak, faint and dizzy all morning, I was constantly gasping for breath and at one point I really thought I might not make it to the Base Camp. 

But we persisted...!

And were rewarded with spectacular scenery, and a very clear view of the top:

It was a once in a lifetime achievement for us which we will never forget, and never repeat!

But this was my favourite view of all...

......driving back down!