It's All Downhill From Here

With the hotel running on solar power, the hot water was turned on at 8pm which caused a rush on the showers, but by morning the lights were only glowing dimly and the hot water was all but gone.

Pancakes for breakfast sounded fun until we found out that there was nothing to go on them. Coffee was a 3-in-1 satchel.

Everybody was glad to leave, but it only got worse from there. The low cloud was still present, so Everest wasn't co-operating again. 15 minutes up the highway the bus spluttered to a stop. Seems that it's quite the done thing to water down your diesel before you sell it, and we had a bad batch on board. After an hour or so's break we were back on the road, but every time we went up a hill the water rose in the tank and the engine cut out. I think it was five stops in all, and none of them in convenient spots, before we limped into our lunch town about 2pm.

Things got better after lunch, as it was all downhill. We crested the last pass at about 5100m, and plunged into the valley below. Within a few minutes the entire vegetation changed. We had lush green fern valleys, waterfalls cascading hundreds of metres down cliffs, and lots of bird life. With the clouds wafting up the valleys, as we were still that high, it was very beautiful, and a stark contrast to the plateau.

By the time we got to our hotel about 5pm we had descended, by an endless number of switchbacks, down to about 2300m. At one stop we were bucketing water onto our brakes causing great steam clouds. Back at a reasonable altitude, everybody suddenly has far more energy.

Zhangmu is the border town with Nepal. The Nepalese border will be open at 7:30am tomorrow, but helpfully the Chinese side won't open till 10. We now have to get ready for border formalities and custom inspections.

The most important item of business, of course, was to find an internet cafe in town. The hotel doesn't have one, and after a bad first try at a gaming cafe, I found that the local youth hostel has wi-fi, so all is well with the world again.