Friendship Highway: Shigatse To Tingri

This was the day of extremes:

On the third day of our overland tour along the friendship highway, we got as far as 5000km (along the shortest route - but we made an aprox. 1000km detour to Beijing) from Shanghai:

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Then, we reached the highest point of our journey and also the highest elevation we have ever been (and might ever be):

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

As we were slowly descending towards Tingri, in the middle of nowhere we have met a friendly Tibetan family who was just "passing nearby". We still wonder where did they appear from so sudden and where they were headed to on foot... (at least one of the kids seemed to be coming from...)

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Later on we had for the first time a direct and unobstructed view of the Mount Everest rising magnificently 4000m above:

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

Our end destination for the day was the most primitive, yet authentic Tibetan village we had seen; a few mud houses and a couple of guesthouses on one side of the river and some tents on the opposite side: it was the village of Tingri at an altitude of mere 4200m

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

where the two basic items being offered (besides the usual yak joghurt and hot momo for our hungry bellies) were "internet and oxygen":

From ASIA - TIBET - Friendship highway

We decided to buy some of both.

Unfortunately we don't have pictures, but we have to mention that we have seen here the most amazing night sky we have ever seen. Due to the lack of light sources in the area and the thin air, one could really see the milky way with as a cloud of stars...a truly amazing experience - something similar to the upper picture on this comparison (just imagine it without any light source) ... which is made impossible in our modern world by light pollution. This satellite picture from Wikipedia illustrates well how little light is scattered in Tibet in comparison with other parts of the world.



All our photos on Tibet Overland Tour

The journey of our travel along the Friendship Highway continues with the next blog entry....