Wild Wolf Adventure

Bon, Ah Tiam and I fly directly from KL to Kunming and from there via Shangri-La to Lhasa. We arrived in Llhasa on the 22nd August and had a few free days to acclimatise and shop! I understood the reason for the convoy being late was that Chairman Teng had hit the most expensive pig in the world (according to the policeman) and the convoy was not allowed to proceed until they had paid for it. The pig was RMB3,600 - it was only small and cost more than gold by weight - (perhaps it was made of gold). Anyway, this unfortunate event (especially for the pig) meant that we had time to shop. Lhasa is very cheap to buy the outdoor clothing and hiking shoes but you do have to be prepared to bargain! we usually managed to knock off about 30% of the opening price.

Lhasa is about 3,700 metres above sea level and therefore most people will tend to suffer from altitude sickness. This rears its head in a number of ways. Your blood pressure increases and you get headaches as well as the lack of oxygen causing shortness of breath. The headaches are worse at night and sleeping for the first couple of days is very difficult. There are pills to combat the altitude sickness very well and once I started to take these the only problem i suffered was the shortage of breath. Bon, who is a seasoned mountaineer is the onhly member of the teamthat hasn’t taken the tablets but has not suffered any consequences (so he says :-). Ah Tiam was not so fortunate and although he looked very well when we first arrived and was able to walk around very freely by the second day he had started to feel quite ill. On the third day he was admitted to hospital. He has had a speedy recovery and will rejoin the convoy when we get to a lower altitude.

We have now moved on from Lhasa and are heading to even higher altitudes. This next week will be at the highest altitudes where the air is fresh (this can be translated to cold and not a lot of it) and to increase the enjoyment we will be camping! - can’t wait (this is my attempt at humour)! i just heard that it was snowing at base camp - now who amongst you can think on anywhere better than that??