Follow Bill’s progress in 3D. View the tracking map to see the journey so far and instructions on how to see Bill’s track.

Audio transcript:

Namaste everyone, its Bill calling from Tingri, Tibet,

I’m in Tingri rather than Milam because Tingri is a lot closer to Chinese base camp. It’s higher altitude but I’m acclimatized so there was no reason to stop in Milam. I’m glad to be here, I probably got a 3 hour drive or so up to Chinese base camp. I’ve been spot tracking the route since I left Katmandu so you can check that out on ‘track Bills progress’, if you’re interested. It was a good ride up, the ?? they leave Katmandu, they leave the city and you proceed up into the mountains several hours I guess maybe 4 hours to the border. The roads are horrible in the mountain they’re all washed out with dirt and rocks, all bumpy but I got to the border just fine and inside the customs while I was at the border of Nepal and Tibet they discovered my videos, my CDs for the DVD player, the movies, and I had about 10 of them and much to my surprise they told me I couldn’t bring them into Tibet, its forbidden, some new law or rule that I wasn’t aware of, I was really bummed about that because they’re great to have at base camp when you’re bored. So they took all of those but they missed the most valuable one because it was inside the DVD player, fortunately from Josh’s football banquet. I got one DVD that I salvaged from all of that and I guess I’ll just have to watch it over and over.

So we moved over into Tibet and the roads are much better in Tibet than in Nepal, much much clearer. And in Tibet after you cross the border you drive up into the ? into the mountains and eventually emerge on the Tibetan plateau and it was a really nice ride from there once you get out of the mountains. The mountains are beautiful it’s deep gorges and rivers below and waterfalls but once you get onto the Tibetan plateau it’s like a big open highway and open country, it was really quite nice. Well we got here, I would guess about 4 o clock in Tingri, maybe later. Three little girls that couldn’t be more than their early teens took my bags on their back and carried them up the stairs to my room. Then I had dinner all by myself in the dining room, the same girls served it but it was cooked by a gentlemen. It was a good dinner. In the room I had no water whatsoever, it was actually a nice room, two good sized beds, a pretty nice room but there was no water and light was only available for an hour so I went to bed and unfortunately I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep. The reason for that is that the room faces toward the street and downtown Tingri, I’m going to send a photo if I can show you what downtown Tingri looks like. But the window faces towards the street and the dogs, and there are lots of dogs in Tingri, lots of dogs, they barked all night, all night and into the morning. So I got some sleep but not what I was hoping for because of all the racket outside my window. I got up this morning and went out and of course they’re all sleeping now. I felt like going dog hunting but neither one in particular seemed to howl the loudest and longest. But I ended up feeding them a candy bar, I felt sorry for them, they were pretty straggly and malnourished.

So just having a cup of coffee right now and probably in another half hour were going to pile, the driver and I, will pile into the land rover? and in another few hours well be at base camp, I’m really excited about that. I don’t know what the conditions there, but since I’m arriving there early today my plan is to rest the day at Chinese base camp and start moving up tomorrow to intermediate base camp. So that’s my story for today, doing good. I hope everybody at home is doing well and I will report in tomorrow and maybe I’ll send in a picture?? if i can make it work at base camp. Alright, talk to you soon. Bye….