Tingri

acclimatising in Tingri

Things turn momentarily bizarre

18 April - To Tingri

Breakfast was spent cursing dogs and Germans.

Our Landcruisers thundered along, kings of the road and in a couple of hours, despite the snowy slushy roads, we were in Tingri in a typical compound of mud brick.

The guesthouse is not a place to experience drug flashbacks, see the photo; the thick mud-brick walls and earthen ceiling are covered with sheets to stop the dust.

We became increasingly worried about Mary who seemed to be suffering from headaches and occasional vomiting from the altitude, despite her previous history making it unlikely.

Warwick discusses symptoms with Mary.

Dinner

The restaurant at Tingri is my (Jamie's) favourite, delicious non-oily dishes and smiling cooks who really try to please. But what was that on video behind us. Now toilet talk is pretty normal around the travellers dinner table, but a breast implant operation in the background? I kid you not, and I swear we weren't on drugs, although it couldn't have been more bizarre if we were.

Our two doctors confirm the surgeon really is sticking her finger in

The movie was the 1970's tale of a Taiwanese girl seeking fame and fortune, her plan to have her eyelids operated on, a breast job and then get into modelling. All well and fine, except that each operation was performed live! She slept her way to the top and found her wealthy man to marry while her friends look on in horror. In delicious irony driving away to her honeymoon, happy that everything had gone to plan, she was killed in a head-on accident! And then the power went out.

19 April - Tingri

Thomas and Jerry (OK, Tom & Jerry), feeling good, travelled ahead with the sherpas to set up base camp. The rest of us relaxed in Tingri, most taking a walk up the nearest hill for some great views.

Mary was still worryingly sick, a bad headache that drugs didn't seem to cure, and in fact sometimes made worse, and occasional nausea. In the morning she had felt better, and we were relieved but by afternoon she was worse, although she did manage a light bowl of soup. After careful analysis, we feel that it is unlikely she has altitude sickness, more likely a bug, but that is a hard call to make as symptoms overlap, and the safest approach is to assume everything at altitude is AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) unless proven otherwise.

This time for dinner were guided to a table away from the TV. Would Mary be ok to travel tomorrow morning?

20 April - a close call in Tingri

I (Jamie) wandered along the road and then up the new concrete road to have a look at the mountains. Dogs everywhere are stretching as the day begins, a couple follow me, heads down, and I imagine they are after a warm meal of shit to start the morning. Tough, I thought. Yes, there is a certain reality to most Tibetan dogs that you would rather not know about. Clive got a fright as one poked it head up the toilet. Probably the funniest was years ago when Martin was taking a shit out of camp, we heard a yelp from him when a dog started licking his bum!

A few more dogs join behind me and I wonder if they will fight among themselves. Everything is still, then suddenly as I turn around, instinctively feeling the dogs are too close, a dog lunges at my leg and I am surrounded by seven or perhaps eight dogs. I swing wildly in a circle kicking one hard in the mouth, and they pause momentarily. I have broken my rule, I don't have any stones in my pockets, SHIT. I spin, kicking again and again, pirouetting to the edge of the concrete road where there are rocks; I know I have to kick the biggest dog, and finally I catch him with a glancing blow, not enough to make him yelp, but he pulls back half a metre and I pick up a stone, spinning to avoid teeth in the butt; that one gets it in the back and the all back off - their mistake as I now have a handful of rocks and hurl them as fast as I can, they are beat and they just melt away, only a couple keep barking as I spy Georgia coming up the same road.

I wave to her, she picks up some stones by they have lost interest.

I feel relieved but also sheepish, that was far too close, I am amazed that I am not dripping blood and don't even have any holes in my pants, they were millimeters away with their bites, and if I had gone down, I am certain they would not have stopped attacking. I was close to being ripped apart. In Nyalam I had sounded harsh to the team when I warned everyone about dogs, how stupid they are and how stones are the only defense. The dogs there seemed tame, as did these Tingri dogs, but they do attack several people a year, and and yet it was me caught defenseless. I am shaking and breathless, my lungs feel raw. I am unscathed, completely ok.

As Georgia and I wander back thru the town dogs loll around half asleep, all looking innocent, the pack instinct gone. You would never guess.

typical Tingri, except there isn't a dog in the picture

Breakfast

I tell more dog tales over breakfast, Suzanne and I and the dog's owner (yep!) had to beat off a single fearsome dog for more than a kilometer near Kailash. Dogs that fearless are perfect for protecting sheep from snow leopard and wolves.

Mary is still delicate but feels a little better and wants to travel with us; everyone knows to get behind means a tough time catching us.

She seems on the road to recovery but it is still a tough call on whether she has AMS as a mistake will be dangerous. However at base camp we have a PAC bag (Portable Altitude Chamber designed by Jim Duff and similar to the Gamow bag), which we don't realise has already been used. We also have oxygen and after some investigation know that the duty jeep will be at BC in case we need it.

Arriving to Chinese Base Camp 4910m

Arriving to our camp only one and a half hours later (how that trail has improved!) we know we have made the right decision as she feels OK.

We find out that a Italian from a Thamserku group came down sick from ABC, only a Tibetan yak driver who couldn't communicate with him accompanying him. He reached BC at 7pm and Dawa and the lads put him in our PAC bag for one and a quarter hours, taking him from the 4900m down to 3500m by his watch. After that he felt much better, but still continued down to Tingri, heading for Kathmandu. That is the end of his expedition; luckily that was all.