UPDATE

There has been a 7.7 earthquake about 50 miles from Kathmandu. We felt it here for sure but we are all safe. Waiting to hear from the south side of Everest. 
After a bumpy 4hr ride, we made it into Everest basecamp!  

While sitting down for lunch, there was an earthquake that hit the mountain. We are all safe and no damage to base camp.  There was a bit of rock fall, but everyone is ok. 

Will update more later. 

Well, the plan was to make it to basecamp today, but the weather gods had other plans. Apparently with the dirt road into basecamp not being in awesome shape, our “tour guide” did not want to drive in the dark on muddy roads in mini-vans. What a wuss!!!

As a result, we stopped in a town called Tingri, which everyone in the group whom had been here before was not happy about it. Apparently it’s been quite the dump of a town in the past. Call it luck, call it what you want, we ended up in the “new” building of the hotel which means we have nicer beds and a bathroom. The plumbing leaves something to be desired, but I’m not complaining about another night in a bed.

With an early start tomorrow we should hopefully be to basecamp by lunch!

Today we went to the Potola Palace which has functionally become a museum since 1980, but for many centuries had the Dalai Lama living there and was also a central point of government in Tibet. It was a very special place and I’m glad we were able to check it out prior to hopping in the van for the day. We saw the tombs of the 5th, 7th & 8th Dalai Lama, which were encrusted in gold and had loads of precious gems as well to send him into the next life with riches.

Also, on our way in, we randomly stopped at this store on the side of the road that was making incense from scratch. They had these water powered machines which were grinding tree stumps down into a paste that they then formed into incense. The stuff sells pretty expensively the further away you get as they regularly use it at monasteries. We got bundles for basically $10, which was a “deal” allegedly

We just pulled into Shigatze which will be our final stop before we head into Basecamp tomorrow. Today was about 7hrs in the mini-van at 25mph… Apparently a bus full of tourists went off the road last year and killed 30 people. As a result, they’ve change the speed limit to 25mph. To make sure you recognize these times, they time you between each of the police check points. If you reach the checkpoint too soon, you get a fine and points on your record. Naturally, people find a loophole and speed at 70mph between checkpoints, and just stop about 5 minutes before it to have a break.

Tomorrow I think we’ll be cruising for about 10hrs, 3-4 of which will be on a dirt road into basecamp. Hopefully the snow has melted and the road isn’t too muddy as we aren’t in the typical Jeeps that most people take in.

Made it to Lhasa today.  The construction is insane. I haven’t seen so many cranes anywhere.  They are trying to build it out as fast as they can get people to move in.  Which, apparently, they lift the one child policy if you immigrate here from the rest of China. 

Had a great dinner with the team tonight.  Now off to bed and we’ll check out the Potola Palace tomorrow which used to be a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery. 

Good times!!

We got the last of our bags packed up this afternoon, weighing in at a whopping 2,200lbs which will go straight to basecamp.  This in addition to the ~8,000lbs which has already been sent in on our behalf.

It looks like we got our Visas to travel to Tibet & climb Mt Everest this afternoon and we’re all approved to take our flight tomorrow morning to Lhasa which is the capital of Tibet!!

Apparently, we’ve arrived smack dab in the middle of a 5-day Indian wedding here at the hotel.  Today’s festivities included a pool party with imported Russian go-go dancers.  Because, why not?  It made for great people watching from the terrace while we had lunch.  People partying like it’s 2:00am, but it’s noon.

Kathmandu is such a city of opposites. Driving from the airport to the hotel gives you just a taste of that. You see dirt roads, 3-4 people on a motorcycle, a woman with child walking down a standstill road begging for money to feed her child and then you pull into old colonial establishments which are adorned with fresh flowers, notes of jasmine and more wait staff than guests.

I’ve already met some of the folks whom I’ll be climbing with and I think it’s going to be a fun trip.

After a surprisingly restful night, it’s off to Kathmandu this morning.   Too bad the Bangkok airport is so far from the city. It would have been awesome to go out and get some tasty treats and a few beers.  Oh well, we’ll get that on the return.

The trip has officially begun, and now I’m in transit at the Tokyo airport enjoying a frosty & delicious beverage out of an automatic beer machine that I’m certain I’ll never get sick of.  This is the best part of flying through here.

According to Anthony Bourdain, there’s a great sushi bar near gate 34, but I guess I hit dinner rush hour and they had a 30-45 min wait.   Hell, even McDonald’s had a 20 minute wait.   I settled for the tried & true pork curry near the gate.

I’m stoked to get on with this trip as I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time.  I was fortunate to have my parents stop by the house before MB took me to the airport this morning.   This trip seems to be harder to leave for than previous trips, but that’s all the more reason to come back.

Next stop Bangkok!

Someone else already made a video of my dream – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsPpLWXOkds