That is 5,220 meters -- 17,121 feet. We later crossed two passes even higher.

It's not to be debated that all journeys have a beginning, but it is hoped those beginnings would be smooth.  I boarded my flight in Tokyo, promptly fell asleep and woke up 4 1/2 hours later to see the terminal building outside the window.  Now, wasn't that a smooth flight to Bangkok?  The only problem was that the cabin crew were announcing we would momentarily be backing away from the gate and our flight was number 23 in line for take-off!  Due to extremely stormy weather our flight would be about five hours behind the scheduled departure!  So much for my pleasant flight to Bangkok.  My good fortune was I had booked the airport hotel instead of a downtown location.

I continued on to Kathmandu on 28 October and took advantage of my one evening there to enjoy a traditional Nepalese style dinner at Dwarika's Kathmandu Village Hotel.  I was hosted by Ms. Reena Pradhan, the manager for sales and marketing.  This is a restored heritage hotel and restaurant and I truly enjoyed my dining experience.  Dinner has as many as 18 courses and each is traditionally eaten with the fingers as is the custom in many of the Himalayan cultures.  Soup would normally be drunk from the bowl, but we did use spoons and I have to admit that I used a fork for the curry course.  Ms. Pradhan's brother is the ambassador to Japan from Nepal, so she was very familiar with Japan and a pleasant evening was had by all.  As we departed, each guest received a gift, and I was also presented with what I thought to be a cube-shaped, brown cake.  It turned out to be a brick with one of 8 different symbols on each side.  These are bricks from the same material used in construction of the hotel.  A rather unusual but interesting gift. 

My landcruiser departed at 8am sharp for the four-hour drive to the Tibetan border crossing point.  The weather was fully cooperative and, instead of the usually hazy mornings expected in the Kathmandu Valley, ours was crystal clear, even amazing the guide.  Within an hour we were climbing out of the valley and away from the city, so traffic lessened and the road was smoother.  Banana trees and poinsettias lined the sides of the road.  It never gets cool enough for frost to appear in the Kathmandu Valley.  I was told that in the summer months it is quite hot and uncomfortable.  Animal life along the road is made up of goats, ducks and an abundance of dogs.  At 10:20, the paved highway ended and was replaced with a gravel road that made driving a dusty experience.  We followed a river that plunged through the valleys, with great boulders causing the water to rage along.  At 10:35, we spotted a series of  8 rafts with 7 or 8 people aboard each one, working hard to keep the rafts moving along without getting tangled up in the boulders or overturning.  There were also several people bobbing along solo in kayaks.  It looked like a lot of work to me, and somewhat dangerous too, but I guessed that was part of the thrill of white-water rafting.  I had always been under the impression that, while rafting, one just sat there and enjoyed the scenery!

It was a fantastically clear day, with the Himalayan peaks towering in the distance and wonderful views of the rice terraces dropping off  to the valleys hundreds of feet below.  The guide advised me that, though it does get cool at night during the winter months, there is never frost in Kathmandu or the Kathmandu Valley, nor, for that matter, in Pokhara.

We were making quite good time, but did come upon a herd of surely over 100 goats being driven down the road towards Kathmandu.  I learned later that these herds were coming down to the market from Tibet.  Our making good time came to an abrupt halt as we came upon a group of 15 American tourists standing in the middle of the road with their luggage.  They had just abandoned their van and the guide and driver were having a heated discussion.  My guide and driver joined in and then my driver took out my back pack from the rear of the landcruiser, put it on his back, grabbed my bag, and with the guide, signaled me to quickly follow them.  I was informed only that the road was blocked and we hiked only a few minutes until, rounding a corner, we found a big truck with a bull-dozer on the truck bed, overturned and blocking the entire road.  How it could have turned over as it did was a good question, as the wheels were right against the cliff on the right and the cab hung just over the cliff edge to the left, with a drop of hundreds of feet to the valley below, effectively making it impossible to pass by.  I was able to squeeze through by stepping on the tires and using the axle and drive shaft to steady myself.  The guide and driver managed to get my baggage past and we started to walk towards a village we could see only a short distance away.  Heavy rain in recent days had the waterfalls overflowing across the road, so we forded a couple, one I simply waded through and let shoes fill with water as it was impossible to try to use rocks as stepping stones to keep one's balance.

A couple of minutes later, we arrived at the village and the guide busily negotiated transport to take us the last 10 kilometers or so to the Tibetan border.  He managed to charter a bus.  Now this was no ordinary bus, but what seemed to be a privately-owned one, used on the local route, but unable to proceed past the accident area either, so the driver agreed to the charter.  We made a fast getaway, leaving the tourist group still on the other side of the blockade, still trying to decide how to proceed.   I could not believe it - every aspect of the bus was falling apart and it shook, rattled and banged along.  I don't know when I have had such a wild ride.  The paved part of the road had ended miles back and the gravel road was full of pot holes, boulders and oncoming trucks, water flowing over it in many places. The top speed we reached was about 15km per hour.  The right side of the road dropped to a river far below, a straight drop down and I was sure a couple of times, as the driver swerved to avoid oncoming traffic or boulders in the road, that we were surely going over the cliff!  Some 45 minutes or so later we reached the Tibetan border.

Proud that we had pulled off the quick recovery and made it to the border at Kodari, only a bit behind schedule, I cleared immigration on the Nepal side.  The officer asked to see my Tibet Travel Permit, which is required in addition to the usual China visa.  I paled as I took out the special permit that had been handed to me the evening before by the Tibetan office in Kathmandu, to discover my birthday and passport number had been listed incorrectly.  These special passes are issued to groups only in nearly all cases.  The Chinese authorities are very concerned about who is permitted to enter Tibet and have now virtually made individual travel impossible. One had now to pay an extremely expensive all-inclusive daily package price and travel in parties of a minimum of 5 people.  We discovered that, if we could tag along with a mountaineering group from Nepal, this could be averted.  The mountaineering groups are handled differently and pay differently.  I thought I had found a way to enter Tibet, travel at a reasonable cost and get around the government per diem cost.  When the lady handed me the Tibet travel permit, I saw four other names under mine and my name was shown as the tour leader.  I was told not to worry, this was standard procedure and to ignore the other four names.  This might have been true if my birth date and passport number had been correctly listed.  The immigration official agreed to stamp me out of Nepal if the Chinese side would agree to my entry with the faulty permit.  The guide began shuttling back and forth between the Nepal and Chinese sides of the dividing bridge. A young fellow had appeared in the meantime and offered his assistance in working things out.  The guide referred to him as a broker.  More shuttling, and all sides were ready to give up, when the Chinese conceded and it was decided to let me enter.  I had totally given up.  The problem was resolved and within an hour of encountering the problem, I was on my way.

On the Tibetan side the driver and guide were waiting and, with assistance from guide, I was on my way in a landcruiser.
 

The tallest triangular peak is Mt. Everest at 8,848 meters or 29,028 feet.

This was the good part! It was so rough, I couldn't hold on to the camera to photograph the bad parts!

I simply could not believe the volume of commerce and the chaos at the border crossing point, with an unbelievable number of large trucks carrying goods from Lhasa to Nepal.  The road is gravel again and barely wide enough for two trucks to squeeze by each other and, worse yet, the pot holes and boulders and landslides and steams flow right across the road.  Being a truck driver on this route would have to rank as one of the world's toughest occupations!  In addition, there are hairpin turns every few minutes and we were passing through the Himalayas, surrounded by the largest collection of the "World's Tallest Peaks".

To think that my journey was only beginning was almost overwhelming.