Friday 11th May:

We had not slept well after a night of bad weather. Luckily the tent held up well and I managed to stay warm by wearing almost all of my clothes and happily had not needed to wear my day glow rain jacket although the condensation in the tent in the morning made me think that I ought too :-) The sounds of the night consisted of heavy rain pattering against our tent, dogs howling (the domesticated kind) and winds howling (the non domesticated kind). As the night turned to day we heard the sounds of cuckoos, pigeons, more barking, sheep bleating and the cracking of whips of shepherds who taking their flock out stopped nearby for a moment.

K fired up the stove again, knowing that the only way to entice me out of the tent was to make me some coffee. I having a sudden rush of caffeine and soybean breakfast drink induced energy ran up a hillside to get an idea of the lie of the land as well as to take some photos as she busied herself by shaking out the tent and hanging up the sleeping bags to air. We had to wait for everything to dry out before we could move on. I ran a few errands here and there as K went about pumping water and generally being busy.

When it was time to leave we had to get everything back across the stream. I focused on getting myself across first (with the aid of K) and waiting by the bikes "Action K" proceeded to display her strength by jumping back and forth across the stream wielding various items. I suspect that she had sneakily drunk one more coffee than me judging by her high energy :-)

We hit the road and continued up the valley towards Lhundrub. The road, although straight and boring, was secondary to the views of mountainsides of various colours and shades, as well as the people whom passed us by or we passed them. We reached Lhundrub and were exceptionally hungry. The sky was grey and the town looked drab. We were both tired and stiff and did not at all have the energy that we had the day previous. We discussed what to do and decided that we should maybe stay in a hotel the night (yes I admit it).

Seeking some help in finding the destination of a hotel a kind Chinese man, a teacher at the local school, who spoke English escorted us to a binguan (hotel). I went inside and checked it out. I walked through a small shop and up the winding decrepit stairs to the second floor. The room was a pitiful sight, the beds had not been made from the previous occupants, the light in the bathroom was dim and there was no running water in the bathroom. The sink had been torn off of the wall and when I questioned how we were to get water the translator looked terribly ashamed and told me that it was not a hotel that housed foreigners by way of a reply. I thanked the proprietor but declined the offer of a room even at the price of 60 yuan (4 GBP) for two people.

Informing K, we decided to get some food and press on with our journey. We had at this point been joined by another man who also spoke English very well, when we informed him of our journey he told us that the pass that we were planning to tackle was at 5000 metres and that there was one road out of town to it and that the road was not in good condition. Hmmmm, not good news.

We were pointed towards a good quality restaurant, nobody there spoke English but it being a Chinese restaurant we used the Mandarin phrasebook to get by. We ate a whole plate of egg fried rice each as well as some wonderful chilli aubergine, some not so great funky strange woody mushroom dish and some cabbage and chilli peppers (we had hoped that the aubergine, mushrooms and cabbage would all come together in one dish but were mistaken). We were the centre of attention again as school children flocked to the windows to watch us eat - the waitress shooed them away but they only moved to our bikes which were parked outside which also became objects of curiosity. Again the waitress disposed of them and proceeded to cover our bikes with a plastic table cloth each in order to keep them hidden from view as well as from the rain.

Having had our fill we pressed on.

The road out of town was under construction and it turned to a dirt road and stone mix. We came to an intersection, the road to the left was tarmacked and the road on which we were travelling continued on in and even worse condition - a lumpy gravel road. We took the left turn having been told that there was only "one road" out of town to the pass (and confirming that fact on K's map), thinking that the way ahead could not possibly pass as being the one road out of town. Riding along, we continued to look for potential campsites, the valley was very wide though and all the land surrounding us consisted of arable farmland that was being processed.

We spotted a wide bridge under which was a very wide dry river bed, we remembered this thinking that should we unable to find anywhere else that we would at least be able to stay under there the night. Next we passed through a small village flanking the roadside. A dog stretched it's front legs looking as though he cared nothing for our passing him by. As we passed him he sprang forward showing all of his teeth and in my mind he looked as though he was ferocious and crazy... and then I noticed that he only had three legs! We span the peddles fast in order to get away from him having heard about the rabid and ferocious dogs of Tibet (I carry a whistle to blow at them). He gave up the chase immediately but the event was enough to strike fear into me whenever we passed by a dog thereafter.

We rode on and on until we came to a T junction, we thought that we should take a right because we should have been heading north by this point. I thought it wise to question some people in the village (Chinese phrasebook in hand again), they informed me that we had to go back the way that we had come which meant that we should have carried on up the dirt road to get to the pass. Everybody in the village stopped what they were doing and watched us, a large group of women stopped their manual labour and stared, the men stopped playing at the pool table and the children stopped hitting rubber tyres with sticks. We waved at them all and departed retreading our tracks feeling very tired and disappointed.

We stopped at the bridge again but after further surveying we both felt that we there were two many flaws with it's positioning. We continued back to where we had taken the wrong turn and "Eagle Eye Action K" spotted, behind a quarry, a little saddle in the hillside that had potential for some privacy and camping. We cycled up past the quarry as some of the workers there who were having a break tracked our movements until we disappeared around the corner of a hillside. One of the workers walked around the corner and us having stopped, looked back at him. Luckily he waved at us and motioned that we should continue on with our route, we did...passing a yak carcass en route. We reached the hump of the saddle and upon it's top there was a man made stone mound topped with a prayer flag pole made from a branch. There were also various bits of skeletons lying around, including an intact horn, as well as many small stone chortens. We went over the hump and found a flattish spot on the other side.

We were distant enough from the village below to not be seen in our green tent and were hidden from view behind us by the shape of the saddle. It was a perfect camp spot. We built our own little stone chorten in the hope of a good nights undisturbed rest. Tired, we set up the tent, we did not bother eating and were in our sleeping bags by 8 o'clock.

Again it rained all night.