Two days in Lhasa gave us time to catch up on mails and laundry as well as curing a toothache as Simone found herself loosing a filling. The local dentist had a airy clinic (it was more a shabby shop filled with Chinese getting hanging infusions and some deserted dentist chairs) by the road (it was literally ON the road!!), clients smoking inside and 20 Chinese trying to check what might be so wrong in the mouth of a European (they all stared into my open mouth!!!). With the help of Fabri's drawing skills we finally got around to explain we needed only a filling but the whole process kept both of us quite nervous.. in the end we got a good service and a tooth filling for only 5 Euros... not bad as a dentist rate !!!Sipping our last coffee in the Summit cafe (the local Starbucks copy!!) was the last thing before getting into the 4WD to Kathmandu. The drive took us through some beautiful landscapes and we managed (again ;-) to visit fantastic Monasteries. In particular at Gyantse we took the picture of what we had seen only few months ago at Minimundus in Austria and got to understand better how the new Dalai Lama is selected at Shigatse. It's a pretty amazing process which involves identifying people with unique features...
The undoubted highlight of the trip was getting to Everest Base Camp (Qomolangma is its real Tibetan name..) . And YES!! We saw it in deep blue sky!!! (despite monsoon season). The drive was a proper off road trip with rivers to cross, muddy roads showing a deep valley on our side.. we were however very lucky to turn around the corner and get in front of us the majestic Mount Everest. The experience is really touching as you feel pretty small in comparison and the glaciers and surroundings make it a stunning view. Somehow it is difficult to explain, but once you see it, you want to get to the top and this is not something for everyone. We had an even colder night up there, but the day paid us back as we trekked on some off road paths to the Everest Base Camp (5.300m) to get a glimpse of the glacier at its bottom. Unfortunately the Chinese try to make everything difficult keeping people to the official path but we sneaked through the valley and got closer to the mountain - magic!!! (ok, we might be a bit H.Potter influenced these days ;-). On the last pass towards Kathmandu with another incredible view on the Himalaya range, we had time to tie some prayer flags to the pass and hopefully they will keep flying up there for a long time as one of the highlights of our trip...
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