The area immediately outside of Lhasa was incredible. The road followed a rocky river beside the snowy mountains. It did truly give the sense that we were on the roof of the Earth. Then we climbed higher.
The pass never ended. To me a pass should find the lowest opening of the mountains, but the pass seemed to climb the highest peak in sight. Just when I imagined it could not go higher, we'd round a bend to see more switchbacks climbing to the heavens. The top was at 4700m, the highest point I've ever been.
At the top, we had to pay 30yuan to see views of the amazing Yamdruk Tso, one of the highest lakes in the world. The shimmering turquoise water stretched forever in both directions. We climbed a massive hill for a better view. The air was thin, so the mellow climb was strenuous. The higher view of the lake made it worth the headache.
The highway continued along the lake for at least another hour. Every turn revealed more yak herds, grazing on the sparse shrubbery that struggled to grow above the timberline.
We drove through Gyanse, which seemed like a boring little town, but we wee not there long enough to form much of an impression. It did have two popular tourist sites. There was an old fort sitting atop a hill in the middle of town; it looked like a mini-potala. The other was the town's monastery which we decided to skip, but looked neat. It had a large kumbun, which was cool looking and some walls that were smaller, but similar to the style of the great wall. We didn't have time for the fort; I'd used it up with my climb up the hill near Yamdruk Tso. We stopped for the night in Shigatse.
Our first restaurant was out of all forms of vegetables, so we left to another place. The second, a Cantonese place, was out of rice. It finally connected that we were in the middle of nowhere. The food they had was quite good though. It was my first "Chinese" meal in days.
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