The Accident!

The next morning promised to be a long day. The itinerary was leave at 8:00 am, 5 hours to Lhatse, 2 hours to Shegar, 1 hour to Rongphu Monastery.

Bump bump bump....shake shake shake....rattle rattle rattle....we arrive in Lhatse for lunch. Thinking we may need stamps for our postcards we were going to send from Everest Base Camp we went to look for a China Post. Unfortunately they were closed and we thought we'd have to forget about sending the cards from the "Highest Post Box" in the world.

Somewhere between Lhatse and Shegar on the side of a mountain, we come across a huge line of Land Cruisers. Looking to the front of the line, we see a big red dirt truck and land cruiser head to head. It was a blind corner and guess they didn't see each other.


Luckily no one was hurt, but we felt for the people in the Land Cruiser heading back to Lhasa. One gung ho driver of another Land Cruiser thought he could drive around the outside of the wrecks. Nope. After some debate, they decide the best way to go is destroy 3 cinder blocks which protect vehicles from going over the ledge and then what I thought was to drive around the outside. I had originally asked if the dirt truck still worked cause they could just reposition it a bit closer to the inside, then everyone can just go around. I was told no...doesn't work.

Destruction of these blocks was amusing to watch. Everyone was really in to it! Hammers, pry bars, all sorts of tools come out and I think within a half an hour, they were done. It was funny to watch them throw the pieces over the cliff. I even saw the bumper of the dirt truck go over!

I'm thinking, there's no way I'm in the car while the driver goes around this crash when what do I hear? The fricking dirt truck firing up!!! It still worked! They decided to reposition it on the outside of the ledge for "safety" I guess. I still don't think they needed to destroy those blocks but my guess is the Tibetans wanted to destroy something the Chinese made.

After an hour delay, we're on our way again...