We were all alone in a thick fog in the morning. We liked Tenzing but were glad he hadn't bothered to climb all the way up the mountain to help us with the rest of the pass. The last 6km of road was much smoother and we pedaled most of it, though stopping often.

We stopped to rest for the last time at the second to last switchback, just 50 vertical meters below the top. We were at about 5100m above sea level and still not completely accustomed to the thin air. So at that last stop we just dropped the bikes on their sides and sprawled out on the ground as if dead.

A couple of jeeps passed while we laid there, gathering oxygen for the last push. A few minutes later a Tibetan man, probably a jeep driver, came running down the hill from the pass. By pointing up the hill then running his fingers over his hand like legs to say "walk" and rubbing his thumb and forefinger together to say "money" and other such pantomimes, he explained that for a certain amount of money he would take the bikes up to the top for us and we could walk.

I politely said, "No, thank you."

Then he repeated the whole gesture, walking fingers and all. Again I said, "No, thank you. Mayo." (Mayo is roughly Chinese for "no") Shook my head in as definite a manner as I could muster and waved my arms in declination.

Then he repeated the whole damn charades game again! I was now getting upset. I could understand his long pantomime but he could not understand "NO."

This time I was not so polite. My voice started getting louder. I said "NO!" then pantomimed back at him that we had climbed all the way up from that tiny little village and had no intention whatsoever of paying someone to help us with the last five percent of the climb.

He nodded his head when I finished then began his pantomime again. Joan heard my raised voice and join in the screaming chorus of "NO! NEIN! NICHT! NYET! MAYO!"

At last he got the hint. He said "OK, OK, OK. Sorry," as if we had pushed the point.

We reached the top fine on our own. Unfortunately bad weather to the south blocked what was supposed to be a great view of Everest and the other big mountains on the ridge. We rode downhill a little way, the sun still shining on us, hoping the clouds in the distance would break. But they didn't seem in any hurry.

After just a couple km we stopped for some soup then fell asleep basking in the sun. Hail woke us a few minutes later. It was not big hail yet. But we had heard stories of grapefruit sized hail in Tibet that had killed dogs and put holes through canvas tents. So we quickly packed and tried to out run the storm down the hill.

After awhile the road deteriorated until you could "hardly tell the road from the avalanches" as Joan said. We pounded over lots nasty rocks, always going as fast as we dared and often walking down the hill. We both worried a lot about my tires. Hell, I was worried about my whole bike falling apart.

Fortunately the hail went away soon.

Near the bottom we found some ruins and inspected them for awhile. Some were built into caves or crevasses in giant rocks. With Tibetan building techniques it's hard to tell how old stuff is. Buildings are made out of rocks, bricks, and mud and tend to look like ruins shortly after completion. These ruins had definitely been abandon but we couldn't tell how long ago.

After the ruins the road flattened out into a beautiful green valley surrounded by steep cliffs and hills. The road itself became as smooth as a sidewalk. At that moment, of all times, Joan's rear tire went flat. We'd been so worried about my tires we never thought about Joan's good tires failing. It was not just simple pin prick either. The sidewall had ripped, rendering the tire mostly useless. Fortunately we had a spare tire, though we expected to use it to replace the front tire which had 10,000km on it.

To make matters worse, we noticed while fixing the tire that the sidewall on my spare, which Joan had been carrying on the back of her bike for months, had also ripped. I had used the tire in Laos and it was fine. I suppose the sun exposure finally got to it.

Suddenly we had no more spare tires. Once again I got the butterflies in my stomach. "How are we going to get through Tibet?" I thought.

A cyclist approached us while I put on the new tire. He looked a lot like the paranoid German we met in Shigatse but Joan didn't think it was the same guy. This guy was confidant and self-possessed. But he had the same round face and small glasses of the paranoid German so I was sure it was the same guy. This guy's name was Andy. We hadn't learned the name of the paranoid German's name in Shigatse.

Joan's doubts remained even after he told us the gossip of the other cyclists. Team Bavaria had made it to base camp but only with the help of a truck. They rode their bikes out of base camp but got another truck back over Pang La. The truck probably passed us earlier that day. (We later heard from the London Pilots that Team Bavaria's bikes eventually broke down. The pilots said something about how they last saw the Bavarians trying to sell their bikes to a bunch of Tibetan kids, armed to the teeth with rocks, and with not a yuan between them).

Andy asked us if he should attempt Pang La now, or wait until morning. I was astounded. It had taken us two days to get over. Now it was past 4pm, and Andy was considering starting. I couldn't believe he was even contemplating it.

It turns out he climbed up the other side in just three hours without stopping! This news depressed me. Were we really that slow? (Joan: yes, thanks to me). Moments earlier I had been so proud of our accomplishment. Andy cheered me up a bit by explaining that he had left most of his gear at a hotel on the other side of the pass. He carried only one pannier and a handlebar bag.

Joan told him that since he had gone over the pass so fast on the way in, he could probably go back over that day, but he would probably have an unpleasant evening, trying to push to get over the top, in probably stormy weather. He was dressed for it though. He had a Polartec body suit. He carried his tire pump in a holster.

In the end he turned around and rode about 2km with us to a town called Peruggu. We all had a great dinner of fried vegetables and rice. The great part of the dinner was that it was all you can eat. I actually turned down food that night. The potatoes were the first fresh veggies we'd had for a while.

Over dinner we found out that indeed he was the same "paranoid German" from Shigatse. He had ridden all over Tibet for the last two months. He's been as far as Mt. Kailash, almost twice as far as the ride from Lhasa to Kathmandu. Now he said two months in Tibet was enough. He wanted to get to Kathmandu and have a shower before his girlfriend arrived. (Yes, to get a shower in Tibet--outside Lhasa-- you have to go to Nepal.)

Andy stayed at the place we ate but one look at the accommodation and we decided to continue: a bunch of dirty bunks in a room where they stored lots of stuff. A rat den if I ever saw one. We would camp. I think Andy was a little disappointed that we left. He probably would have liked the company. It would have been nice for us too.

We found out later that the next morning, some kids stole Andy's pump and water bottles while he was eating breakfast. He said, "I'm not angry at the children but the things they took! They were so important!" Both things were irreplaceable in Tibet.

We cycled up a pretty, wide and flat valley for about 15km. We wanted to camp but there were too many villages. Eventually it started to get dark and about the same time a strong wind whipped up. Out of desperation we walked across the sandy, gravelly flats of the river valley towards the hills. Barley fields filled all the flat spaces at the edges. Out of desperation we camped in the middle of the sandy flats, totally exposed.

We watched lightning in the distance as we rushed to put the tent up. I thought, "We're on the way to Everest Base Camp. This is not a picnic. This is Tibet. We could have serious weather. Have we given this ride the respect we should?"

But like the night before, all the threats turned into nothing. The wind stopped and we slept great.

Next: Tibet Chapter 15 - We camp at a Monastery

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