The 8km downhill back to Rongbuk was a lot easier than the trip up had been. We slowly bounced over the rocks but didn't have to get off the bikes more than a couple of times. We even made it back through the stream beds without incident.

We stopped at Rongbuk and had the crazy cook make us two pancakes and two chapati omelets. (They are so excellent! Large, thin omelets, placed exactly over hot, freshly baked chapatis, and then rolled up like a large cigar. Yum.)

We wanted to stuff ourselves silly that day because we didn't know when the stove would quit for good. We stayed so long that Wolf showed up on foot shortly before we left. About an hour later, when we were back on the road, Wolf passed us, waving from the back of a jeep! We were a little jealous.

We rode out of Rongbuk the same way we had come in. After 15km or so, we started looking for a turnoff Wolf had described. But his directions were a bit hazy. They involved a "new bridges" not visible from the road, an old bridge that was visible from the road, and rough distances.

We had followed the east bank of a river southward down the valley. Where the river made a wide slow turn to the east we looked for the new bridge. We wandered for an hour across a fabulous, eerie landscape of sand and river rocks, some as big as bowling balls. The sand was too soft to ride on so we walked the bikes.

Looking across the river, we saw a road climb a valley in the general direction of Old Tingri. Then, as we got close to the river, we saw a bridge--a nice suspension job that was for pedestrians only. But no truck could possibly use it. Figuring it was the wrong bridge, we pushed our bikes another km past the bridge, looking for the truck bridge. We never did find it. We still don't know if one exists.

As we were fooling around taking photos and wondering what we had gotten ourselves into, we looked across the river again and saw a truck coming down the road! We were excited about that. That meant that even though we couldn't find the truck bridge to the road, trucks do use it. And if trucks could use the road, so could we.

We waited to watch the truck drive to a bridge to cross the river, but instead it stopped at the bottom of the hill. With the binoculars I watched two western backpackers climb out, get their backpacks from the back, then talk for a long time to the driver and finally pay him something. Then they started walking on a path parallel to ours on the other side of the river. The truck turned around and went back up the hill.

I figured that the backpackers had hitched a ride from Old Tingri to that point and would hike the rest of the way to Everest Base Camp.

We headed for the foot bridge, hoping to meet the hikers and swap road notes. But it was hard going. The hikers were on a pretty well packed footpath, but we had to trudge cross country through sand and over boulders. It was sort of a race. They beat us to the bridge by about two minutes, crossed quickly, and then didn't wait to talk to us. That two minutes might have changed our trip substantially. If we had known what lie ahead, we might have decided to take the other route out. Or get a truck ride. (JOAN: I guess we could have run after them, but it seemed plain that they didn't want to talk to anyone, since they hadn't stopped).

We crossed the bridge then had to ford one stream before we got to the truck road. Fortunately it was a really smooth road.

We rode a few fairly easy km up the truck road in a magnificent, calm clear evening. We congratulated ourselves on having found such an excellent road. The sun was low. We wanted to camp before the town of Zemuck. Wolf had warned us about the police there. He said when he passed through, some machine-gun toting Chinese army types had stopped him at gunpoint, demanding his passport. After seeing it they let him pass without more trouble. We figured if that had to happen to us, it could wait until the next day.

As we neared Zemuck, we saw a big group of about 40 women with big baskets on their backs. They weren't on the road but were spread evenly across the hills and valleys walking in the same general direction as us. Then we saw another blue Chinese truck alongside the road ahead. We finally realized the women were collecting yak dung, filling their baskets, then dumping the baskets in the truck. They were just finishing for the day when we saw them. They walked on up the hill, hardly noticing us, then disappeared over a small ridge. (JOAN: I was so paranoid after Wolf's story about being held at gunpoint that I thought the women might be police spies. I mean, they looked weird. They weren't bending over and working the same part of the land, as most farmers do. They looked so comical walking every which way, often jerking down and then back up--to pick up and basket the yak dung--that I thought at first they were just trying to pretend to be farmers).

We figured the yak-dung gatherers were walking to Zemuck so we looked for camping where we were, out of site of the village. We set up in a mildly level, completely unprotected spot about 4800m above sea level. We had spectacular views to the east. Three valleys tilted down from different directions and met below us. Snow capped peaks popped up in the distance like painted back drops. We could see no flat horizon, everything looked crooked.

I managed to coax another dinner out of the stove and we watched a great sunset as we ate. The prettiest part of the sunset sky was in the east where the sun illuminated high clouds in the distance.

In the morning it was 4 degrees C (39 F) in the tent. That's better than the 0 degrees it had been at Everest and Rongbuk. We had no snow but clouds to the east prevented the sun from warming our tent the way I had hoped. We had the usual hot muesli with milk for breakfast then took our time packing.

We felt confident. The road looked good and we had two days to go just 50km to Old Tingri, though we expected to have to ford a couple knee deep streams. Also, we knew at least seven km of the road would be bad, according to Wolf's report.

In just one kilometer we reached Zemuck. Zemuck has about 30 brick buildings with flat roofs on built on a hill. The town is surrounded by several corrals made of low rock walls. The road seemed to dissolve into the narrow dirt alley ways of the village.

The alley ways were very steep so we parked our bikes against a corral wall at the bottom of town. Joan stayed with the bikes and a swarm of about 20 kids while I walked up to ask directions. I quickly came across two Chinese trucks, one full of yak dung (the one that passed just before we camped) and six Chinese army types with machine guns.

They didn't ask for my passport or point their guns at me. I smiled and asked which way to Tingri. They just waved in a general direction to the left. Directions in Tibet are usually no more precise than hemispheres. Then they laughed and laughed. I didn't like the look of the hill in that direction because it went down steeply - no truck could possible make it - and I don't trust directions from people who laugh after giving them. So I asked another person and they confirmed with the same hemispheric wave.

Meanwhile Joan was having a hard time with the kids. They seemed friendly at first but started demanding money. Then they fingered her wedding ring and one even tried to pull it off.

We started rolling towards the path down the hill but became even more unsure about this route as we saw more of it. So we stopped and this time Joan went back to ask directions. She brought the phrase book with her but the result was the same. This foot path was the way to Old Tingri.

Joan went further and asked how many hours to Old Tingri but must have accidentally said how many days. They said two. All except the head cop who thumped his chest and said one. (JOAN: I also pointed to the truck, and ask, well how the hell did that get here? But they just shook their heads and kept pointing at the footpath).

So Joan left with the deluded hope that we could get to Old Tingri in just a few hours. I was more pessimistic though I didn't say anything. Clearly this foot path could not handle trucks and both trucks we had seen the day before were still in town. I began to believe that the road in town came in from the highway behind us, via the mythical truck bridge we never saw, and ended in Zemuck. Who knew when we would find a road again?

Next: Tibet Chapter 19 - YOW! Things really get hard

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