Day 54 Thurs 26 October Markam to Basu/Pasho/Pema, Tibet

After scraping the frost from the car we have breakfast of dumplings and crispy fried croissant things with rice porridge and find the local petrol station, which only has 90 octane fuel so we use one of the boosters we brought from Oz. Not sure if it does any good but with 4 passes to cross we need to make sure the car will make it. A beautiful morning with ankle deep frost on the hill sides as we climb out of the town and make it to the summit of the first pass at 4500m where we meet a group of nomadic yak herders and see their yurt village in the distance. Dropping down 1000m the other side to the Mekong, we encounter most of the Peoples Liberation Army, with endless convoys of trucks heading up the pass. We are told the trucks are all carrying minerals from Tibet to China and judging by the numbers, at least 200, there soon wont be any minerals left in Tibet.

It seems easier driving today although the next pass, climbing from the Mekong valley at 2500m to the ridge at 5008m (16500ft) takes most of the morning. The views from the top are spectacular (as we keep saying) with one side quite barren, with rounded grass covered mountains a bit like Scotland and the other with rocky snow covered peaks. There’s snow lying on the ground at the top but at -5C and with the effects of altitude beginning to be felt we don’t stop long and descend to yet another river gorge where we find a small town for lunch.

Then its up the prettiest valley we’ve ever seen, a beautiful clear river tumbling down amid golden and red coloured trees, with pretty little villages and contented yaks grazing on tiny plots, the odd pack donkey slowly making it up the road and hundreds of PLA trucks coming down. Its like Rivandel from The Hobbit and we think we might stay here, once the trucks have gone and forget about going on to Lhasa but unfortunately there’s no guest house and definitely no margaritas so we press on.
The other side is a true nightmare, real white knuckle scary stuff, if we’d known about these sorts of roads we would have stayed at home. 78 (we counted) hairpins, no crash barriers, unsealed mainly single track quarry road with 1500m drop and clouds of blinding dust from vehicles coming the other way. We now know why this route is supposed to be closed to foreigners – they don’t want anyone to know how treacherous their roads really are. It drops from 4680 m to 2100m, the largest single drop in Tibet and probably anywhere for that matter. The navigator decides to sit in the back, pull his/her hat over his/her eyes and focus entirely on the map for the entire descend, whist the driver does likewise.

Finally we make it down to another surging river torrent, in an impressive basalt gorge. This is the Nak Chu or Salween river, one of the main sacred rivers of Tibet. The road suddenly improves to a proper highway but just as suddenly reverts to a yak track as we head into Pasho, another non-descript Tibetan town taken over by soulless Chinese buildings and check into another soulless Chinese hotel.
Weather -5, Sunny
Distance today 363km
Distance from start 11,799km
Scary Road Index: Med then Ultra Extreme