Shigatse

Yesterday morning when we woke up in fresh snow at 4700 and way below zero degrees, I thought my next holiday might be somewhere hot, and with lots of oxygen ... like Hawaii, maybe, or the Moz coast. But then

we ascended the Karo La pass (5000m), and cycled a pretty downhill, first with a backdrop of snowcovered mountains, and then through picturesque towns with red/orange/yellow/purple mountains as backdrop.

Horse carts with bells, dogs with red collars, yaks with yellow earrings and red collars. We spent the night at Gyantse (about 4000m above sea level) - LOTS of oxygen :)  From far away you can see the town - a fort (built by the english at around 1900) looks over the city. Another visit to a monastry.

Today we cycled just over 90 kays to Shigatse on the flattest road possible ... the total vertical ascent was a meagre 60 metre ... and the descent 190 (yup, even MORE oxygen tonight)

A Belgian, a Dutchmen, 4 Norwegians, a Chinese American, a Canadian, a Spaniard, a Swiss and 2 South Africans ... and everywhere people know that the world cup is in South Africa.

Lots more tourists on this route than expected :(