Lhasa to Kathmandu

Greg and I began looking for traveling partners who could split the cost of traveling by 4-wheel drive from Lhasa to Kathmandu. On our fourth day in Lhasa, we met Barry and Yvonne. Barry, a 27-year old chemical engineer from Louisiana, is in the middle of a year-long backpacking journey that started in Easter Island. Yvonne, a 37-year old software engineer based in Seattle, is doing something similar, having left her job to go visit relatives in her native Indonesia, and is now making her way through Asia and the Middle East. Barry and Yvonne met up in China and were several weeks into traveling together when we teamed up with them. The four of us agreed on an 8-day trip that would slowly wind us through small villages with ancient monasteries, past Tibet’s famous and sacred lakes, and up to Everest Base Camp, before spitting us out at the Nepal border, where we will (hopefully) obtain VISAS and catch a bus to Kathmandu.

Here, Barry and Yvonne smile during our brief but treacherous ferry ride to Samye Monatery.