Thursday, July 09, 2009

Hitchhiking Tibet #4

As we kept on driving and the night was falling and we didn't seem to reach anywhere, the drivers -somehow- explained to me that there was no stopping for the night; "there's 2 of us", he meant, "and we'll keep on driving all night".
I was only mildly excited by the news but couldn't suggest any better.

All day I had been very impressed by the skills of the drivers, managing our huge truck in the mud where others would get stuck. For difficult passages, bus drivers asked all their occupants to get off and walk by for a while. Sometimes we'd be blocked by another truck in front of us stuck in the mud and we had to go and give a helpful hand.
When this happened in the dead of night and we got blocked by a truck, abandoned for the night, we had no choice but stop and spend the night there.

I wasn't at all equipped to spend the night in a truck at 4000 meters in altitude and i spent the whole time rubbing my frozen feet. Must have been the worst night of the trip (although i didn't know at the time there was going to be another one soon after!)

Morning eventually came and the next day was worse than the first. I felt dead tired and sick. It had been raining non stop all night and the road was even muddier. Every other truck was now slipping in the mud and this time we had our share.
The last image is our truck pretty badly drowned in the mud. It took a while and some help to get it out.







Hitchhiking Tibet #3

It was hours and hours of bouncy driving before we made our first stop.. I was so happy to jump out and stretch my legs!

We stopped in a tiny village; just a handful of houses along the road. As we parked the truck, a kid was cruising on a bike too big for him. He noticed the stranger's face.