When we got to Lhasa, we saw some people who had recently flown in, and they were throwing up, sick from the altitude... so I was glad that we did it how we did to get ourselves acclimated to the altitude. We also had some Diamox pills, but I didn't use them much. You probably did fine being from Colorado, and I'm sure you had conditioned yourself to climb that mountain. I think you had a much better view of Everest from where you were than if you had climbed it! I was looking on the google map at the mountain you climbed and where those floods went through the valley west of there. I was trying to figure out if we had gone that way from Kathmandu, but I think we must have gone east of there toward Lhasa.

It was quite a bit more primitive when we went through there. There were some generators in some of the little towns we went through, but with very limited use. We stayed at a place that was made of mud basically, with yak dung patties glued on the outside walls for fuel which was used to burn in the stove where they cooked soup for us. They would turn the generator off fairly early at bedtime, and if you had to go to the 'restroom' (the traditional Tibetan toilet, if you know what I mean!), you had to take your flashlight and toilet paper and go through the courtyard in the middle of the night dodging cows (or yaks) and dogs to get to the toilet which was a hole in the floor, so you had to balance everything very carefully, and having strong leg muscles certainly helped, too! lol

The little kids really tug at your heart. They would come out of nowhere in the mountains sometimes when they saw our little caravan stop. They had yak cheese necklaces on. There was one mother and child I will always remember. I gave her one of my wet wipes that had a quilted teddy bear design on it. She took it and wiped her child's face, and it was like Wow!... there's a kid under there! lol.. Then she put the wet wipe on top of her head as kind of a hat and seemed very proud of it. Then there was another little boy who looked much like the one in your picture... We had stopped in a little town with just dirt roads, and there were kids playing with a cardboard box kind of like a sled pulling each other around. But they had a little store that had a real soccer ball for sale... I think it cost $3... so I bought it and gave it to that little boy, and his face just lit up like a Christmas tree.

I could go on... so many cherished memories. So glad that you volunteered to spend some time there and help out in those communities. I loved visiting the monasteries and stupas, too. Did you get to go through the Potala when you were in Lhasa? That was very cool, too. It had the only "western toilet" that I saw in Tibet... lol