On April 12, at 5:30am Nepali time the Sherpas, Bart and I and all our equipment left Kathmandu in a big bus in direction Tibetan border. We arrived in Kodari, the last town on the Nepal side about four hours later. The road is not the best in this part of Nepal so traveling takes quite some time. Once we had arrived at the border checkpoint, our equipment was moved across the border mostly by women porters. I remembered this picture from last year, but once again, it was for me an unbelievable and shocking fact to see these women carrying such heavy packs on their head. However, I had to learn again, that this is part of the culture here. After a short lunch on the Nepali side we finally crossed the “Friendship Bridge” by foot and had to go through the strict Chinese customs check. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the group visa of our Sherpas and it turned out that they were not able to enter Tibet that day. This had nothing to do with the papers of our two Sherpas, they were in order, but since most expeditions are using group visas for climbers and Sherpas, things can get complicated. If one person is missing or has been replaced by another person, the visa has to be reissued.
