When I first noticed this couple back in Lhasa, I sat next to them in Tashi’s. I could not help but overhear their conversation. Their voices sounded full of energy and excitement about their first trip to Tibet. They had both recently arrived from Kathmandu. Neither had previously known the other, but they quickly found that they had similar visions of what they wanted to do in Tibet. They were filled with enthusiasm about all the different treks they could do in this desolate and mystical country. When I saw them in Tingra fatigue showed in their eyes, the harshness of travel and life in Tibet had taken its toll on their bodies and their minds. They were returning to Kathmandu for some rest, relaxation and recuperation.

As I walked back to my room I took a moment to look up at the brilliant night sky above me. Since I spent most every hour of the day and night outdoors I became keenly aware of the heavens above me. I always knew the current phase of the moon and how many more days remained until the next full moon. During the day I could tell the time by the position of the sun in the sky. Without the light pollution from big cities, the stars and the Milky Way shown with an intensity that is difficult to ever see in the USA. A brilliant flash of light from the south side of the Himalaya created a fantastic silhouette of Mt. Everest and the entire Himalaya. A few moments later there was another flash and another. Back in India and Nepal the monsoon season had rolled in. Apparently a lightning storm raged back on the south side of the mountains. For the next couple of nights I was treated to images of lightning storms illuminating the highest peaks in the world.

The Road To Mt.Kailash

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a mountain called Mt. Meru at the center of the universe, the center of the Buddhist mandala. It is the connection between the physical world that we live in and the spirit world. Tibetans believe that the mountain called Kang Rimpoche, or Mt. Kailash, in Western Tibet is Mt. Meru. An arduous 32-mile path encircles the mountain. It is said that if you walk this circuit 108 times you will achieve nirvana or enlightenment. To make a pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash and walk just one kora is a once-in-a-lifetime event that every Tibetan wishes to do.

Two roads cross Western Tibet, the “north road” and the “south road.” In 1992 I hitchhiked and walked on the north road to reach Mt. Kailash in mid-October. I struggled through a cold and brutal, month-long trip. Sitting in the back of Chinese cargo trucks day and night, the metal frame of the trucks pounded against my bones for days on end. At least on the bike I could decide when to stop and rest. I would no longer be at the mercy of a crazy Khampa truck driver. On this trip I started out for Mt. Kailash on neither the “north road” nor the “south road.” I traveled on a track that marked a shortcut between the road to Kathmandu and the “south road” to Kailash. During my research, I had looked for the track, some maps showed it, some had nothing. In 1992 I had cycled the road from Lhasa to Kathmandu. I remembered seeing the turnoff for the path at the time. I just thought to myself, “I think that I am in the middle of nowhere, that path REALLY goes out into the middle of nowhere.” This time I did not cycle past the turnoff. A few yards off the main road, a young Tibetan boy on horseback looked at me as if I had most certainly taken a wrong turn. No one in their right mind would leave the main road and head northwest into nowhere.

I lost the track a half dozen times. I knew that I had to go west toward Paiku Tso Lake, so I would just head cross-country until I hit the braided path again. On the hard surface of the stony desert the difference between riding ‘on the road’ and ‘off road’ disappeared. The track would split into two and three different paths. My mind raced with thoughts of which one to take. The last thing in the world I needed was to spend a day riding in the wrong direction. West, west toward Paiku Tso Lake, I checked the US military maps, the Chinese government maps and my compass. By late afternoon, I spotted the turquoise blue waters of a large lake. I knew that I had made the right choice. From where I stood, I could follow a line up the north ridge to the top of the 26,397-foot [8047 meter] summit of Mt. Shishapangma. I watched the massive moisture-laden monsoon clouds of India and Nepal push up over the tops of the Himalaya. Back in San Francisco I used to watch clouds similarly push over the forest green tops of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I climbed inside my sleeping bag, listened to the short-wave for a couple minutes, ate a piece of chocolate, and laid down to sleep. This evening I knew that everything that I had ever done in my life, every bike ride, every book and map I read, every trip, had led up to this exact day, to this exact moment. Everything I had done before was just preparation for this ride across nowhere, for a dinner of ramen noodles and flat bread by myself in front of the biggest peaks in the world.

The Buddha’s first noble truth states that “Life is suffering.” On this day I started to come to my own understanding of the first noble truth, “Everyday is a struggle.” The day started easily, I cranked out six miles with no problems. The next 12 miles took eight hours of pushing, pulling and hauling my bike through fine yellow and white sand speckled with small tufts of green grass. When I tried to push the bike from behind, the front wheel would plow into the sand, when I tried to carry it, I could only get about ten feet [3 meters] before exhaustion prevented me from going on. Fellow travelers had informed me that there would be many more miles of thick sand on the south road to Kailash. On days like these I was Sisyphus, the figure in Greek mythology burdened with the task of pushing a large boulder up a steep mountain hillside everyday, at the end of the day the rock would roll back down the hill and he would have to repeat his struggle once again the following morning. I knew that everyday I continued moving closer and closer to Mt. Kailash, but on days like this the mountain seemed an interminable ways off.

I remembered a time back in Shigatse, when I talked to a woman who had hitched a ride in the back of a truck from Mt. Kailash to Shigatse on the south road. I asked her if she thought it was possible to travel the road on a bike. She replied, “That truck ride was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, during one of the bumpiest parts of the ride I just thought to myself, it could be worse, I could be on a bike.”

I knew that roughly 90 miles remained to the next town, Saga. Everything I ate or drank I had to carry with me or find along the way. The more I carried the heavier my bike became. I had to ration my food to make it last. It would be a long time before I could find things like good chocolate or dried fish. To continue I needed to find fresh water at least once a day. My water filter made it possible to drink from a mud puddle on the side of the road. The only thing that I could not drink was salt water. Unfortunately salt water fills a large part of the lakes in Western Tibet. Hunger tugged at my mind all the time. I could eat enough so that my stomach would not be subjected to really strong physical pains, but I could never eat enough. I carried food in my packs but I knew that I had to save rations for the remainder of the trip to Saga. Since this marked the beginning of my journey through the desert terrain of Western Tibet, I did not know exactly how many miles I could travel in a day, or how much food I would need at these extreme altitudes. I thought to myself, maybe I should be eating more food, but if I had miscalculated I would run out of supplies before I arrived at Saga. During this part of the trip my logistical planning became one of my most important skills. For the next few days I kept riding toward a distant peak that from the ONC maps looked to be near my next destination.