To Embrace "The Third Goddess"
 | I was told that the best season for Mt. Everest tour is March - May and September - October. However in order to experience the Tibet Mountain Festival (15, July). I took a flight to Lhasa Airport in July. Wang, the travel guide, met me at the Lhasa Airport.From Lhasa Airport to Mt. Everest: It was a rain day, Wang told me that there are two routes to chose: a southern old road and a northern new motorway from Lhasa Gyantse to Shigatse (~670 km) . On the way, we enjoyed the beautiful scenes, fresh air of the World's Roof very much, as well as many famous sightseeing spots (It will be described in other articles). Finally we arrived the Longpu Temple. Longpu Temple is located at the end of the famous Longpu Glacier of Mt. Everest. It was built in 1899, At 5,154 m (16,909 ft) altitude, this is the highest temple in the world. Longpu Temple belongs to Red religion of Tibetan Buddhism. It has a major temple and 8 attached temples. Today it becomes the Base Camp of Mt. Everest climbers. Longpu Temple provides quite a number of rooms for tourists to stay. It becomes the highest hotel in the world. From here you can get the best view of Mt. Everest. A little Snack Bar on Mt. Everest: Beside the Longpu Temple, the local Tibetan opened a little Snack Bar. I found almost all the guests here went to that little Snack Bar first. We went in there too. Soft drink, wine, noodle, cake . . . are provided here. Quite comfortable in compare with driving on the mountain roads. We were relaxed. The View of Mt. Everest: Sat in the Little Snack Bar, I looked at the direction of Mt. Everest. Unfortunately the dark clouds occupied the sky, I could not see any profile of the mountain. "You had to wait . . . " Wang smiled, "The Third Goddess" will show you her beauty". The cloud gradually disappeared . . . "See, this is the "Flag Cloud", when it reached the top of Mt. Everest, the wind over there is very strong - equal to 9 grade." I saw some clouds around the mountain top, moving fast like the flags. Great! Mt, Everest getting clear and clear. From here to view Mt. Everest, it was a huge triangle shaped tower, with its large bottom melted into the Earth, its top penetrated into the Heaven. On its north range, 3 great glaciers (East, Middle and West Longpu Glaciers) extending like a huge tree from bottom to the top of mountain. What a magnificent view! I gazed Mt. Everest, I could not move my sight. People said that stood on the Roof of the World, you felt the smallness of yourself. It's true. And when you stood in front of Mt. Everest, this feeling was extremely strong! The time was 9 PM already, everybody was waiting for the magic moment - The sun set light will staining the whole peak of Mt. Everest into a red color. I never imaging "The Third Goddess" can be so charming and powerful. Oh! My Goddess! It;s getting dark and the wind became very strong. We returned to the little Snack Bar. All excited and trying to chat about the unique feelings which you never be able to experience anywhere else. Several Germans started to drink beers. Two of my friends joined them. A Chinese group showed their treasure - a bottle of rice wine contains 70% alcohol - and invited us. Drinking such strong alcohol on the altitude of >5,000 m was not a delight game. I felt slight worrying for my friends. The I saw a hill of empty wine bottles accumulated along the wall. It seems many heroes had done the drink celebrations here. I asked the boss of the Bar if any guest was ill and had to be transported down to the medical camp. He smiled mysteriously and answered: "No, only non-drinkers had to go to the doctors". Tibetan Mountain Festival: 17 July 1999 (Tibetan Calendar 4th June) was the Tibetan Mountain Festival. Tibetans believe this was the date when the Buddha give the first religious lecture. Tibetans wear new clothes, come to Longpu Temple attending the religious ceremony. Then they were singing and dancing outside the Temple until late night. | |
| 5 climb lines of Mt. Everest from North side. | ||
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| Quomolongma (Mt. Everest) Natural Reserve Stone | ||
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| Himalayas view under sun set | ||
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| Mt. Everest North side view | ||
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| Longpu Temple, to keep order. | ||
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| Famous glaciers view of Mt. Everest | ||
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| To view Himalayas from Mt. Everest | ||
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| Tibetans come to celebrate Mountain. Festival. |
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