Update #4: Friday, 12 April 2002 from Xigatse (Shigatse):

We are in Xigatse now. We left Lhasa at 10:00am and arrived here at 4:00p. It was a beautiful drive up a valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks. Alex and I visited the Tashilhimpo monastery. We saw the world's biggest statue of the "future" Bhudda. It is 100 feet tall and enclosed in a beautiful structure. Then we went into the great gathering hall where there about 250 monks sitting, praying and having milk tea. We were able to walk among them, talk with them and take pictures. It was a little strange to be in the home of such holy people and have them look at us with the same sense of wonder we were looking at them with. Some were very nice and wanted to know where we were from and our names. They want me to mail them pictures and I will. Some were very shy. I cannot find the words to describe what a wonderful experience it was, with the awesome sounds, dim light and incense in the air. Truly an experience of a lifetime for me, to be sure! We leave for Xegar tomorrow. It will take eight hours or so to travel the 250 kilometers because the road is bad and gains elevation. On another note: We are thinking about using O's. After talking with many very experienced people we now feel that using O's will greatly increase our safety and chance of success. Sometimes the key is to be open-minded and flexible with the plan. We can always come back and try again without O's once we have the experience on this mountain and the extreme altitude. I do not think I will be able to send a dispatch from Xegar due to an expected lack of email capability there (our laptop is already at BC), so we will probably not send additional dispatches until we arrive at BC on the 15th.

Dispatches