Day 9. April, 18. Shegar

When I woke up today in the morning, not getting out of the warm sleeping-bag, which had been so comfortably placed under the blanket of the comfortable hotel room in Shegar, I looked at the temperature on my watches. +9 degrees centigrade... At the altitude of 4200 m organism doesn't feel well at once, so yesterday at night Bogomolov and I had to drink a powder Nimesil, and also doctor Larin gave me a pill. I wonder, how do the guys from the film crew of Valdis Pelsh feel, not having an experience of ascents? 

Yesterday in the morning the editor Kristina (Valdis funnily calls her Kriska) and the cameraman Sasha procured a ladder, got up on to the roof of the hotel in Shigatse and interviewed mountaineers against a background of a famous Tashi Lhunpo monastery about why do they go to mount Everest, why can't they stay at home. The questions were standart: what do they need that for, isn't it fearful, how did the wives and children let them go and so on. Of course, the people who go to Everest on their own money (I mean not on the budgetary money / for free) - these people are adult and successful individuals, their answers and motivation on this action are (must be) bright and interesting. The only thing is that while creating the film the director with a steady hand, out of tens of hours of footage will cut only that material, that fits the pre-conceived concept of the film, and the true motivation of mountaineers will remain unclear and unnecessary. Bogomolov said: 'Those who shoot films always hear and take out of your entire speech only what they need to'; and I added: 'When the person talks to someone - he talks to oneself'.

Yesterday's way from Shigatse passed through two mountain passes. At the first - 4600 m - some of our colleagues began to tie the white scarfs made of a wire fabric to thousands of other scarfs and pennants (our white scarf were given to us on different occasions, such as arrival to the hotel or departure from the hotel). There were 3 scarf giving outs and 6 group photographings; it's not clear, who will watch those group photos, if no one, in my opinion, ever watch even a once-made group photo. 

Other colleagues began to take photos against the background of cairns (pile (or stack) of stones), which are called 'stupa' here in Nepal and in different countries they are called differently. The meaning of cairns is the same everywhere, and it is interesting, that high passes and stones on them force people to do the same thing in different parts of the world.

Between the passes we drove to one small town to have lunch and were attacked by the crowd of local kids, who were expecting to get sweets from our expedition. Their parents and older relatives asked for money in a same quite persistent way. Probably these were the people from the adjacent villages, who came in town for shopping. 

On a next pass - 5300 m - the view was completely different: the strongest biting wind, which blew through even the windproof jackets, which made the small stones, disturbed by our feet, move. After the pass - the descent to Shegar is almost of 1 km, but the altitude is still high - it is almost the saddle of Elbrus, and organism without acclimatization immediately reminds about the necessity of gradual ascent.

It is interesting, that the discomfort, caused by altitude (headache, sickness, weakness) every time is remembered again when arriving to mountains: you remember you had that feeling in mountains before. But when you go down to the plain, you only remember the good things: the beauty and the power of mountains, and you don't even remember about the human weakness. What a selective thing - memory. 

Today in the morning our group went to Shegar Dzong Monastery. It is a functioning monastery, which is located on the steep slope of the beautiful mountain. Dzong in Tibetan means fortress, and we walked up along its walls. There are about 40 monks who live and serve in the monastery. It is allowed to take photos in it, but to visit the temple, where the statue of Beddha is situated, you have to pay 20 Yuan per person.

The statue is pretty small, only 6-7 meters in hight, and it's situated on top of a boulder. You can walk around the boulder inside the temple, which is built around it. From the left it is a portrait of Dalai Lama under the version of Communist Party of China. The fact, that it is allowed to take photos in here - is a good thing, you can distantly show monarchs, and the typical sculptures of Beddhas, patriarchs and lamas with yellow hats, in front of which there is a fat, burning in the lampads. In general, they all - beddhas-lamas-patriarchs - from our European point of view are pretty similar.

When we came into the temple and paid 20 Yuan per person, monks were already sitting in the prayer hall - maybe it was just for us not to be sad to part with money. They didn't pray and left the hall just right after we left it; there was a combination of different feelings in thier faces.

It's hard to say for sure, but I think, that their presence was organised by our guide Nurbu. Word of honour, it is not a pity to pay 20 Yuan for sinking into such an incomprehensible, almost not staged and almost real life of a functioning Buddhist monastery, and also for the opportunity to take photos with real monks.

After the ascent of a mountain, another group photo was made - the 7th one, which no one will ever watch despite the bright colours of our costumes and backpacks, steep mountain and a blue sky with clouds. 

A charm of mountain trekking is beyond words, impossible to show on photos and posts in blog; it should be felt by oneself, and no one does it, generally. We discussed it with Sergey: why, despite the comparable cost, so few people go to at least the simple and amazing trekking routes in Nepal, for example to the Base Camp of Everest, instead of that they go mountain skiing from year to year to the same resorts. We haven't found an answer. No one of neither my friends nor Sergey's haven't been in Nepal for the last years, besides the trips with us. Apparently, it is much more fashionable and attractive to funnily go up and down in the lift in mountains and drink beer, than to ascend the mountain with a backpack on one's shoulders. 

But even in trekking you need not only to go up; the time always comes to go back down. In the photo a famous TV presenter and showman Valdis Pelsh, descending the mountain after the acclimatization trekking to the mountain above the monastery. Valdis proved to be a nice and erudite person. In collective he acts like as between friends, showing no conceit at all. His approach to the documentary film creation is quite large-scaled: high altitude cameramen Denis Provalov and Ivan Dusharin always film all our movements with two different cameras, and higher than ABC it is planned to equip all the mountaineers with the Go Pro video cameras - it was bought 20 of those. But only the idea of the film isn't clear enough. Well, time will tell.

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will be quite hard days in relation to acclimatization. Elevation changes between Shegar and BC  is 1 km, and for a few days we won't be feeling well. But we are ready for it, actually...