In a jeep full of boiled yak

In the morning the guys pack up the jeep for the three-day trip to Base Camp and Tashi the housekeeper gives us two baskets full of yak meat.

"If you want to stop at villages for pictures along the way, you have to tell Yeshi, okay?" she says. "Otherwise he's just going to drive right by."

I get it: the villages don't interest the guides. It's like a Tibetan coming to Ireland to photograph Crumlin rather than the Cliffs of Moher.

"And be careful up there," says Tashi, waving us goodbye. "You feel sick you just come back."

It's okay, I don't need to be told. I'm too much of a hypochondriac to let myself die alone at the bottom of a mountain. And anyway, last night's fears have faded in the sunshine: I'm in a jeep packed with potatoes and candy and boiled yak, sleeping bags and blankets and hats, and three Tibetan Buddhists for guides.