You’ll never guess who I met at Base Camp.

After a quick stop to watch the monks and nuns at the Rongpo monastery at prayer this morning, we finally got up to Base Camp proper this afternoon.

It was pretty bleak. Basically, a cluster of tents on an exposed rocky flat. It made us feel almost grateful for our humble cabins back at the media centre.

The views, as always, were a compensation.

I was trying to get a couple of basic facts from an official whose English was as good as my Chinese when we reached the point of non-communication.

I turned around to find someone to help me out with translation and found a willing soul who I assumed to be from the corps of Chinese media at the camp.

He translated and nodded in reply to my cheery “thanks mate”.

Next thing I knew, though, three Chinese women journalists were squealing like schoolgirls and posing for pictures with my interpreter.

Turns out this was Zhang Chao Yang, CEO of Chinese web portal Sohu and hero to China’s vast young army of netizens (couldn’t someone invent a new name for web users?).

Once we repaired to a nearby tent for tea, Zhang told me he was not only at base camp because Sohu was a media partner of the Everest leg of the torch relay, but also because he was a keen climber himself.

He has climbed a fair few mountains himself and been to 6,666m on Everest. He didn’t fancy going all the way to the top, though, because he thought it might damage the brain which has made his fortune.

I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if there were at least some celebrity involvement with this great adventure.

Ed adds: Our team have to tough it out for a few more days at Everest. You’d think by looking at the pictures the weather is lovely, right? Wrong. Apparently it’s blowing a gale up there, so at the very earliest it’ll be Saturday before there’s any action. Read Nick’s story.

And by the way, we’ve hit the 100-day countdown till the start of the Games. For all our Olympic stories, take a look at our website .

Pix from the top (l-r). Armed Chinese border police stand in formation at a camp near the base camp of Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma April 30, 2008. Buddhist monks and nuns pray as they sit in the temple of Rongbo Monastery situated at the foot Everest. Yaks laden with supplies walk past the large camp for the Olympic torch’s ascent of Everest, also known as Qomolangma, in the Tibet Autonomous Region April 30, 2008. Chinese journalists taking it easy. And the Reuters team … Mark, Dave and Nick (tough job guys!: Ed). All snaps by David Gray.

More negotiations over whether we should delay our departure for base camp kept us off the road for an extra couple of hours and stretched the patience of the Chinese journalists.

All was forgotten, though, a couple of hours later when got our first real look at Everest from the top of a pass.

Arrayed in front of us was not only the famous mountain itself but four more of the world’s 14 8,000m-plus peaks.

It was a whole lot more impressive than I had thought it would be. I was not really aware of how much my concept of a mountain had been based on Everest itself.

Two hours later, we were at Rongpo Monastery (5010m) where the Everest Base Camp media centre is located.

There followed a frustrating evening and the first casualty of our rapid rise to altitude, read more about it here.

Pix from the top: The peak of Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma, can be seen behind the Olympic flag (R) as it flies next to the Chinese national flag (C) and the official Beijing Olympic Games flag on the outskirts of Everest Base Camp April 28, 2008. Foreign and local journalists look from an observation point at Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma, near the township of Shegar. A Chinese policeman salutes as a convoy of official Chinese government vehicles passes his checkpoint near Mount Everest. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA)

After another round of negotiations with the organisers the next morning, we reached an agreement that we would get an extra day to acclimatize before we reached base camp.

That didn’t, of course, mean we would make the short journey to the next stop at Lhartse in short order and have the rest of the day to relax.

The journey was extended with a trip to a hot spring.

There, I was encouraged to consult a purveyor of traditional Tibetan medicine, who based his prognosis on feeling the pulse on both wrists.

After his first call went a bit wide of the mark (Had a motorcycle hit me 10 days ago? Er, no), he hurriedly decided I was in excellent health and had no need of his herbs.

I was reassured that there was no mention of altitude sickness (a cinch diagnosis for any Tibetan snake-oil salesman faced with a European, surely?) but had my confidence tested almost immediately when our little coach rattled its way up a winding shingle track to the Tsam Monastery (4,500m).

It was worth every hair-raising bend of the drive to see the intricate wood carvings in the 1,000-year-old cluster of buildings.

A group of pilgrims shared their picnic of ground barley and dried mutton and there was cup after cup of Yak butter tea.

Lhartse (4,200m) itself was nondescript but it was a mild shock to realize that there were still places in China where children beg for pencils.

Pix from the top: An elderly Tibetan woman walks towards the 1000-year-old Tsam Monastery located on a mountain at an elevation of over 4500 metres near the Tibetan city of Shigatse April 26, 2008. The 1000-year-old Tsam Monastery located on a mountain at an elevation of over 4500 metres near the Tibetan city of Shigatse. A young Buddhist monk puts his hands together as he stands in a temple at the 1000-year-old Tsam Monastery. A young Buddhist monk stands in the Tsam Monastery. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA)