Tour de Tibet

Matt's Tour de Tibet

Thrill seeking Tibetan style...Don't try this at home.



Greetings all,

Our eagerly anticipated tour of Tibet commenced on the 18th of October but it was still with some remorse that we left the entirely comfortable surrounds of our Kathmandu Guest House at 5:00am that morning. Goodbye western toilets... We did have a reasonable amount of trepidation towards this trip as we had booked it through arguably the shadiest organisation in all Kathmandu and it wasn't long before we were to regret that decision. Visa delays at the border, money issues and debate over what was actually included in the tour was to permeate through the entire trip.

Immediately once over the Friendship Bridge (above) which signifies the Nepali-Tibetan border, the Chinese influence can be detected, the difference in architecture is striking as are the features of Mao Zedong whose face can still be seen plastered in most buildings you enter and every single Chinese bank note. Surely one of the most beautiful tyrants ever to grace this earth. We were forced to stay the night at the border due to our unplanned but not entirely unexpected delay and we hit the bed at what we thought was about 11pm in preparation for a 7am departure the next day.

Frickin Beijing time. Turns out that all of China runs on the same timezone and I don't know if any of you have checked recently but Tibet is a bloody long way from Beijing. So in actual fact we were waking up for a 4:30am breakfast, pitch black and freezing. Daylight saving taken to the extreme basically. And to make matters worse, the breakfasts we tended to receive were hardly worth waking up for. A single pancake was the staple, maybe a boiled egg but boy oh boy we got to have as much jasmine tea (or flavourless water with annoying twigs in it) as our hearts desired. First day, scenery was pretty spectacular, but you get used to it after 6 days straight.

Finally it was time to actually head into Tibet and after packing our landcruiser we made the unpleasant discovery that our already cramped vehicle (5 tourists and 1 guide) actually had a seperate driver also, who had obviously not been enjoying the same serving sizes as we had thus far enjoyed. And so we headed onto the Friendship Highway, the road that leads all the way to Lhasa, and I tell you, I'd hate to see the quality of the road if they genuinely despised it. Basically a meandering goat track that for our first day at least continued ever upwards onto the giant Tibetan plain of over 4000m above sea level.


Some typical scenes along the friendship highway. Notice bargearse, our driver, above.

Very barren and bald country side, though quite beatiful at times; a seemingly inhospitable environment in which we came across very little evidence of any human habitation or infrastructure until we aproached what looked to be a giant Communist land fill which we assumed was obviously located to make use of the vast desolate spaces. Our disappointment was thus considerable when we pulled over in the middle of it and our guide started unloading our gear. And so it dawned on us that this was in fact the delightful township of Tingri, our first port of call on the trip. Quite the depressing place in all, so many sick kids and animals just wandering the streets, a distinct absence of hope seemed to permeate the place. Another village that rated highly on the Ipswich Scale of crappy towns, Lhatse, soon followed. All these small villages had the feeling of post-apocolyptic towns, as if the Chinese stormed in, built a whole heap of totally out of place buildings and then just let everything disintegrate. Everything is rundown, overgrown, and everybody just seems to wander the streets asking for money. We don't actually have any photos of these towns and we were strictly forbidden to take any. Any shots I'm sure wouldn't do much for Tibetan tourism.

The windswept trail to the Tibetan basecamp of Everest (above) and basecamp itself below.

Our tour included an expensive detour to the Tibetan base camp of Everest, very much meant to be a highlight of the trip. Unfortunately not. A nagging cough turns into a full blown case of pneumonia (at least it felt like that) whilst hiking the 7km to the camp from Rongbuche monastary in the midst of a cyclonic snowstorm. We were forced to stay the night up there at camp and so there I was in the middle of a blizzard, -15 degrees C, wind blowing a gale at over 5100m above sea level, in a frickin tent. Its hard enough breathing with a cold at the best of times but try it with less than 50% oxygen. Classic example of piss poor timing and not even counting 7312 yaks could get me a single wink of sleep. Apparently the views of Everest are stunning from the camp but we were forced to depart disappointed due to the unrelenting inclement weather.

Sickness tended to plague us over the entire duration of the trip, in fact apart from the first day, I did not have a single day of even average health. Your immune system cops a hammering, firstly you're at altitude and secondly you're among Tibetans. I think I mentioned in the previous entry that one's bowel movements were staple conversation in the mountains but in Tibet you didn't even need to bring it up, we inherently understood each other's pain. The hygiene here is SO bad in most places, as soon as you shake one stomach bug, you've got another and all the while your lungs are inhaling incredible amounts of tobacco smoke (everyone smokes), incense, and all sorts of foul smelling air. Basically the entire time, my exits were comparable to two leaking faucets (equally viscous) over which I had precious little control. Two minute calls were the best you could hope for and often times that was hardly enough. After one particularly infamous serve of sweet and sour pork, all three of us were suddenly summoned by "the call" whilst touring a large monastary. I'm ashamed to say it, but we all had no option but to seriously desicrate a most holy site of the Buddhist faith. I'm sure to be coming back in my next life as a dung beetle or something.

Mmm, anyone for a barbie? Every second shop it seemed was one of these open air butchers. Smelt like it too and I nearly throw up each time I remember it.

In any case, crapping outdoors (or in your pants which we were not immune to; NEVER trust a fart when you're in this part of the world) was infinitely more pleasurable than the prospect of a Tibetan squatter. Man those things have to be seen and smelt to be believed. Tibetans sure have rotten aim and it was always quite the gauntlet one faced to avoid trodding on any unpleasurable leftovers. In any case you firstly had to remember to duck your head under the tiny Tibetan designed entrance (Pat of course, bless him, was quite at home, in fact he often liked to use these doorways as slam dunk practise). I however, many times found myself staggering about in delirium within inches of the black hole due to yet another miscued entry. My himalayan landscaped skull pays testament to this everpresent problem.

One of the far too few warning signs of the dangers of tiny Tibetan door design.

Was very glad to leave the open sewers of Tingri and Lhatse and disappointment of Everest behind as from then on everything seemed to be on the improve, albeit marginally. The most notable improvement was in the road conditions. At last we experienced some smooth bitumen which appeared to be ornamented with decorative markings of dashed lines down the centre. Not quite sure of the logic behind them as they obviously served no purpose whatsoever, at least for our driver and particularly around blind hairpin corners on the side of a mountain. Driving in Tibet is quite an experience. Tibetan logic is that so long as you beep your horn incessantly before any corner, you don't have to lower your own speed as it can be safely assumed that any oncoming traffic will of course take note of your beeping and conveniently slow down to let you pass.

Bitumen!!

Not only are horns used incessantly throughout Tibet, they actively encouraged. I'm glad we had one however, particular round those blind mountainside corners, an example below.

Thankfully, to ease the white-knuckled terror associated with being a passenger in such conditions, our guide had a few tapes of Tibetan favourites to distract us. Bob Marley and Tracy Chapman are SO popular here, its all you ever hear and they very much provided the soundtrack of our trip, along with a collection of best of boy bands. In fact, up to this point, "Give me one reason to stay here" could well have been our official theme song. Thankfully our remaining destinations of Shigatse (second largest city in Tibet), Guyantse and Lhasa was to redeem our opinion somewhat of Tibet.

Shigatse (above) the Las Vegas of Tibet. Except for the casinos. The large monastary and "Stupa" of Guyantse.

On the high wall of the fortress around Guyantse monastary. Guyantse is one of the few towns in which a traditional Tibetan village has been kept in tact and seperate from the Chinese development.

After the very basic and poverty-stricken communities of Tingri and Lhatse, it was quite the surprise to see the comparitively ultra modern communities of Shigatse, Guyantse and in particular, Lhasa, the Forbidden City. We suddenly found ourselves in nice hotels with TVs, showers, and sweet mother of God, flushing western toilets. Quite the contrast. Most of the few monastaries that survived the Communist's cultural revolution exist in these cities also, and are most impressive (see below).

Is Tibet communist?...Chinese influence is everywhere, see left and right.

Tibet before the Chinese invasion and occupation in 1951 was of course a Buddhist state headed by the Dalai Lama and despite the efforts of the Chinese, Buddhism still appears to be the dominant cultural force in the area and many Tibetans are outspokenly anti-Chinese/Communist. As mentioned above, there are still several monastaries in the larger cities and a large population of monks can often be seen around the place in their robes and surprisingly, mobile phones. One aspect of buddhism that is well and truly alive and hence taken advantage of, is the insane amount of begging that goes on. The donation of money to monks and the poor is seen as one of the major ways of gaining merit, or improving your karma. I've never seen such forceful begging, you can barely walk 10m without someone sticking their hands out saying "money, money". They'll often grab you and harass you for some time down the street.

Yep, just like in Australia, ze ladies can't keep their hands off me... one of the more persistent examples of children beggars.

Many Tibetans are quite the budding capitalists also, despite the communist regime and they'll try to fleece your money out of anything, but particularly photos. A photo of anything costs money, for example, you try and take a photo of one of the 1 billion yaks in Tibet, and before you know it you're getting harrassed to pay often several dollars for it. It's ridiculous, like paying for a photo of a sheep in New Zealand. One particular custom that I thought was great and one that the west could certainly learn from is that Tibetan women, instead of wearing a wedding ring to signify their commitment, wear an apron at all times. Gold Jerry, gold.

For such a communist country, its quite funny to see so many swastikas, an ancient Buddhist symbol, plastered all over the place.

The large monastary of Shigatse, several Dalai Lamas are buried there.

Lhasa is of course the ultimate destination for most travellers in Tibet and most Buddhist pilgrims in fact. We had visions and expectations of a mystical and untouched city at the foot of the majestic Potala Palace. This expectation was quickly cast aside as we drove down the 6-lane concrete highway into the centre, passing giant department stores, hotels and business centres along the way. The Potala was typically very impressive but the giant concrete square and communist monuments everywhere tended to rob the place of its mystery.

The money shot of Tibet, the majestic Potala Palace which dominates Lhasa. Below is a view from the top of the palace over the giant communist square which I imagine is used for massacres and other assorted communist activities.


We had 5 days to ourselves in Lhasa as we parted company with our guide upon arrival. Quickly realised that there isn't in fact a lot to do in Lhasa except visit various monastaries and at the risk of sounding quite the cultural neanderthal, once you've seen one monastary you've seen them all it feels like. I'm sure that's not the case but it certainly didn't help when the extent of any tour by our guide consisted of "This is monastary. Monks live here. Ok bye." In any case much of my time was spent squatting over our hostel's toilet, spewing forth watery bodily fluids from every orifice, ears excluded. On my rare escapes from the porcelain prison (parole conditions dictated that I was never more than the aforementioned two minute call distance away) we kept ourselves occupied by checking out the obligatory monastaries, walking the markets, seeing a chinese dubbed version of War of the Worlds (why the hell did all the aliens just die? Where on earth did Robbie come from? How did Tom's car survive a 747 landing on it?) and also hanging about in crappy, smoke-filled internet cafes...

Anyways, I've included a few more photos of the landscapes and general scenes we encountered below but in general and when we get our next batch of photos on CD, I'll try and post some photos of inside the monastaries and Potala. But as "interesting" as Tibet was, I can honestly say I'm very much looking forward to getting back into the clean air of the mountains, the Annapurna circuit is up next. Still, I hope I haven't sounded negative at all about Tibet, if you enjoy rough off-road driving, exceptionally rude crowds of pickpocketing pilgrims, beggars, funky air, spitting, crapping your pants, and Bob Marley, Tibet could be just the place for you....

Til next time.

Everest Base Camp Trek

Everest Base Camp Stuff :-

We walked 15 days for that? The abandoned quarry that is base camp.

Man, the flight to Lukla from Kathmandu to start the trek is something to behold, although nothing compared to the taxi ride to get to the tin shed that is the Kathmandu domestic airport. After checking in at the Sita air counter which doubles as a cake stall at the local school fete, and getting the Nepalese grope ("no, those are actually my testicles") we hung about for the presumed half hour before our reported takeoff time. Seems that Nepal has a 12% sales tax on everything, including time so closer to 2 hours later we finally made it out to the tarmac to inspect our magnificent flying machine, a Dornier 227. I think it was called this after flying 227 successful sorties in the Korean War. Was at least comforting to see our bags safely packed into the nose of the aircraft, that is until we saw it take off with us still standing on the runway. Hmmm.

Alrighty then, so next flight we get on board and leave Kathmandu far below. There was much nervous jesting amongst the three of us about our chances of seeing it through to lunchtime but man, when we got above the cloudline, the whole horizon was just one long stretch of snowcapped himalayan mountains. Beautiful stuff and to see them seemed almost a worthy return if we were not to land safely in Lukla.

If there's one thing you must do in your life, it is to land at Lukla airport. I'd heard it was short but crickey, I reckon Maurice Green could run it in under 10 seconds. Its slopes up the hill at about 25 degrees and you drop from a cruising speed of about 600 clicks to zero in about 4 seconds, either by means of reverse thrust or the side of the mountain. Thankfully the reverse thrust was operating sufficiently and we able to step out onto the tarmac to discover our bags lying thereabouts also, obviously ready for our or anyone's collection. Unfortunately someone had obviously believed that anything not locked inside was fair game and my walking poles were no more. For some reason however, nobody seemed to believe that my cricket bat was worth stealing. Strange people these sherpas.

The itsy bitsy airstrip at Lukla

Lukla is at 2800m above sea level, higher than any point in Australia by some margin and you can already feel the depletion of oxygen. Thankfully our first stretch was downhill for a while until the village of Phakding. The great thing about hiking at altitude is that you cannot ascend too far in an any one day due to the risk of acute mountain sickness so on the way up, we were barely hiking more than 3 to 4 hours in any one day. Those hours could often feel like 30 to 40 of course considering you're walking straight up with a 20 kg pack on your back and near the top of our trek, you're breathing less than half the regular oxygen. That spare tyre I carry around my waist may have contributed to the difficulty also. I did however get complicated from several Nepalis about my "strong" legs. I think it was a compliment. Even with my strong legs however, the going was really tough in some stretches, so much so that I reckon I now know how Pricey felt that day we hiked (and he crawled) up Mt. Warning. On second thought I guess I might be being a little melodramatic, it wasn't THAT bad.

Rooms with a view. That's actually Everest in the background...yep, 40c a night.

The three of us did the trek without any porters or guides which had several advantages, but obviously several glaring disadvantages. Each village you stay at along the way has several lodges for you to choose from and you quickly get used to bartering Nepali style (i.e."Room for 3?", "yes, 100 rupee each", "20 each?", "OK."). Basically these lodges are all desperate for you to stay so long as you eat there as that's where they make their money. We usually paid no more than the equivalent of AU$1 per night for acc. but food costs started to spiral once we headed further up the range putting our strict "stickin' to the thou" budget at great risk. (roughly AU$20/day). The reason for this increase in price is that the only way to get any supplies that aren't grown in the villages up to each one is to physically carry them, either by yaks or by porters. $2 for a mars bar doesn't seem so expensive when you realise that some 5 foot nothing 90 pound sherpa carried it plus about half a tonne of other stuff up over 3 vertical kilometres.

Some typical scenery encountered at "lower" altitudes, i.e. >4000m. Lots of bridges like the one in the backround, often 100m or so high, with files of yaks to compete with.

As an independent trekker you really start to develop a pride and comraderie with other indies and similtaneously you start to despise the lazy bastards who get these little sherpa dudes, often half their size, to carry all sorts of ridiculous loads for around AU$10 a day. We would often shake our walking sticks in an insultory manner at such heinous practises until we realised that this extra exhertion nearly caused us to collapse from exhaustion. To be able to survive hiking at these heights, we continuously had to employ "power breathing", basically breathing really deeply and forcefully exhaling each breath. Caused much sniggering amongst many of the locals to hear these three whitey sealevel lubbers with their feebel respiratory systems making such a racket merely to make it up a flight of 3 stairs. I'm sure they could hear us all well before we arrived in each village.

I think someone should contact his union...

One great thing about hiking at altitude is that its neccessary to take acclimatisation days, perfect opportunities for moi to make some moves on ze ladies. Hmm, actually I can't back that one up. And even if I could, we came up with a theory about women and hiking in the Himalayas that proved remarkably accurate for the duration of our trek, the main hypothesis being that no hot single chicks hike in the himalayas. We did run into several beautiful German women, including one particularly beautiful woman we dubbed our "white whale" (who on days of bad weather provided the best view), but they were few and far between and quickly at pains to mention their boyfriends. In any case I'm quickly coming to realise that the freelove Everest freeway which I had hoped would eventuate is becoming increasingly unlikely if this hypothesis remains to be true. Basically for me to have any success, we shall need to run into a group of 3 or more single girls in a group (according to our theory, odds are approx. 1,206,790:1) as I am travelling with two men of far greater credentials than I (without a guitar or piano I don't have a single trump card in my hand) and hence I shall always be reduced to the slim pickings of third choice. Basically once all the sums are done, I think my chances are even less than what they were in Brisbane (is it possible to have negative chance?).

One of the many lodges we encountered without any beautiful single women.

Anyway we resigned ourselves to the fact we would primarily be enjoying the company of men, a sausage fest of sorts, but as a result we did meet lots of interesting dudes from all over the world. One Jesus looking dude from America called Dave who has travelled all through South and central America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and central Asia for 11 months on less than US$10 a day. Seems you just need a tent, a bicycle and an extreme willingness to rough it. A great Brit guy called Charlie who we had several mammoth games of 500 with has cycled his way around the world for nearly 10 years after quitting his job in the oil business. Puts our tame little 3 month adventure to considerable shame.

I won't try and describe the scenery, you can gauge for yourself from the photos, but basically the first 5 or 6 days were very green, rolling valleys, steep gorges and the like. Once we started getting up really high (4000m +) we really started getting some spectacular views of the peaks that were all around us. You'd have to be quick however, it really paid to wake up early each morning when there would often be not a single cloud in the sky and hence the most crystal clear views you could possibly imagine. Soon as the sun started heating the snow and glaciers however, the clouds could roll in within a matter of minutes and you sometimes wouldn't see them again for the rest of the day. It changes so quick that literally by the time you got your camera out for snap, the peak you were just admiring could be gone.

Some typical scenes we encountered most of the way up

The ultimate destination of the trek was of course base camp and we finally to got to the final village before it, Gorak Shep, after day 9 or 10. Talk about rooms with a view. In several places along the way we were paying around the single aussie dollar to stay in reasonably comfortable lodges with simply the most spectacular mountains right outside our window. Very nice to wake up to. Anyways from Gorak Shep we headed off towards BC, cricket bat in tow. For some reason I had this idea that it would be cool to play cricket at 5400m and damned if I was going to give up on the notion. Walked along a giant ridge above the massive Khumbu glacier which runs from the base of Everest. Basically the path to the camp is a giant pile of rocks which you traverse for several hours only to find more rocks which is base camp. There is absolutely nothing there except some dirty ice and a shiteload of rocks, basically looks like a frickin huge quarry. There were two downed russian helicopters (we saw three on our trek) which prompted a flurry of "get to ze charpper" paraphrases which we never seemed to tire of.

"We all live in giant blue downed russian helicopter, a giant blue downed russian helicopter..."

Hmm, the bat. Halfway to BC I had thought it a grand idea to try and hit some small rocks baseball style into the glacial lakes far below. Unfortunately however it seems that I seriously underestimated the friction coefficient between my gloved hand and the bat handle and hence the normal force I applied was not quite sufficient to engage a solid grip. Suffice to say the bat went about 3 times as far as its intended target and smashed into many more pieces down on the glacier below. Not one to give up on fanciful ideas easily, I was convinced that I could salvage enough of the bat to realise my dream. I immediately regretted that decision once I slid down a manmade avalanche of pebbles and scree down to the glacier. Very unstable going but I did manage to rescue three of the major components of the damned bat.

Me on the glacier picking up that frickin bat.

One thing that really is annoying hiking at 5000m+ especially is that it is usually freezing (-10degrees and below) so you rug up to the max but as soon as you start hiking and your heart rate jumps to 150 in a matter of seconds, your boiling inside a fleece furnace. You therefore start carrying all your warm gear but when you stop for a few seconds to catch your breath you're freezing again. Anyways I got so sick of carrying three bloody pieces of the bat plus a yak hat, down vest and jacket that I ended up just chuckin the dam thing into the glacial stream where hopefully the bastard will lay frozen in an icy grave. As you could imagine, the other two found this whole episode entirely hilarious considering I'd lugged this highly impractical item all the way to base camp for nothing.

One of the many great views from Kala Patar, that's Pumo Ri in the background, over 7000m

The real highlights of the trek however were the climb up a minor peak called Kala Patar (which provides the best views of Everest) and crossing over the Cho La Pass to the village of Gokyo. We woke up at 4:30 to head up Kala Patar to catch the sunrise but it seemed our diligence would go unrewarded as there seemed to be cloud cover all around whilst we sat up the top, myself fretting about the seemingly realistic chance of frostbite in all 20 digits. Fleece socks my ass. Fortunately however, our persistence paid off and much as it did for incy wincy, the sun dried up all the clouds and we had some spectacular view of everest open up to us.


The money shot...yep, that's Everest.



Favourite day however was crossing over to Gokyo via the Cho La pass. There are two major treks through the SoluKhumbu region (basically Everest national park) which in plan make a giant Y shape and split paths at the village of Namche Bazaar. Head east and you get to base camp, head west and get to the village of Gokyo and its beautiful turquoise lakes. You can cross over from these two ultimate destinations however via the somewhat adventurous Cho La Pass, a large glacier in between two large peaks. Awesome. After leaving some very Scottish highland-esque surroundings, we climbed up about 400-500m of steep rock scrambling until we hit this snow covered arctic plateau, giant crevasses and all. Fortunately we were simply able to follow the paths led by those before us to the other side and then we faced with a very steep descent down snow covered skree, basically felt descending a steep mountain of ice cube boulders. Pretty hairy but luckily apart from a few arse slides, we had no injuries.

Notice the large deposits of snow some of us including Papa Smurf on the left were able to sustain within our 3week growths for this arctic explorer shot. I emphasize the word some. That's us on the Cho La Pass by the way.

Soon after this the strangest event occurred of the journey occurred when we pushed on from the village of Thangnack at the bottom of the pass we had just descended from. The three of us had joined up with two dutch brothers and attempted to follow a supposedly clear cut path across the final glacier over to Gokyo. It was clear cut for quite some distance until we hit a cliff overlooking a glacial lake. Were forced to turn all the way back to the village to seek clearer directions which we received from a friendly but hardly confidence inspiring Briton. Seems we were following the old path and the new path was very poorly marked having only recently been forged. In failing light and enveloping cloud, knowing that we had at least 2 hours of solid hiking ahead of us (assuming we took the right path) we took the gamble to push on. It was then that some stray dog who had first started sniffing about our heels in the village sprung out of the mist and started running just ahead of us. Without having any better clue we just decided to follow the same path as dog, basically so we didn't have to make any choice of our own rather than anything else. The dog always kept about 30m or so ahead of us and would stop if we got too far behind. I'm still struggling to come to grips that we put such absolute faith in this dog but he took us all the way through a myriad of confusing half paths for two hours to Gokyo. Unbelieveable. To show our extreme gratitude we gave him two crackers.

"You're like a wise Buddha, all covered in hair"

Hygiene on this trip was fairly nonexistent. (Girls please stop reading here). Toilet talk and the state of ones bowel eruptions were the staple topics over lunch. I was pretty much fine the whole time, making regular deposits of solid brown bullion for the duration of the trip. Tim however, man that guy went through the whole gamut of poop, from pumpkin soup and beyond but the farts were unbelievable. Supposedly altitude brings on an increase in gas but had we been able to harness the energy he was releasing we could powered several of those villages for weeks, admittedly it would have stank worse than their usual fuel of dried yak shit. It was bad. Grooming also went out the window, the other two more hirsute of our party looked like they had been stuck on a desert island for 2 months by the end of it. I of course looked like I had forgotten to shave that morning. We all stank however as you can imagine when you freeball in the same pants for two weeks. Oh boy, that smell of nether region sweat is the absolute worst. It still haunts me. I did manage to have one bath of sorts in one of the glacial lakes at Gokyo. Not recommended. Generally a glacial lake is pretty cold but especially in the early morning when the outside temperature is -5 degrees. I'm still waiting for feeling in 3 of my toes and I didn't see my little buddies for at least 3 hours after that little episode. Was quite invigorating nonetheless.

I immediately regret this decision...

Great feeling to finally get back to a more reasonable oxygen level, felt like you could run a marathon. To put into perspective how much the altitude affects your ascent, we took about 9 days to get up to BC but descended the same 35 odd horizontal km in 2 days fairly comfortably. So great to safely arrive back in Kathmandu to our favourite guest house where a buffet breakfast of bacon, eggs, pancakes, croissants, tomatoes, cereal, juice etc was waiting for us, all for about $3. I love kathmandu.

And to finish off with, here's just a few pics of Tim looking gay/hot, whatever you're fancy....

Holy incredibly gay looking balaclava batman.