Just after leaving Tingri, we stopped for a few minutes when our truck broke down, and then continued for 49km to our turn off for Kharta. About 15 children surrounded us when we stopped at the check post at the small village called Chay. The road, hacked out of the steep boulder strewn hill by the Chinese for their ascent of the North face in 1960, followed a zigzag pattern to the Pang La pass (5200m).