The world's highest-elevation post office will start stamping letters and postcards at the Tibetan peak of Mount Qomolangma within a month, giving tourists yet another reason to trek into China's most celebrated mountain range.
The Mount Qomolangma Base Camp is more than 5,200 metres above sea level and the post office is primarily being opened to provide mail services to tourists and locals on Mount Qomolangma, said Dopuje, deputy head of the branch bureau for management of Mount Qomolangma Nature Reserve in Tingri County in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Mobile phone and telecoms services will be provided later.
The local residents are actually liaison officials from the Mountaineering Association of China and mountaineers from other countries of the world.
In addition, though, tens of thousands of domestic and overseas tourists flock to the world's highest mountain every year.
Until now, those tourists had to buy their postcards of the snow-capped vistas Mount Qomolangma and mail them from elsewhere.
"I really want to share this enjoyment with relatives and friends," one tourist from Guandong Province said. "If only postcards could be sent from here, that would be meaningful."
So far, the only communications device on Mount Qomolangma is a maritime satellite phone used in emergencies.
"Mail will be sent along with motor vehicles carrying trash down the mountain and then re-sent to other parts of the world," said Dopuje, who warned that it would take longer for the mail to reach the destination than from other post offices.
A letter from Mount Qomolangma to Beijing will take more than a week to arrive.
(Xinhua 05/07/2001)
