This seems to require a tangent to my post... to explain and elaborate on Rune's wise ruminations.
Rather than post a pm to His Ungulateness, I will share with all.
He posits... how did I arrive here... by bridge, or tunnel - and at what cost?
Rune says No One... could take the tunnel, or bridge?
The first issue, a tunnel - I cannot confirm, other than to relate a personal anecdote.
Some years ago (2005) when living in Ya'an, Sichuan - I undertook a circumnavigation, by foot, around GonggaShan in Kham, in eastern Tibet... After 4 days, traversing remote valleys and a 4,900m pass, I chanced to stop, with my companions, at GonggaShi - a small, isolated temple underneath the west face of the impressive ice mountain... (7556m - but once described, in 1930, as the highest mountain in the world)
After copious consumption of baijiu, we were introduced to the abbot of this alpine shrine... while touring his monastery, seeing amazing religious relics, centuries old... seeing Buddha's hand print in a rock, and the impressions of his buttocks, where he sat and rested - we passed by a curtained room through which our passage was denied. When queried, the abbot suggested a dark and mysterious passage, a cave, a tunnel, below Gongga, where unspeakable spirits dwelled and no one in living memory had explored - and returned. I thought no more of it and returned to my cups.
In retrospect, perhaps the Cochiguaz legend of a tunnel, thru the center of the earth, from Tibet to the Cochiguaz Valley may be true - not having passed that way, I cannot say.
In fact, GonggaShan (using GoogleEarth) is approx. 20,000km away from the Cochiguaz Valley... the furthest lineal distance on the globe = almost exactly opposite = if you went thru the center of the earth, these two points would join...
Hmmm... pretty coincidental & amazing.
BUT... the bridge...
Previously, in 2004, while living in the Zhoushan Islands, off the east coast of China - Judy & I were privileged to be the first laoweis ever, to visit the the furthest east island of DongJiDao - a small rocky island called DongFuShan. This, in legend and fact, is called the "EAST POLE" - the furthest eastern point of the Middle Kingdom.
Widow's Peak - East end of DongFuShanThis intrigued me... and having access to GoogleEarth... I conducted some investigations. It so happens that the
longest continuous ocean passage on the face of the earth starts from DongFuShan (30^ 7.8' N and 122^ 47.0' E) and ends, after 18,640 km, at the coast of Chile... around La Serena (30^ 8.3' S and 71^ 23.4' W).
Now the Cochiguaz Valley is (relatively) close - and given the inability of the Chinese scholars at the time to access GoogleEarth... their calculations are within reason for their EAST POLE - a pole generally accepted as an area of inaccessibility.
Hence the "bridge" may exist- not in physical form, but as a sailing link... (
and you can go back to what Admiral Zheng He might have done on his last voyages - the records of which were destroyed)
Then as the EAST POLE exists, why can't the WEST POLE - the Cochiguaz Valley - why not a bridge between.
Rune's ruminations may hold a grain of truth - all respect to him.
The tunnel route is out... too hot down there, even for a cow... and no grass.
If cows could swim (circa 19,000km) the route is there...
Or, if cows could sail... but again, no grass... only nasty seaweed.
by 
I worked with you guys in NST. 
