Advertisement
Published: September 5th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Early in the morning the eight of us assembled outside ‘snowlands hostel’ to await transport to the start of our trek. There was myself and Fred, Gerald and Tom -the two Oxford students we’d met-, Dave and James -two English guys travelling in Tibet who’d seen the poster we made to recruit fellow trekkers for the venture-, and Sebastian & Juliet -a German couple who’d also opted to join us. Also in the expedition party we had our Tibettan guide; and the cook, who judging from his headdress was from the Kham region.
Our first port of call was ‘Ganden Monastery’. Nestled high on a mountainside, this was, in my view, one of the more spectacular monastery locations. We arrived just in time to witness all the monks gathered in the main hall for morning prayer. I was quite surprised to see how restless and fidgety some of them were, others were even playing on their mobile phones!… Quite a contrast to the discipline I’d experienced when I took a Vipassana meditation course in New Zealand.
We were expecting to begin our trek from the Monastery, and I think if we’d been doing this one independently, we would have.
However we needed to go to the village where the agency had hired some horses to carry our gear for the first leg of the journey.
We set out from the rural settlement along a fairly large track. It was pretty easy going for this first leg, as we wandered through a large valley, surrounded by the mountainous peaks and ridges. Close to our first campsite, we passed by some tents, like the ones used by Nomads. These were more permanent in nature, and served as home for the Tibet farmers living there. We were able to go inside one of these dwellings, where the woman of the house made us several rounds of ‘Yak Butter tea’, and treated us to some ‘Yak cheese’ -by far the most ‘distinctive’ cheese I’ve ever tried. It was excellent to see the interior of the home, lined with pots and pans, with a hearth in the centre, and bags of harvested mountain-plant-based-incense stacked up, it was quite something! The ‘plunger device’ used to make the Yak butter tea was quite a curiosity; I was even allowed to try my hand at the churning.
Shortly after our Tibetan tent experience, we arrived
at the campsite, and were served ‘afternoon tea’, which certainly I wasn’t expecting. It had been a pretty lax day physically, but this trek was at a much higher starting altitude, so we needed an easy first day to allow our bodies an acclimatisation period.
The next morning we changed our pack horses for a troop of Yak, with two ‘yak men’ to oversee operations. They were quite incredible beasts, strong but calm looking, dressed up in traditional decorative saddles, bells and other such gear. Breakfast served by cook in the dining tent, consisted of omelette, a few types of steamed hot bread and hot drinks, which was really rather good! We set off again climbing up the valley to reach a pass of about 5200m. It took the sunlight a while to reach the valley, and until it did, conditions were pretty cold!
When we reached the pass the view either side was stunning! Myself, james, Gerald and Fred climbed up to a peak just above the pass to get an even higher view. Our cook had caught us up at this point, carrying a flask of noodles and some snacks/chocolates etc for lunch. I’d assumed the
dry fruit and apple we’d been given in the morning was lunch, but apparently that was just morning snack, we’d been eating much better than I’d expected so far.
After we’d let lunch go down a bit, we set off down into the vast valley on the other side of the pass. The weather was pretty decent, and the views all around amazing. We reached camp at around 4 and set up tents etc. I went off alone to climb to a nearby peak, after securing the reluctant agreement of our guide. The climb was very steep, and got pretty exciting at times. I didn’t make it all the way to the top, partly because I was keen to be back in time for diner! I also knew if I sustained an injury, being alone could have some fairly serious implications, the campsite was now a spec in the valley bellow; the light was beginning to fade, so I turned back.
That evening myself, Fred and Gerland went down to the nearby lakeside for an evening meditation. The Yak around us were midly distracting… we’d been warned to watch the yak cautiously, as they’ve been known to charge
and impale people. In this context, such thoughts can create at least a mild anxiety. It was an incredible evening, with very atmospheric light at dusk. Later the sky became clear revealing a beautiful starry sky. There was no wind and the night was silent, but for the snorts of nearby yak. We saw several shooting stars, including the longest I’ve yet seen… it must have covered almost the entire width of the sky! We also heard thunder again that evening, they seem to have a lot of thunder in these high places.
The next day we crossed a second, lower pass and began to decent from the high mountain region we’d been in. We passed through rocky gorges and past still mountain lakes. Our third campsite was near a clear fast-flowing mountain river. When we arrived that afternoon, it was the perfect place for a wash and a swim…yes, it was very cold!!! There was a designated place for a camp fire, and being in a wooded valley, we were able to collect wood and light a fire.
On the fourth day, we continued, following the river down to lower areas. We passed by small agricultural settlements
and more Nomad-tents. By lunch-time, we’d reached the end of the road for the yaks, and effectively the end of our trek. Myself Fred, Gerald and James, climbed up to a nearby hermitage, where we hung prayer flags… had to be done! The yaks were unloaded, and we bid farewell to the yak men, who would now go back to their homes (back the way we had come), although in rather less time. Our gear was loaded onto a tractor (although large lawn-mower may be a more accurate description, and we loaded ourselves onto another. These vehicles took us the remaining 10k to Samye, the village and Monastery, where we looked around and stayed the evening. That night some local people did some traditional dance in the monastery courtyard… it was very similar to Morris dancing.
The next day, after a rather unsuccessful breakfast attempt at the hostel (I think everyone’s thoughts were occupied by: ‘we want our cook back!’), we boarded a local bus to get to the ‘Samye Ferry’. Our cook seemed to be heavily involved in some last minute engine maintenance on the boat, we remarked on his versatility and multiple abilities, ‘like a penknife’. Part
way across we seemed to slow right down, it was unclear if this was intentional, or if we were running aground or having engine trouble… anxieties weren’t eased by the sight of the driving donning his life-jacket, as if in preparation for some catastrophe!
On the flip-side a mini-bus was waiting to cart us back to Lhasa. The eight of us regrouped later that evening for a celebratory meal and some Lhasa beers.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.669s; Tpl: 0.039s; cc: 10; qc: 73; dbt: 0.0752s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb