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Dear all,
Yesterday we arrived in Saga (Chin.: Kyakyaru), which is an important Chinese military garrison town and a sleeping place for Indian pilgrims, which are going to Mt. Kailash.
After many days out in the pampas, we here have civilisation again, a good hotel with hot shower and TV, lots of shops, restaurants and internet access.
By the way, as we have many english speaking friends, this newsletter will be in english.
We left Ali on a perfect asphalt (!!!) road. After 2 passes (2 x 4725m) and about 80 km, the paved road came to an abrupt end. We spent the night just after Namru on a wonderful camp site next to a cristal clear river. On the other side of the river a Yak herd was enjoying the last actinism. During dinner, mountain deers (a form of chamois) were playing just about 200m behind us in a rock face. It was amazing, they were jumping up and down in a almost vertical wall.
After the Jerka La Pass (4820m) wer reached the small tibetian town Moincer. We decided to make a detour to visit the hot springs and pilgrimage site of Tirthapuri, 8km from Moincer. After a long 7 hours cycling day we finally reached Tirthapuri. It was worth to do this trip over a bad and sandy road. Tirthapuri was a very peaceful place. After arriving, we quickly built up our tent so that we could enjoy the sunset in one of the hot spring bath. It was a perfect timing and the pool temperature was about 32 degree and the size just about big enough for 2 persons. The tranquillity of the place is an attraction for most Tibetan pilgrims who come here to rest and relax after the intensitz of their Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar circuit. The pilgrim now has the opportunity to confirm and assimilate the experiences of the previous days. The spaciousness and blessings here provide a means for uniting the power and majesty of Kailash with the peace and beauty of Lake Manasarovar. In this way the pilgrimage is completed.
We only had about 70km left until Darchen. Because the road was still very bad, we decided to split in two days. At the second day, after a 4820m high pass, we saw a couple of high mountains. One of them must be Mt. Kailash... is it Kailash? Yes, we were lucky! We could see the 6714m high Kailash, "the heart of the world", very clear. We were so excited! Along the southern ridge of the Gangtise range, a spectacular panoramic view of Tibets highest mountain Mt. Nemo Nanyi 7728m were offered.
From far away, Darchen was already visible, but still more then one hour of cycling. Before Darchen, we had to pull-off our shoes three times as we had quite big rivers to cross. The rivers in Tibet are quite freezing, so we had enough "Kneipp-Kur" for this day.
Finally we arrived in Darchen, the Kora starting point for all Tibetian and Indian pilgrims; and of course for us as well. Every year, thousands of Indiens also pilger to Darchen. For Hindus, Mt. Kailash is the abode of Shiva, the God of Destruction, and it has been one of the most sacret pilgrimage destination for over 5'000 years. But most of the Indians are very unprepared for such a trip... unathletic with cheap light wollen cloth and sneakers. At the day we arrived, one Indien men died because of altitude sickness. From a Tibetian guide we heard that every year approx. 10-15 Indian pilgrims die during the Kora due to the altitude (there is a pass of 5650m to cross), which we can't understand. Altitude sickness is something you can feel very soon and you just have to decent. But of course, if you don't tell anybody about your illness, it must come to a bad end. However, we don't have these kind of problems, after cycling such a long time on this altitude. We are well acclimatized...
A German guy we met had to decent at 3 o'clock in the morning as he also had altitude sickness symptoms. So he had to spend an extra day on a "safe" altitude level before he felt better to cross the high pass.
Most of the tourists do the Kora with guides, porters, cooks, yaks and ponys. A weird sight: huge groups of people and animals... for a hand full of tourists. At the opposite, Tibetian pilgrims always do the 53km arround Kailash on one day. We planned 3 days for the Kora, so we took enough food (noodles, bread, chocolate, water...) and our sleeping bags along. It's not a must to take a tent along, because there are shelters available arround Kailash. Tanja took the backpack we had already. I modyfied the Ortlieb Rackpack also to a backpack.
Early next morning we started to the Kora. First day was 22.5 km and the night we slept just in front of the north face of Mt. Kailash, and just before the steep climb up to the 5650m Dolma La Pass. The rounding was amazing and we were lucky, Kailash was clear at all days. A lot of people do the Kora without seeing the holy mountain once, because he's often covered in clouds. At the evening, a large Indian group were sleeping in the same shelter as we did. They were very nice and they could not belief how we can "survive" without cooks, porters, yaks etc. :-)
As they had a lot of food, all taken along from India, they invited us to join them for dinner. The Indian meal was excellent and a great change for us after a long time of noooooooodles...
The next morning the Indian group got up very early, so we also started at about 7 o'clock to climb the Dolma La Pass. We both felt very good and even with our heavy bags we almost had the same speed as the tibetian pilgrims, which were all very friendly and amused to see two tourists doing the Kora by them self. They complained about headache, no wonder as they started early in the morning in Darchen at 4600m...
The Dolma La Pass was very nice, full of prayer flags and souvenirs of the pilgrims. Of course we also placed our prayer flag on the highest pass we were until today.
The second shelter, where we actually planned to spend the night, was only about 11 km away from Darchen. Due to the fact that it was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon and we still had enough energy, we decided to walk further on to Darchen. It was a wonderful trail full of marmots, edelweiss, nice birds and through a multicoloured strata of rock changing from red to yellow, from black to purple. This section is known as the Trangser Trangmar (gold and red cliffs). Very tired but overhappy we reached Darchen. After a good chinese dinner and some shopping for the next days we went to sleep.
At the next morning before we left, we met the German guy Tobi again. Since 3 days he is searching a transport to Saga. There is no public transport and hitchhiking is very difficult for foreigners. Locals don't like to take foreigners in theyr trucks.
After a long time of cycling and hiking we decided to make a detour of 44km to the turguoise beautiful Lake Manasarovar and spend "a day off" at the lake and taking again a hot bath in the natural hot springs.
Back on highway 219, we cycled the next 200 km again through an indescribable, richly coloured countryside. It's not possible to write this down or show on pictures. It has to be seen with one's own eyes. The colours, the lakes, the high mountains, Tibetians in their traditional clothes living in tents above 5000m and watching for their yak and sheep herds. At the other hand, it's very sad to see how the chinese government destroys the Tibetian culture. Everyday you can feel and see this. We also heard many stories from Tibetians how the Chinese systematicly try to proselytise the Tibetians. We had been warned as well, with handing out Dalai Lama pictures. Tibetians and also foreigners are not allowed to have Dalai Lama pictures and we could get in serious problems with the Chinese police. But with the pictures we also made some Tibetians extremly happy and it was very nice to see how they adore their holiness.
At the lake Kongyn Tso we met a Japanese cyclist. His name is Suzuki and he's a very nice guy.
After the lake we had again a high pass to cross, the Mayum La pass 5225m, a very nice pass with great landscape and exceptionally a quite good road. Also on the way down the street was good and we passed hundreds of huge yaks. By the way, yak dung burns really good and the people here use it to keep their houses and tents warm. Yak meat tastes very good, especially with fried potatoes. The buttertee is made with Zho (the female yak) milk and comes with every tibetian meal. The taste is better then we expected, but still not our favorite drink...
The last 70 km to Paryang were extremly exhausting! The road was just horrible: big rocks, deep sand combinated with washboard street. In Paryang we met Suzuki, the Japanese guy, again. He was also very frustrated about the bad road and we all knew that the comming 230 km to Saga will be the same. We decided to try to hitchhike with a truck. As Suzuki speaks chinese it was easyer for him to ask around for a truck. It would have been impossible for us to find someone taken two tourist on his truck. The next morning, he finally found a driver who is heading to Saga and also takes the two "foreigners" in his truck. But he clearly mentioned that this is the first time and spoke about insurance and police problems. However, after a 7 h drive over a really bad road we arrived in Saga. It was a good decision!
Tomorrow Monday we will cycle south to Zonga and then east to the Friendship Highway, which connects Nepal and Tibet. From there the three 8000er (Mt. Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu) should be visible if the weather is clear. It's still open if we cycle to the Mt. Everest Base Camp as the road supposed to be very bad as well. We will let you know in the next newsletter.... :-)
Many greetings from the roof of the world !
Tanja and Chris
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