China Musings

I was going through some old emails and ran into this one… I wrote this the last day I was in Tibet, about the trek we did from Gamden to Samye. Its a god story, and maybe i’ll try to expand on it some day. But in the meantime, this might be able to help some of you looking for Tibet tips.

Enjoy:
Our trek was great, we took a bus to one monastary,
called ganden, and prepared to hike across some
mountains to another river valley and a monastary
called Samye. A guy met us as we were having breakfast
in the guesthouse and asked if we needed yaks. “Yak”
he says. So we arranged for a yak and a yakman/guide
to get us over the mountains.

It was a beautiful walk. First we went to this village
where the yak guy lived and waited for him to gather
the yaks, which turned out to be a horse. But he
promised the next day we would have our yaks. Then we
hiked into this very long river valley, and started
climbing toward what would be our first pass.

We camped at a flat spot for the first night,
apparently 2 hours from the top. It was really
beautiful, with nomad encampments scattered around.
The kids soon enough ran over to see what we were up
to, which at that point was mostly laying flat on our
backs.

The next day our yak showed up, causing a bit of a
stir because we had agreed on a price for 2, but there
was only 1. Thus we set off for zhukar la, the highest
pass on the trip at 17,000ft and undoubtably the
hardest hike I have ever done. It was 3.5 hours
straight up, without a step of downhill, directly
towards this ever visible saddle in the mountains.
Near the top, the trail dissapeared, and it became
just a scramble over rocks and bushes.

We climbed over the saddle then descended into an
unbelievable valley. The only way in was through the
high mountain passes, there were no roads, no power
lines, only a nomad herders camp by the stream at the
bottom. We hiked down into the valley and up again
into the mouth of another valley to sleep.

That valley led to chetur la, the second pass on our
trip. This pass was merely 16000ft, and already being
at 15,500 or so it was much more fun than the previous
days ascent. So when we got to the top andrew and I
decided to add to the excitment and try to get to one
of the two peaks flanking the pass. It turned out to
be pretty easy, if a little time consuming, as we just
walked up the steep slope, holding on for dear life.

The view from the top was great, we could see the
valley we came from, plus the two lakes att he pass,
and the promise of more valley’s below, as we followed
the stream from the pass. We walked along the ridge
and met kayin in the green pastures near the lake.
Then we had to catch up to our yaks, our yak party had
grown because our yak man connected with the yak men
for a group of italians, so we ran down the hill to
catch them.

The rest of the trip was downhill, following this
stream until it ran past the Samye monastary in the
Yarlung Tsampo valley (the yarlung tsampo is the
biggest river in tibet). What was amazing about this
last day and a half of hiking was the change in
scenery. We went from rocks, to boot-high plants, then
to knee high plants, until finally we were surrounded
by a lush forest of small trees, bushes, and
wildflowers. We stoppped in a small meadow by the
river to camp, and there we learned the reason for the
greenness. It poured all night.

The fourth day was a very short hike, we continued
along the river valley and watched it grow from a
mountain stream to a rushing river. About 3 hours into
our hike we came upon the first village we had seen in
days, and an hour later we were at Nyengo, a village
that had automobile connection to the rest of the
world, albeit by very bumpy tractor ride.

Here our yak and yakman turned back, and we continued
on by tractor to samye. Samye looked really cool from
the outside, but we had been advised not to go in,
because we had not purchased the appropriate permits
and the PSB was waiting inside for unprepared victims.
We then caught a hair-raising tractor ride from the
monastary to the river’s edge, where we boarded a boat
to cross the river. On the other side was the highway
heading back towards Lhasa. Just our luck, a minute
after we stepped on the road, a bus for Lhasa came by
and picked us up.

Well, I hope that captures some of the majesty that is
Tibet, but i doubt it. Today it is raining and dreary
in Lhasa, sort of anticlimactic for our last day in
this place.