TRAVELOGUE – PAR T 3: BY ROAD TO MANSAROVAR IN THREE DAYS

September 20, 2016.  After a sumptuous breakfast in Lhasa Mansarovar Hotel we did some group photography, which had by now become our early morning ritual, and then packed ourselves in our blue bus, ready to leave for Shigatse, 280 Km South west of Lhasa. It was a bright sunny morning, though it had rained the night before and our driver Tawa greeted us with an equally sunny smile! Our duffel bags were packed in the back of the bus and our 3 cooks accompanied us. It was a busy morning for them. They got up real early and cooked our lunch, which they were carrying along with them.  Besides our guide Lopsang La, who was an employee of the Ministry of Cultural affairs and Tawa, our police driver, we were now accompanied by two policemen, each with a crate of Red Bull. Each one of us was however given a bottle of mineral water, which would dangle from a hook in front of our seat and we were ready to go with the holy chant of ‘Har Har Mahadev….’

This was the route we took to Mansarovar and Kailash

It was 8 AM when we left our hotel and very soon, after crossing the Brahmaputra River we hit the highway. A very long tunnel through a mountain brought us out of the city and now we were travelling along a very beautiful highway, China National Highway 318, with the Brahmaputra River running all along the left side of the road. The river changed its course and character at every bend, calm at places and agitated with violent rapids at others.

The atmosphere inside the bus was very devotional in the morning with Sri rendering his inspirational Shiva stuti and all those who could sing lending a chorus. Soon this live spiritual concert was replaced by Bhaskar’s spiritual tapes. He started with a monologue describing the virtues of ‘Moun’ or meditating in silence and then followed it up with some high voltage spiritual hymns. This continued for quite some time till Shyamsunder, who I felt was a shade less spiritual, came up with the idea of punctuating the spiritual stream with some gastronomic delights. His delicious dates were followed by a round of Haldiram delights and then suddenly the music changed!

Almost all of us were on Diamox, which is a diuretic, a drug which flushes the kidneys and produces a lot of urine. This is a high altitude medicine to prevent pulmonary edema. Our driver was very conscious of this and gave us a Diamox break for 5 minutes almost every hour. On most occasions we had a vast open fields or a rock face to irrigate under the blue Tibetan sky. Rarely there were official toilets but invariably their condition was pitiable but we had to pay 2 Yuan per bladder to relieve ourselves.

Our lunch stop near a bridge over the Brahmaputra river

Soon it was time for lunch and at 1 PM we stopped near a bridge on the Brahmaputra River. It was a beautiful location and while we were engaged in our customary photo sessions our cooks laid down a delicious lunch – daal, rice, sabji, poori and an apple. Back in the bus we drove towards Shigatse.

Every time we entered a new district a unique thing happened; we would stop 200 meters before the police check post, which was there at the entry point of the district and spend some time idling. This was because our driver could be penalized monetarily if he crosses the distance between two police check posts ahead of scheduled

A typical police check point

time. In every police check post Lopsang la and the two policemen who were accompanying us would go in with our passports and check us through. Only once were we required to personally pass through an identification parade, that too very sketchily and very quickly.

At 4PM we reached our hotel in Shigatse. This was a beautiful hotel with a lot of tradition and culture oozing from all sides. The lobby was decorated with a beautiful centre piece in which some incense sticks were smoldering. The walls were all lit up with Tibetan wall paintings. The beams and the pillars were intricately carved and designed and the staircases were ornately decorated. The hotel looked like an art gallery with even a mural of a yak and a nad (female yak) in one corner. Tanmay and I were given a beautiful room which was furnished tastefully but the Tibetan scroll painting, the Thangka, which hung from our wall, was the star attraction. There were three Chinese lanterns, with intricate lattice work and light filtering out of it was simply divine!

The lobby of our hotel in Shigatse

Ornately decorated pillars and beams

Shigatse is a prefecture-level city and the prefecture is just north of Nepal and gateway to the Everest. It is located within the historical Tsang province of Tibet and has the massive and magnificent Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama. It is connected to Lhasa by train as well

Cho Oyu range of mountains between Shigatse and Nepal

and it also has an airport – Shigatse Peace Airport, at an altitude of 3,782 meters. There is a range of Himalaya standing between Shigatse and Nepal, the Cho Oyu range, which in Tibetan language means Turquoise Goddess and this 8,188 meters high range is the sixth highest mountain in the world, 20 Km west of Mount Everest and this snow capped range was visible from our highway as we approached the city.

Within an hour of our arrival in the hotel our cooks invited us for masala chai and biscuits. A few of us went out on the street for a walk and sightseeing while others indulged in a quick nap. Dinner was served at 7.30 PM and Tanmay and I went out for a post dinner walk. This is the second largest city of Tibet and we saw jam packed night clubs with party spilling out into the streets. This was a Tuesday night and not a weekend, but the riot was no less. Back in our hotel we had a good night’s sleep.

September 21, 2016. Duffel bags out at 7 AM, breakfast at 7.30 and we hit the road at 8 AM sharp. Our first stop was Panchen Lama’s palace atop a beautiful hill. The Tashi Lhunpo Monastery was founded in 1447 by the 1^st. Dalai Lama and is the second largest in Tibet, second to the Potala Palace. The gilded canopies and turrets were shining brilliantly as the morning sun fell on the monastery, and

Tashi Lhunpo Monastery

Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in the background with devotees lying praying and modern statues in the foreground

this was a brilliant sight to start the day! Pilgrims circumambulate the monastery along the ‘lingkor’ or sacred path. Most of the monastery was destroyed during the Chinese Cultural revolution as statues were broken, scriptures were burnt and stupa was damaged. A process of rebuilding and restoration was done by the 10th Panchen Lama in 1985. Outside the monastery is a raised platform with many statues and people were busy clicking photographs with them.

After a brief stopover at the monastery we continued our bus journey towards Saga, which was 447 Km from Shigatse. Saga in Tibetan language means ‘the happy land’ and is a Chinese garrison town and this garrison of the army patrols the whole length of the Tibetan-Nepalese border.  Lopsang La specifically advised us not to photograph any police or army installations. We were driving along

what a very decorated sign board claimed to be the most beautiful landscape road in China. This place was 5000 Km from Shanghai as was drawn on this sign board.  At about this time we made a discovery; Lopsang La had forgotten to collect our passports from the hotel reception and so had to phone someone to bring them. This stop over before a police check post was for our passport courier service to catch up with us.

Barley crop being harvested

We came across many fields in which barley crop was being harvested and we were pleasantly surprised to see the amount of automation in farming in even these remote areas. Our stopover for lunch was in a roadside dhaba, which provided us with a comfortable place to sit and have our cooked Indian meals. It also gave us free Wi-Fi connectivity and offered to replenish our police accomplice’s stock of Red Bull! A stream was flowing behind this dhaba. As we proceeded towards Saga we crossed a beautiful Chinese folk culture village the road to which was decorated with festoons and prayed flags.

The city of Saga, situated at an altitude of 4,640 meters, straddles the confluence of Dargye Tsangpo River and the Brahmaputra River. It is strategically located at the intersection of three roads, one going to Lahatse, Dzongka Road and one along which we intend to proceed towards Mansarovar. It is a fairly new town, one of the many built to house the steady ongoing influx of Han Chinese in Tibet,

Windswept wilderness of Tibet - a Diamox stop

who now form 40% of the population of Tibet. The untouched and pristine wonder of Tibet and the true religious spiritualism of the Tibetans can still be found in its windswept isolated regions we crossed along the road but the speed of development truly threatens their existence. This being the last major town on way to Mansarovar and Kailash, assumes special significance as food stocks can be replenished here.

Our hotel in Saga was called Shigatse Tian Lin Hotel. Its lobby and its dining room had beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and its rooms were not air conditioned. Not only that, we were advised to keep a window open so that we get enough oxygen in the rooms. Every room had a humidifier and an oxygen concentrator, which could make oxygen from atmospheric air. Soon after our arrival we had our customary photo session and at around 7 PM we were invited by our cooks for the masala chai and within an hour dinner was served. The dining hall was very cozy and the food served was good as usual. After dinner we retired to our rooms with specific instructions that duffel bags should be put out of our rooms at 7AM sharp.

Our hotel in Saga

Post dinner discussions in the dining hall

September 22, 2016. The breakfast was served in the first floor but before we could descend from our third floor rooms we had another health scare. This time Nagu was sick, he had vomited all night and when we reached his room, which he was sharing with Ravi, he was sitting in bed, all covered from head to toe, and distinctly uncomfortable. He wanted to return home as soon as possible and Lopsang La informed us that even that was possible only from Dharchen, our next stop. After a quick breakfast we were back in our bus and luckily as the day progressed so did Nagu’s health.

Today it was cold and we were all wearing our Dawn jackets and covering our head and ears. The wind was biting into our exposed skin and the sun was playing hide and seek in the clouds. We had free wi-fi from our hotel but Saga was the only place where our Wi-Fi was jammed, perhaps because it was a military town. So we could not connect with our folks back home while we were in Saga. Our bus left at 8 AM and we were on our way to Mansarovar which was 335 Km and 7 hours away. 

This part of Tibet has several lakes, mostly saline but a few fresh water as well. We stopped at the Peikutso Lake, which was a beautiful alpine lake, for lunch. There was a beautiful tongue of land

Lunch at Peikutso lake

going inside the lake and this was rich pasture land with yak and nad grazing here. Our lunch, laid down by our cooks was rice, paratha, sabji, daal, aachar, papadam and apple and we hungry souls devoured it. A nad also shared lunch with us. Again we hit the road with our religious music in low volume so that those interested in a post-prandial nap were not unduly disturbed. Rounds of Gujarati fast food, Hydrerabadi hot roasted ground nuts and Sudipta’s munchies continued and suddenly from the back Bhaskar, who had been to Kailas once before, shouted ‘there you can see the holy Mansarovar’, and lo behold the holy lake could be seen far in the horizon through the wind screen of our bus! The turquoise blue water was contrasted beautifully with the blue sky and snow capped mountains all around rendered a beautiful sight. This was indeed love at first sight!