Stay at Jhangmu
As it was raining we took shelter in one of the shops on the other side. We can exchange Indian rupees to Chinese yuans here in these shops also. You will get a better exchange rate here compared to what we get in Kathmandu . We converted the required amount in Delhi itself. After fifteen minutes of drizzle the rain stopped. We trekked uphill for about 2 Kms, upto the point where our bus for the yatra has been parked. Thus we had some trekking practice. The road was lined up with trucks carrying items to Nepal from China. Though the road was a two way road because of heavy rush the traffic was moving slowly, rather the bus crawled.
View of Jangmu town
M/s Shreshta Holidays has offered us a bus instead of usual land Cruisers as the number of yatris were above 30. This is possible now due to nice road laid by Chinese in this remote and desolate part. By travelling in a bus instead of Land Cruiser each one of us saved Rs 5000/-. They offered a 35 seater A/C coach Huger for the next ten days journey on the Tibet side. The vehicles in china are of right hand drive and many times while sitting inside the bus we felt that the driver is driving on the wrong side. The coach had GPS facility also and the journey was comfortable.
A Hindu shrine of Jangmu
We reached the border town of China namely Jhangmu(2,300 m/ 7,545 ft) which is also referred as Dram or Khasa . The distance between Kodari and Jangmu is about 5 Km, but it took about 2 hours for us to reach there. It's a customs town and is a port of entry for China. Our Sherpas informed that as Nylam is full, we will stay in Jangmu for the night and we stayed in He Jia Hotel. May be the rates were less so we were provided accommodation here. This was a decent hotel accommodation we had on the Chinese side. Three yatris were accommodated in double room. To conserve electricity the corridors has been fitted with proximity sensors so that when needed only they glow.
Narrow roads and high rise buildings
As Jhangmu town is the border town it has a number of shops from which Nepalis buy all the items in bulk and transport them to their side. So the town is crowded all the time. The road is narrow and the buildings rise very high. The wealth of Jhangmu directly contrasts with the poverty on the other side of the border namely Kodari. As Chinese cosmetics are famous we saw many shops selling cosmetics and many many beauty parlors in this town. Almost all the hotels here allow you to cook your own food. So our Sherpas prepared food and served us in our rooms. We had a prayer session which included singing of Bhajans.
Note the scale used for weighng vegetable
( Sundar is a specialist in photography)
View of Kodari and friendship bridge from Jangmu
Next day morning we woke up to a wonderful dawn in Jhangmu had a nice bath( after this we had bath only in Manasarovar) and had our breakfast and went for sight seeing of Jhangmu town as the Bus driver was little late .We saw all sorts of shops selling all items in bulk, there was a Hindu shrine also in this town. As a port, Jhangmu Town is also very noisy and modernized with many grand buildings located on the high mountains. We saw customhouse, business bureau, factories, shops, banks, post offices, schools, hotels, restaurants and resident buildings arranged orderly beside the street. The bazaar is always crowded with various skin-colored tourists and businessmen. Walking here, you may feel like bees in a hive. Most striking are the numerous red villas topped with small gardens, aflutter with multi coloured prayer flags and lucky trees, which add much color to the town.
Our Chinese bus driver.
Our Chinese Guide was accompanying two groups one was our group and another group was travelling using Land Cruisers , the guide and driver used to stay with that group hence the delay. Later we left for Nylam for a day of rest for acclimatization for higher altitudes.
Chinese cosmetics
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