Saturday, June 01, 2013

Kailash Manasarovar Yatra -2012 -15

Nayalam to Old Drangpo 

Milrepa's Cave

Some greenery near Nylam

A village with agriculture field

Typical Tibetan house
(Amit Agrawal  Brij Lekh Suthar)

 Tibtan  Girl with Bindi

( We  were told that  Tibetan girls like Bindi, here you see one with a bindi you can also carry some chocolates to distribute among the children)
 Friendship highway

 Bald Mountains

 Bare mountain  devoid of  any vegetation

Changing face of mountains

Few Villages and  far apart


Desert  Mountain


Dozed off yatris

If you see the above pictures you would get an idea of how the travel was this day and also how the  scenario changed from green fields and wealthy village to  desert mountains in this Tibetan plateau .

On the fifth day of the yatra(02-06-2012) we travelled form Nyalam to Old Drangpo, though as per schedule it was a night  halt at Saga. As the friendship highway is a newly laid all weather  tar road the journey was smooth, also  as  there was almost  nil traffic on this road  we  travelled faster,  the second factor would have been,  cost of  accommodation at Saga, as it  is a  regular town with proper hotels the cost would have been  more than Old Drangpo  so beacause of this our Sherpas may have  taken such a decision. Only they didn't tell us about this plan in the beginning.

 One thing we learnt during this yatra is that most of the tour operators for Kalash yatra do is to collect money from us arrange for Visa and special in line permit to undertake the parikrma and arrange accommodation in Kathmandu and rely upon the services of a group of Sherpas for the yatra inside Tibet for a consideration , only the Sherpas decide all other matters and the tour operators do not have any control. In a foreign land we are at the mercy of Sherpas we are helpless and can't do anything about it. Shreshta Holiday's also did the same thing. Our Sherpas didn't arrange for any tents and sleeping bags and they didn't provide us with walking sticks or properly guided us, we felt that they wanted to make money only.  All our problems of driver and    accommodation   was  because of this . Many international phone calls we made to M/s Shershta made no difference to our plight . It's not only our experience but the experience of many groups that they felt let down that they didn't get what was promised. So be careful while selecting your tour operator  or expect the worst and go, so that you will not feel bad  that you have been taken for a ride.

We were supposed to travel for about  265 Km  in eight  hours upto Saga but we actually travelled  325 Km in about 11 hrs. The journey started early morning and in a short time we crossed the cave in which the Buddhist monk Milrepa meditated , we thought we will visit the same on r return journey  There were bigger fertile  villages in this part but as we climbed the landscape changed dramatically. It was bald mountains  devoid of any vegetation  and also the villages were far apart and consisted of one or two mud houses. 

As we progressed further there was no sign of any traffic and also we found groups of yak and sheep grazing guarded by dogs and no human to be seen. The vehicle in which we were travelling    had been fitted with speed control device, so whenever the bus crossed 80 mil/hr speed it gave an alarm, the outside wind was damp and  we could hear the howling sound when someone opened the windows of the vehicle, but the driver drove the vehicle non-nonchalantly in spite of  the alarm . We could see electrical posts on both the sides of the road, and also almost all the villages were having solar panels. We wondered why the Chinese have created such a good  infrastructure in desolated desert mountain. 

As  we further proceeded    really we felt bored and most of us dozed off. After about two hours of journey like this we reached La Lung La pass. 

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