Kailash and naked Everest!

Mount Kailash 22nd August
We arrived in Darchen- a bit of a grotty village next to the holy mountain. The amount of people wanting to do the trek got smaller to 7 people. Gareth soon went off ahead of us and ended up doing the trek in one day which was very impressive. The rest of us were Jill, Anna, Chris, ‘Mum’ (Hannahs mum who is also called Claire so she is nicknamed mum!), DAJ and me. Tensing (also known as Tintin!) came with us as our guide. Hannah really wanted to come but was still hallucinating from altitude sickness!
I was very nervous about the trek as I didn’t know how I would cope with all the uphills and my asthma. We set off at 8am with backpacks as light as possible. The first day was nice- the path meandered up and down for around 22km, past a fewtents and pilgrims who were going to do the whole circuit prostrating every few steps- it must take them weeks and be exhausting and painful, especially as the paths get worse. for each prostration the pilgrims put their hands in a prayer position then raised them above their head, which represented body, lowered them to infront of their face, which was mind, and then infront of their chest, which represented soul. Then they got on their hands and knees to lie flat on the floor. Then start again..
We stopped at an area that was covered in prayer flags attached to a pole. There were also regular piles of stones with engravings on them that were holy although im not sure how. We took regular breaks on the first day including a stop at a dabba for lunch- pot noodles. We took 8 hours and reached the camp spot at 4pm. I found the last bit really hard and collapsed into the tent with no energy to move at all and a head-ache. Im not sure if it was altitude or dehydration or both! I felt better after eating more packaged noodles but none of us had the energy to cross the river to the monastery as it involved a hill! We had reached about 4700m, and the south side of Kailash was infront of us- stunning!
A good night sleep and we got up at 7 as it was still dark. The second day we knew was the hardest- it involved the 5660m highpass (cant remember its name!). the day started up the hill and didn’t stop until we reached the top. It was a long old slog, and I really struggled as it got steeper towards the top, until I was taking one step and thinking about the next one, just to keep going! Thanks to DAJ who took my thermarest and sleepingbag for the accent, I had virtually nothing in my bag, which made a huge difference to my getting to the top. Although Tintin is usually quite irritating and not popular in the group, he did well helping me reach the summit. There were loads of prayer flags again at the top of the pass. As the Buddists and Hindus believe- you die half way up and are reborn at the top, shedding all your sins. It certainly felt like it! Most people leave clothes or a lock of hair at the top, so as we only had dirty knickers as an item of clothing we could leave, we thought this perhaps wouldn’t pleased the gods, and left a lock of hair instead!
There were a lot of Indian pilgrims who took horses around the mountain- which I think is cheating!, so we constantly passed horses. At the top we were surrounded by snowy peaks. 400m steep descent was a relief- to the bottom were more tents and we got more noodles! The remaining 4 hours of walking was straightforward, along the river. It was still a relief to get to the next camp area as it was a long day. Potatos and rice were very welcome dinner and we sat in the dabba hoping time would pass quickly so we could go to bed! 8pm in the end! The monastery there was pretty with loads of candles and statues.
The final day was just 3 hours walk back to the town. A total of 52km and all our sins removed! At one point the rock was stunning- it was blue, dark purple and orange going into the bright blue river. The scenery changed so much on the trek, it felt unique and such an experience to see it all. Mount Kailash stood out a mile from its surrounding mountains- its easy to see why it is believed to be so holy.

31st , Lhasa
We have had some epic few days of travelling since Kailash- the truck has got stuck, broken down numerous times, and we had a horrendous journey on the bad roads! The road is being built in sections so it is constantly diverting the truck around an area onto mud then back onto the road, making it very bumpy and likely to getstuck. We had to pay a digger to tow us out eventually after trying to use boards and dig BiRT out with no success! Then we broke down because the brakes weren’t working properly. A bosh job in one town ment it wasn’t long until they stopped working again (especially with the quality of the roads that made BiRT vibrate). It ment some wasted days and lots of hanging around. Because of the time delay, we then got to a long stretch of road that was being built- over 100km, which they closed from 8am-8pm so they would do this work, forcing trucks to drive it through the night. This ment we had to wait until 8pm to drive it, and then started possibly my scariest night in a long time! It sounds exaggerated, but the roads were so bad and BiRT isn’t very balanced, that the truck swung violently from side to side so we had to cling onto the chair and hope BiRT wouldn’t tip over. It would seem that we had gone further to one side, until the next bump in the road when it would go further. Pete had to keep driving through the night to complete the stretch of road before they closed it in the morning. One scary part was when Pete went the wrong way up a steep hill (apparently the steepest hill he had taken BiRT up) only to discover he had to go back down and couldn’t turn round. So he had to reverse not seeing anything, using Dannys guidance, and we stopped mid hill at such an angle- prop about 45 degrees. I heard afterwards that pete made a comment about how he would tell Duncan he had knocked BiRT over and therefore ruined his business! I was hopeing he had more confidence at the time. Needless to say I couldn’t sleep at all and a few of us who didn’t sleep, watched back-to-back films on Suuz’s laptop as a distraction. It was 4.30am when we finally reached tarmac, and I fell asleep instantly after being on edge for so long! We stopped at 6am to throw up tents and get some sleep.
We cooked scrambled eggs and bread for breakfast which improved everyones mood the following day as everyone is so bored of porridge now. We set off for Everest basecamp. The roads were back to normal again, and it was a nice drive up towards Everest. We stopped on the way at some street sellers and bought prayer flags, then up to a village for food and truck repairs to the petrol tank that was leaking. We reached the next village just before Everest basecamp in the evening, and slept in their big tents that had a stove in the room and blanket type mattresses to sleep on. It was the comfiest bed in a long time, so when we were woken at 6am it took everyone a long time to move, especially in the cold and dark! We walked up to basecamp, which is only a half hour walk or so, upto 5100m-ish as it got light. Unfortunately it was so cloudy we couldn’t see any mountains. So after waiting around in the cold for a couple of hours, the sun slowly burnt off the clouds and revealed Everest. It was impressive, but I wasn’t really wowed by it.
One of the guys then had the good idea of posing infront of Everest in nothing but their boxer shorts! Suddenly most of the guys had joined in for the photo! The officials at the military camp then came up and told us all to come down. We all got very told off and he went through everyones cameras to delete the offending photos! Quite a few people were crafty so still have the photos! Tintin, our guide who should have been with us the whole time, but had gone to get breakfast, was then summoned by the officlas and told off because he should have told us not to do it! Whoops! Hotrock does like to get itself into trouble! But I think we were lucky the official wasn’t more brutal because he could have been if he wanted to.
We left soon after to head to Lhasa- yey!

written by  Clairesj on September 25, 2009 from Lhasa, China
from the travel blog: Clairesj's Travel Blog
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