this post traces our journey from lhasa southwards to gyantse. it was a fascinating trip with the spectrum of natural beauty.. from deep blue lake, to icy glaciers and past desert hills with a host of colours... ethereal canvas...
we drove by what seemed like a long leg.. only to realise, like in this map below that we'd just driven by a bit of the leg of the 'scorpion' !!
we start heading out of lhasa.. speed limits (speed limits are adhered to in such a manner that if one goes over the limit and reaches a destination earlier than one should, there is hefty fine to pay.. so often vehicles (including our bus) would park out of sight of the sentry post, to bide time!).. and above the that an advert for the fun park.. mickey mouse and all! :)
driving southwards on the highway
the aroma of mustard blossoms reaches our nostrils, even through we are driving quite fast! that's lhasa river we are driving by...
.. the other zillion trees that the chinese have planted.. along river banks, barren land..
looking back from over the lhasa river sand dunes on mountain tops and sides.. such a weird phenomenon.. fascinating, actually!
... setting starts getting more rural...
.. the market places start looking scruffier.. with litter on the ground!
.. and the roads too start getting a bit bumpy with patchwork reminiscent of home...
we soon arrive at the bridge over the brahmaputra. sad to see the same mining of sand and rocks from its banks.. like we in nepal have been robbing our rivers of their wealth...
and quietly flows the brahmaputra...or the tsangbo... enough to reflect the sky and the clouds.. brahmaputra at this stage is a sluggish river. she has to travel all the way east trying to find a way south to the gangetic plains, before she cuts through the mountains. That is where she is said to show her ferocious self...
...prayer flags span the breadth of the river...
...a man with a prayer wheel doing 'kora' of another holy mountain... there are more people behind him...
... earth to earth... remains of homes of people who have probably migrated elsewhere... the tibetans even now build homes with solid earthen unbaked bricks.. about 8 times the size of our bricks...
a little bit of water on the soil.. and it turns it from brown to green!
... across our travels. we saw these rows and rows of greenhouses near every sizable settlement...
as we slowly start climbing, we see a penstock of a hydro electricity project coming down from the mountainside... another feature during our travels was seeing electricity line, transmission or otherwise, spanning the hillsides, and telephone lines following the highway all along. often disrupting our photo-op!!
faraway 'rocky mountains highhhhhh'
up and up and up we have to drive to reach the 4800 m gambala pass. you will notice my obsession with the elevation. all of us were on diamox.. thus we were all very wary about altitude!!!
the road snakes its way upwards ever so gently.. our vehicle did not seem to feel the strain!
looking northwards to the brahmaputra valley we left behind...
.. the bhandary brothers try to strike a pose... prabhubabu worried that they are not in the centre of the viewfinder!
... and the view from still higher up very near the pass...
.. meanwhile dr. khakurel keeps us entertained with his songs... a very sporting person, he could break into any song, at any given time...
.. and then the lake... yamzho yumco.. this is the lake that prabhubabu saw from the right hand side of the plane as we were flying in from kathmandu.. this 800sqkm big lake, situated at 4400m is referred to as the scorpion lake because of its shape. all we did was drive along one edge of the scorpion's legs!
.. breathtaking view... the mountains at the back are where the glaciers are, where what we will climb up to later...
.. this became a familiar sight as we drove around tibet.. any high pass, and there would be these flags and the khada silk scarves lying about everywhere.. including down the hillsides where the wind would have blown them...
... cashing in on touristic crowd.. there were trap for tourists.. decked up tibetan mastiffs (in a row below) .. yaks and midget sheep too.. your pose with them, you pay...'mani mani'.. some of them would try to force their dogs into the frame where tourists were posing with other animals.. just so that they could ask 'mani mani' !
i took this of the decked up chauri (yak) as a passing shot...
.. and this one of the tibetan mastiffs (bhotey kukur) from inside the bus.. luckily out of sharp eyes!
.. where we would be in a few hours...
the lake reflecting the blue blue sky...
was trying to take a panning visual of the lake,.. but memory ran out 3/4ths of the way!
close up of the shore. seeing the white froth i wondered if this was a salt water lake (like many lakes , in the tibetan plateau... probably remnant of the ocean that once covered it before the formation of the himalaya!) but it was not so...
fishlings galore at the lake shore
..another water body.. another offering for the ancestors gone up above...
yak skull and prayer flags
fascinating combination of water, mountain and snow and clouds
a group picture of the 'happy jham-jham' team , that we had now started to call ourselves.. happy because that was the term for toilet.. and the most convenient word to relieve ourselves au naturale... and jham jham was the tingling of finger toes and toes due to diamox!
we drove nearly and hour along the contours of the lake shore.. and the mountain sides as dry as ever.. so close yet so far... water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.. almost!
almost looked like pokhara at this point.. with the lake waters receding from the valley and people reclaiming the land... here a short diversion dirt road that cuts journeys by 10 minutes
sheep grazing by the lake...
prayers on a mountain side.. notice the 'souten' wires??
... contrasting mountains...
the great highway rushes up to meet the mountains
i took this because there seems to an odd block of snow that does not seem to be resting on any rocky ledge and could crash down any moment
.. a closer look...
now adorns just the tops of these mountains.. if the sly were not overcast the contrast with blue skies would have made such a difference...
...our first glimpse of one set of glaciers...
... closeup of the glacier showing the bands.. layers of dirty snow signifying the years probably...
at the kharola pass the highest point we reached in the drive at 5060m.. we kept thinking would not be too much of an effort to reach the peak.. as we already seemed more than half away up!!! just a matter of acclimatisation! :)
us.. feeling high! :)
deepaji deep in introspection
too bad for the trash at this altitude.... littler along the highways is something that will rear its ugly head very soon...
closeup of the kharola glacier
melting snow and ice stream down the rocky mountain face..
and will feed the numerous streams as they rush down the mountain...
twin glaciers grind their way down.
.. here it was not tibetan mastiffs.. baba happily caught in a 'smiling tashi delek' sandwich at the cost of 2 yuan a piece...
prayer flags and the mountain neching kangsang
pretty little wild flowers.. i love these tiny flowers. common flowers.. they all seem to be screaming.. look at me.. look at me too!
frames set up for prayer flags
heading down and looking back at the mountain a 7000m peak
...freshly melted glacial water gushes down the mountainside...
we descend down to the valley on the other side
.. a picnic /carnival.. with group of women dancing in the centre...
rocky outcrop.. again, seems holy...
a fragile pebbly cliff. kept wondering what would happen if there was cloudburst of these areas like what uttarakhand faced last month... with changing climatic conditions. anything seems possible...
orangey grey mountainside.. so they indicate different deposits of minerals???
.. sure enough. mining happening in some of the mountains
bands of diffrent coloured rocks.
writing on the hillside atop a reservoir
yak guintha (dung patty cake!) neatly plaster compound walls
what artistry of nature!
caves.. and holes...
approaching gyangtse which is 200 km from the sikkim border. that is from where the british troops had come in under col. younghusband in 1904 and had occupied it for a month before advancing northwards!
gyantse bazar.. the main roads even have timed traffic lights!!!
nanu poses along with a row of pretty ladies in the hotel foyer!
a government run place, hotel gyantse had quite good facilities...
.. and it was probably to protect these facilities that they also kept the following in the hotel rooms!
love the language..
.. and the pricing for various acts of misdemeanour.. like 397 yuan for burning a hole in the tibetan carpet...
.. for 4762 yuan for damaging a philip brand 20" TV !!!
so that was the trip to gyantse... next will be the sightseeing in gyantse and shigatse!
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