5 and 6 August–Tirdrum Til to Lhasa (Tibet)

The Head Lama's Room

The anti-vibration top

The first stop this morning was at the Lundrup Monastery, built in the 7th century and destroyed by the soldiers billeted there during the Cultural Revolution. It apparently had no special significance other than now when the Chinese Authorities are paying for the monastery to be rebuilt. There are still 13 monks living there but even when it was a working monastery only 200 monks lived there, an indication of its size.

In the photo showing the walls and the brown blocks on top, the brown blocks are common to all monasteries as they are made of a special low bush grown in the hills. The bush is cut into small pieces, kind of woven into pads and put in place to stop the top of the monastery falling down during an earthquake. Kind of like an anti-vibration mount, which the guide said actually works.

The new building

The drive during the day was quite long and a lot of it on very bad roads due to the heavy rains during the night. The Chinese are building lots of new highways and railway tracks and it was obvious from the travelling I've done in China that all have been built to the same design as far as possible, especially the viaducts, which they seem to like a lot whether for road or railway. One odd thing they do is to build a spillway for winter stream water run-off over the road or railway line, not under them. They build  tunnel first then over the top is the spillway. It just looks odd.

A lot of the travelling was through wide flat valley bottoms, very green and with fast flowing rivers. Hydro-electric stations were being built as well. Barley was grown about everywhere as it is a staple for beer, tsampa, porridge and cake. Yak abounded everywhere. Everywhere I have travelled away from Lhasa I have seen the Chinese having picnics, they seem to like them or do not like paying the fairly high price for food here.

We were heading for Namatso Lake in the Namatso National Park, the lake being the largest salt water lake in Tibet. At 70 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide it lies at an altitude of 4,718 metres (15,470 feet) and freezes over in winter but not enough to walk on safely. Near the lake is Tashi Dor Monastery, large rock formations and several hermit caves.

Views over Namatso Lake

Ride me if you dare

Holy Rocks

Views of Tashi Dor Monastery

To get to the Lake we had to go through the Lhagenla Lookout or Laken Pass at 5186 metres (17,014 feet) altitude. It was windy up there and I do not think that the solitary yak liked it too much the way it was prancing around.

Views of Lhagenla Lookout

I stayed overnight in the Namatso Holy Lake Guest House and you wouldn't think anything could get worse with the accommodation I have been staying in. It did! The room to myself had two beds, plenty of bedding and was clean. Water for washing was out the front door, turn right and in about 20 metres was a plastic drum of water. The toilet was out of the front door, turn left, walk about 100 metre and there was a portaloo type of thing. I kept on saying to myself that I will not want to go to the toilet during the night when during the night a huge storm blew up. I resisted the temptation and did not go during the storm.

The Holy Hotel

Herding some of the yak in the morning

View over Namatso Lake

Snow capped mountains on the way back to Lhasa

One thing that every shop and stall at Namatso Lake had was pressure packs of oxygen that could be bought to help people to breath. They looked like a large size of air freshener and I could see people buying them.

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The following day saw the return to Lhasa as one of the places due to be visited was being completely rebuilt and there was no point in going there. At the Lake in the morning was the first time I had worn my winter coat but the Chinese had wrapped themselves up as if it was winter. The wind was cool but it was not too bad outside.

Snow capped mountains on the way back to Lhasa

On the way back to Lhasa we called in at Tsurphu Monastery. The monastery is about 4,300  metres (14,000 feet) above sea level with walls up to 4 metres (13 feet) thick. Tsurphu was founded by the first black hat Lama in 1159 and in 1189 he revisited the site and founded his main seat there. The monastery grew to hold 1000 monks. It was totally destroyed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution rebuilding began in 1980. Following the recognition of 17th Karmapa by the monastery elders, the Dalai Lama and the Chinese Government he was enthroned at Tsurphu and resided there until he escaped from Tibet to India in 2000 and where he remains to this day. 

Strange things to be seen at the monastery were a chain mail coat with steel helmet, swords and home-made flintlock guns. One of the monks saw me looking hard at these and told the guide that they were used by monks in the past to protect the monastery and to fight ‘wars.’ As Buddhists are meant to be pacifists and not take life in any form it was something of a contradiction to see fighting implements in the monastery. Another strange thing about this monastery is that it was deliberately built on the flat land in the middle of a valley. Apart from walking up steps and stairs to various buildings the monastery is built on the relative flat, no huge climbs involved.

Views of the monastery

The new library 

Meeting Hall

The founder Lama

A decoration

A decoration

A decoration

In the valley leading up to and leaving the monastery were a number of brightly coloured tents. These were put up by the local people to be used for festivals and to hire out to tourists for their picnics. They were not to be slept in so the guide said.

A tent

Tents

During the return trip to Lhasa my permit to travel was checked five times while once a day had been the norm. The drive was alongside the Xining to Lhasa railway line and about every kilometre at each side of the line was a soldier on guard living in what looked to be like any old tent they could find. How they would stop an attack on the railway I do not know and it did seem to be a terrible cost in men and resources. 

As I had returned to Lhasa one day early I was told that I would have to pay for the room that night, the further section of the trip to Kathmandu not starting until the day after. Funny how travel agents always want money when I have already paid for the extra day’s car, driver and guide without the reduction in cost from the paid soft sleeper to hard sleeper on the train. I also received an email from the travel agent in Kathmandu indicating that the road after the China/Nepal border was not passable due to a landslide and that helicopters were being arranged to transport us from the border to Kathmandu at an extra cost. He also advised that the group I am to join to travel with to Kathmandu are all due to arrive in Lhasa tomorrow.