Black skies
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2004
1
23
34
Trip End
Jun 07, 2004
Lhasa,
China
Sunday, May 30, 2004
It's a freezing cold night and I don't sleep much. I am wearing practically all my clothes at the same time. Once up and about this morning I decide to go and climb to the top of the hill of excrement behind us and look forward to my first smoke of the day. I sit high up with a grandstand view of the lake spreading out before me. Its truly awesome. The highest salt water lake in the world with a surface area of nearly 2,500 square kilometres. One of the most stunningly beautiful places in the ' Nyainqentangla' mountain range. I ponder over my trip so far which includes the much bigger ( 31,500 km2 ) lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia - the deepest lake on planet Earth, and now I sit here at the highest . I try to light my cigarette. The lighter won't work. This has been a constant headache in Tibet and now the pleasure of the moment has been snatched away from me
1.Nam Tso lake
. Ordinary disposable lighters don't function at this altitude because the air is that much thinner. As I stand and consider the route of my descent, the sky turns threatening. Previously it had the sleepy sunrise slashes of orange and white and blue. Very quickly it's turned black. Reference material had warned that the weather at Nam Tso lake is subject to abrupt and sudden change. This information is correct. I move a little more quickly then your average tree sloth. And get hit with a tremendous hail storm. As I run through it I'm starting to wish I'd stayed in bed today. When outside conditions become reasonable again. I resume my walkabout, this time with Nayana and Helen. Beauty and the beast. There's a cave which has been turned into a shrine and two vertical teeth of rock the size of semi-detached houses decorated with thousands of prayer flags and tiles. I photograph some wild yak on the lakeshore and soon it's time to leave this sacred place behind. With its ' Army and Navy ' camper houses and weather even more unpredictable than a bank holiday weekend in Britain. We slurp hot noodles and knock back some beer. Our Landcruiser is repacked and returns like an arrow across the plains which are now crispy white after a snowstorm. The driver picks up the must faster hard-road directly back to Lhasa. Approximately six hours later I check back into room 203 at the Kirey hotel and there's something there waiting for me. The bong has been secreted away in its normal hiding place with a newer one, a younger sibling.
Next ; The Friendship Highway - along the roof of the world
