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Goodbye, Tibet
Entry 15 of 57 | show all | print this entry |
The ride from Tingri to Zhangmu (about 200km) had been a true wonder. We first passed the Tongla pass (5200m), surrounded by beautiful soft brown mountains, pure white snow peaks, and the trademark blue sky of Tibet. Then we descended into a mild pretty brownish valley, and proceeded to where Milarepa, the famous saint/yogi/poet, meditated long time ago. We walked down towards the valley, the meditation cave was unfortunately closed for restoration, but the walk was worth the effort. We passed a neat little Tibetan village (Jiang-gang), looking over the beautiful valley with patches of brown fields just after a barley harvest, stone villages scattered here and there, brown mountains, a turqoise river running in between, and snowy peaks far away in the background.
Ten kilometers after the village, there was Nyalam, with our first sight of bright "modern" buildings and "civilized" lifestyle after weeks. We were impressed. Then from Nyalam to Zhangmu was only 30 km, but it was among the most pleasant, dramatic 30km we have ever been through. It dropped from over 4000m all the way down to 2000m. Shortly after Nyalam, the mountains started to be decorated with bushes, covering a range of red, orange, yellow, magenta, brown, golden...announcing that autumn has already arrived. Then the road zig-zaged down along a very long, narrow and deep valley, with hundreds of waterfalls running from the top of the mountains into the turqoise river. The bushes became denser, and finally connected into a uniform layer covering the mountains; then they became bigger, and pines started to appear. By the time we were near Zhangmu, it had become so lush that we felt were were in dreams! We slided down the window of the car, the air was sweet, cool, moisturized, and so rich of oxygen! When another vehicle passed, it was no longer unbearably dusty. There were a couple of spots where waterfalls poured on the road, so Laba happily took his free automatic car-wash. It was just a completely different world!!
And there was Zhangmu. It was built against the switchback mountain roads, in the shape of a loosely folded ribbon. The town was a lively mix of Tibetans, Chinese and Nepalese, colorful, and pleasantly had all the supplies of a modern world! We stayed in an almost real hotel, with hot shower, clean restaurant that offers more than two choices, light bulbs with 220V, clean bedsheets; we found on the streets good mooncakes and icecream; there was even an ATM to get some extra cash!
It was moon festival today, time for the families to reunion. I was happy that I was still on the Chinese side of the border. It was still covered by China mobile, so I could get messages and phone calls from my family and friends; there were even fireworks...
Isn't it sweet?!! Especially when I noticed that they had by mistake put sugar instead of salt in my mashed potatoes...
The sherpa hotel was run by Nepali people. The management was quite unique. Here the MEN checked us in, came to fix the shower, cooked like crazy in the kitchen and brought us food. While their women were just sitting by the table, drinking beer, smoking and chatting!
A few end notes about some basic survival skills I've learned in Tibet:
1. Now I can pee anywhere. Whether it's a grubby Tibetan elevated toilet, or right in front of five men.
2. Now I can drink almost any (boiled) water. Whether it's from a river, a lake, or a well; whether it is murky with things floating or has a suspicious smell. I gulp it down anyway.
3. I'm still picky with bedsheets...especially when they smell of old socks. But if I lay my towel on the pillow, stay fully-dressed, then turn the lights off, I can manage to sleep on them.
4. My tolerance to bumpy roads has improved by ten orders of magnitude.
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