1 June – Friday: Nyalam to Saga (oops…Dongba)
Last night was restless too. Now my nose is also stuffed up along with the headache! No cold just a stuffy nose. So sleeping was hard. Got up at 6 am to use the toilets before anyone gets up! At 8 am the sherpas brought hot water for brushing etc. They did this during the whole journey…nice! I had forgotten to pack my toothbrush and had already given my duffle bag…so for the next two days I was going to have a dirty mouth – yuck!!
Bed tea came 20 mins later…aaah the best part of the day. Went for breakfast – today was puri and chana! Lovely. Met a member of our original Satyam group and he said they were also leaving Nyalam today- okay so no acclimatization for them?
I went to see Dr. Sain to get some altitude sickness meds for myself and Bhaiya (since I am so smart I packed the medicine bag in the duffle bag!) He gave me Diamox for altitude sickness and another pill for energy. I was hoping to complete the journey without any medicine but I don’t think I have any choice.
We left Nyalam around 9:30 am with our Tibetian guide (His name was really Phinsu, but we had been introduced to him as TB initially. Miscommunication is everywhere.)
Problem: And then we were informed that we will not be staying at Saga, as scheduled, but in Dongba, because Saga was all booked. And Dongba is about 240 km far from Saga. But we were still going to stop and have lunch at Saga. So what can you do?
The drive to Saga was very interesting. The landscape was really barren, no greenery at all. There were plenty of mountain goats and yaks to see. Small rivers were flowing through the brown mountains. It was a beautiful sight. The road was really smooth and good. It was like a black snake going through the light brown mountains. Our driver was going so slow though. If only I had my BMW I would have reached Mansarover by the same night :-)
We passed the highest point of the journey, 5200 m (17,000 ft) about 2 hrs after we started. It was a little windy there and a little cold. But what a sight!! One really needs the panoramic camera to capture the whole view. Normal cameras don’t do justice to it. No one lived there of course, but there were a few vendors with some artifacts. There was also a girls and boys toilet! Thank you!
We drove past one large lake, Pickuk lake, which was just crystal blue. Opposite it were snow clad mountains including the highest mountain in Tibet, Shishibama. It was quite majestic, very sharp and stood quite defiant amongst all the other mountains. A sight to drink in. We stopped here for a longer time on the way back from Mansarover.
Very soon after the lake the nice road changed to a dirt road. And that is how it was for the next 2 hours or so. Oh it is hard on the butt!! And since it was dirt road, the windows of the van were closed and so it was toasty in the van!! The outside scenery did not change much. The mountains and lakes continued to come. I enjoy such drives so I was ready with my camera all the time! Although the road was curved and had a number of U pin turns, I did fine. I was afraid I would get motion sickness – but I was just fine.
We reached Saga around 2 pm and lunch was served picnic style. Our first “on the road” lunch. A table was set up and the sherpas brought out the heated food and served. Within 10 mins everyone was eating. There was always plenty of food, drinks and water. The painful thing today was waiting 40 mins for the drivers to come back from their lunch. Apparently they don’t like vegetarian food. So we sat and talked …. Trust me there was a lot of talking in this trip!
The road after Saga became good again. Our group of about 50 people were all traveling together under two leaders one Nepali, TB (the real TB) and one Chinese (Phinsu). Phinsu had all the permits and TB was in charge of all the sherpas and communicating with us. (Problem: we found this out much later….)
On the way to Dongba we passed a whole bunch of mud houses. They all have the same basic architecture but were decorated really nicely. The landscape changed a little bit more to green and swampy. It reminded me of the drive from Arequipa to Colca canyon in Peru.
All of a sudden we arrived at Dongba. The van turned into this mud house place. The rooms were all dormitory style. We got one in which there were eight beds. A bulb was hanging in the room but not lit up yet. The toilets were literally a hole in the ground with no door or privacy….yuck!! But what to do?
Since it was only about 6 pm there was plenty of light and there was not much to do so a few of us went out to explore Dongba. It was a micro town just enough for travelers to stop at. This place is also at a height so it was cold and there was the lack of oxygen. Walking normally was also making me pant, but its good. I know my capacity now to do parikrama. I will have to take it slow.
We came across this small park which had all sorts of colorful workout equipment – all manual – no power. Really interesting! For a few minutes it was our playground. We checked all the equipment out. What else was there to do?? Well….actually – drink beer! It seems to be the national pastime. I saw soooo many beer bottles decorated outside the houses that it seemed part of the architecture :-)
Healthwise I was more energetic than yesterday. Dr. Sain’s energy medicine really helped. But Diamox did not suit me. I was getting tingling feeling all over my body all the time. Not a good feeling.
The power came on at 10pm. (All these little towns have solar power.) Everyone kept their camera batteries on charge! I went to sleep right away…no dinner for me tonight. The bed was calling me.
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