3 June – Sunday: Mansarovar
Did not sleep properly, it was on again off again. Stuffy nose and headache were becoming quite common. I ate so many Advils on this trip! Finally got up around 8 am to do my daily stuff and then the hot water arrived followed by tea. Breakfast was around 10 am. Finally something ethnic! Tibetian bread. It was good – like kulcha and to be eaten with honey. Very tasty.
There was nothing to do, so some of us sat outside on a table and talked. As I said, there was a lot of talking. I went to the room to rest but ended up talking to Ria. After a while Bhaiya came and said lets go to take bath in Mansarovar. Good! So we walked to the first tent near the lake and outside our building. It turned out be Satyam’s tent! As I turned around, I saw Uncle and his group doing puja. Great!! We tried to take a bath in Satyam tent, but the sherpa would not let us! Idiot!! Does he think Mansarovar belongs to him??!! Too annoying. This whole trip was supposed to be spiritual but I am feeling dirty, angry, frustrated and now I just wanted to take this guy and throw him Mansarovar!! But I controlled myself and walked over to Uncle and did puja with him and Aunty. It was strange doing puja without taking a full bath. Luckily I had dry cleaned today!
30 mins later, we bid Uncle bye and went to see the other tent far away. The walk was not hard but I did get a little winded. Low oxygen! It turns out the tent was ours – the group we had been traveling with. I saw Bhaiya take a dip in the cool Mansarovar!! Good for him. I did not bring a change of clothes so I got the warm Mansarovar water from Ramgopal and did my ablutions in the privacy of a tent. It felt like heaven! I was the last one to bathe so I had plenty of water. While Ramgopal packed up everything, Bhaiya filled up the two bottles with Mansarovar jal. We got a ride back to the mud house with the sherpas.
Problem: It was only now that I realized that Nitesh had sold us Touch Kailash touring company. We were no longer with Satyam.
We decided to look for Uncle after coming back. On the way we stopped by the kitchen and had a nice warm cup of strawberry juice. Very unusual and very good! Lunch was not ready yet. There was yet another issue. We were to move to another location today because the place we were in was booked for the night by another group. This part of the journey was not the most pleasant.
Uncle’s group was staying in such a nice place. They had a nice big room, although they were also 10 in a room! But the rooms were more comfortable than what we had been staying in. And their lunch was soo good!! They had puris, two sabzi, daal, paapad and of course dessert. All north Indian food. We told them about our program and hoped that we would all get to do parikrama. (Note: It seems that taking the altitude sickness pill, Diamox, was giving everyone tingling all over their body!)
On the way back we ran into Suresh and Ria. They like being outside a lot! They told us that the south Indians in our group had gone to the other side of Mansarovar to take bath and then do puja. Oh okay! Why?? Whatever, but they were delaying our lunch. Oh God!! It was about 3 pm now. And after seeing all the puris I was hungry.
We came back to our room. I wanted to just rest for a while, while Bhaiya wanted to trek up to the monastery. Good – more power to him. So he went by himself. We went for lunch after Bhaiya came back. He wanted to go and see Dr. Sain immediately after but I told him not to go because he (Bhaiya) must be exhausted and I thought we were going to move only a few buildings over when we moved.
It turns out when we moved at 6 pm it was about 1 mile away from the lake. Darn!! It was purnima today and we wanted to see if stars came down to the lake at night and then go to Kailash. I tell you this trip has been one let down after another. The new digs were equally bad. Now there were four of us in one room. It seems there were not enough rooms here. So some people were staying in some other place. This travel company, Touch Kailash, is hopeless!! And the toilets in this place….oh – someone have mercy!! It is getting progressively worse.
During this time the other lady guide, Doga, came back from Darchen and said they did not get permission to go into Darchen. She had come back in a police car because the security had closed Darchen. A few people were really mad and in particular one Indian got really aggressive and both he and Doga almost got into fist fight. She threatened to tell police about him so he would be in Chinese jail. (No guide is supposed to threaten!) It was a battlefield for 10 mins. Later things got calm and she convinced everyone that Darchen was closed and that we have to vacate this current place tomorrow because it is booked for the next group.
She said we have to move to Horshu, on the banks of Mansorovar, tomorrow and wait to see if we get permission to go to Darchen. Yeah....I feel like a football...being kicked around from one place to another.
Problem: None of what Doga told us about Darchen was true. We were blatantly lied to by these Chinese/Tibetians guides. We did not know this until we got back to Nyalam. This was the place where we were cheated of an experience of a lifetime, a yatra done once in a lifetime….
Part of the group wanted to go back to Nyalam tomorrow, 3rd, since going to Darchen was not looking too optimistic. We wanted to stay with the big group and go to Horshu so that if Darchen opens then we can do our parikrama. Which means if we don’t do parikrama, then we will be back in Kathmandu by 7th June, two days earlier than scheduled.
Yesterday and today were the most disappointing days of the trip because the Chinese/Tibetian guides lied to us through their teeth just because they wanted more money! (We found that out later). They ruined our yatra for their own greediness. As far as I am concerned they will never find peace in their life for this.
The rest of the evening was quite boring. It was cold, miserable and we were all feeling blue. Dinner was brought to our rooms as there was no place to set the food. It was kichdi and noodles today.
After dinner four of us took the van to Mansarovar around 11:30 pm to see if we could see the stars coming into the lake. We also needed to see Uncle and ask what their group was up to. So when we reached Uncle’s group was all upbeat and the mood was relaxed. I still envied their rooms – so nicely lit and comfortable. We asked to speak with their guide and their guide had not told them half the things our guide was telling us. And he was positive that Darchen would open and they were going on parikrama. They had already paid for their ponies and porters. We told them about what our guide told us. But they were not worried. Either they were not told the truth or we were being lied to!
We drove from there to the lake. It was dark except for the beautiful illumination from the full moon. We sat in the van with our eyes glued to the sky. We stayed there for 30-40 mins, partly outside the van also. But no stars came down…. although I could feel the presence Shiv-Parvati all around me, but stars would have been amazing too.
By the time we came back to our rooms, the power had been turned off. It was a pain changing clothes in the dark under the comforter for me. And it was bloody cold!
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