May 1, 2007
Rest Day in Lhasa: Nam Tso trip
Today is the International Labor Day, a day off in most communist countries and often celebrated with patriotic military parades. The PLA (People's Liberation Army) has been busy setting up stuff on the square in front of the Potala Palace where there is a large monument to celebrate the "liberation" of Tibet some fifty years ago. We don't want to be in town for all this.
There's a high altitude lake some 250 kms Northeast of Lhasa that we go visit as part of a tour today. It's an early start leaving the hotel at 7am. It's a long drive, all uphill to the lake at 4700 meters. Our minivan is full and just crawls up the hills. We follow the tracks of the New China to Lhasa railroad. The lakes is still frozen, with only narrow strips of open water along the edge. We do not get to see its peculiar color therefore but the white surface, blue sky, stark landscape and snow covered mountains in the background is spectacular.
We walk the Kora around a small mountain on the edge of the lake, joining Olaf Schubert, a German from Dresden who runs a small NGO building schools in East Tibet. He is also a professional photographer and has published books on Laos and Tibet. Needless to say, we all take lots of pictures on our walk. We have a very scenic lunch on the lake shore, a flow of ice has built up on the shore, there are rocks and colorful prayer flags.
Our van leaves again at 3pm, it's a long slow journey back to Lhasa. To control speed the police have come up with an ingenious system. They give the driver a note with the time noted. He has to then stop at half a dozen checkpoints where they check his progress and note the time. If he is too fast he is ticketed. Corruption is rampant, the times are unrealistic. Even though we drive slow we have to stop and wait several times between checkpoints to avoid getting fined.
We get back to Lhasa around 7pm, just as a dust storm hits the city. We have dinner with Olaf at the Yak Hotel, a very good yak sizzler steak! Olaf invites us to join him tomorrow to Drak Yerpa, a smaller less visited monastery about 30km East of Lhasa.
We'll meet him early tomorrow and share a taxi ride.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |