To Dechen/Jol/Deqin: a triple pass day

April 3, 2007

During the night, it rains and by the sounds of it, sleet hitting the tent. At one point a strong wind gusts hit the tent but nothing to be concerned about, we are nice and warm in our sleeping bags.

We wake at about 7am, Patrick expects to see snow blanketing the grounds, but it's only wet. Low clouds have settled in between the mountains with only glimpses of snow covered peaks and ridges. We pack up and after warm oatmeal and coffee push back to the road. The cobblestones continue, long switchbacks heading up higher. We pass the 4000 meters elevation, it's not causing us too much trouble though.

We are approaching a triple pass. The first one is visible for a long time, there is a monument with lots of prayer flags. On the other side is a grand vista of snow covered mountain chain. We are at 4243 meters altitude according to Patrick's altimeter. After lunch we start a downhill and then another climb to the second pass supposedly called Yak La. It's not really a pass though, more a high point on the side of a mountain. We look over the deep valley and more high mountains beyond. Further to the North looms the third pass, seemingly higher than the second. We are at 4270 meters, drop back down to about 4100 and start the final climb.

The cobblestones continue to about a km from the last pass, then we get a few kms of asphalt that will give way again to the cobblestones on the other side. Patrick suspects this third climb is the real pass at 4290 meters as it's the highest, and there is a large monument with many strings of prayer flags. We eat and then start the long downhill to Deqin.

The clouds have thickened and now flurries have been falling while we climbed the last pass, it's cold and we put on our rain jackets. Patrick digs out thick gloves. It's never all downhill though, the last 10kms present us with a few more climbs, then another downhill to the town we see nestled in a side valley and still a kilometer above the Mekong River. The rain starts to get serious for us as we ride into town, the concrete road surface is getting slick.

The choice of hotels doesn't look good. The first two are dumps, then Patrick finds a decent room with a hot shower! in a once grand building. Now everything seems to be broken and it's expensive at 100 yuan, but it's time to get out of the rain. We were at the top of the pass at 1pm and we are now checking in at 3:30pm, two days to reach the top and 2 1/2 hours to come back down (like Thanksgiving dinner taking days to cook and 15 minutes to eat).

We search the town for food and find internet to check our emails. We see only a few tourists and they don't speak or acknowledge us except for a Bosnian woman we almost met on the second pass. We had just cycled around a corner when the tourist bus had stopped for a toilet break (people had scattered to find a private spot). She was so excited to see us and said she had seen us yesterday and had been worried about us.

Laundry done, with not much hope that it will dry. We watch CCTV9 with some international news.