Shriram's space

Day 4 :: TUESDAY 18 Aug 2015 From Lhasa to Lha Tse : around 480 kms

Slept well at the Lhasa hotel room. The mattress was firm and hard the way I like it, in contrast to the very soft and supple mattress at Radisson Kathmandu. So made up for the lost sleep of Kathmandu at Lhasa !! Thank god for small mercies.

From now on the journey was on road by four buses. We had been split into 4 groups i.e A thru D and each group had around 15 people. We had to get to know our group better as the next few days we were to cling on to this group!! Each bus also had an accompanying cop who was to be with us all the way to Manasarovar and back till our return to Lhasa.

The Tibetans in Lhasa were celebrating a local festival “Shoton festival” Aug 14-20^th. http://www.exploretibet.com/festivals/shoton-festival.html.

Left from the Hao Di Hotel at Lhasa at 0845 after a breakfast of Chinese style stir fried veggies and rice cakes and a light congi. As days went by we realizes that we were to get very little chance (no chance at all literally) to test out the local cuisine. Visit this link for more on Tibetan cuisine ::: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_cuisine

We were to see a lots of farms on the way especially in the plains of Lhatse. These are all either barley fields (called Tsampa, which is the local staple food) or even mustard fields.

The scenery was nice all along. Rugged country side with hills and mountains, a few snow clad. Very sparse vegetation. A river / stream running alongside the path carrying the waters of the melting snow. Our convoy of four buses and two pilot vehicles (SUVs) had been arranged in such a way that every alternate bus had a doctor in it. Each bus had a medical kit and oxygen tanks. We were allotted our quota of water bottles twice a day and told to drink at least 3 litres. We were assured of timely bio-breaks to empty our bladders in the wide open toilet that mother nature had in store for us in Tibet , the roof of the world. The protocol was ladies on one side of the bus and the gents on the other. The 125 mg Diamox (half a tablet of Wyeth’s 250 mg caplet) and the few litres of water we drank forced us to have frequent halts. Out of sheer natural compulsion, all of us got used to this protocol of using nature’s “toilets with a view” easily especially the womenfolk.

We continued chanting for a while, gave a self-introduction to others in the bus and traded little snack eats that many of us had packed. Rest of the time was spent gazing at the scenery and looking forward to the next bio-break.

We cross a major town called Shigatse (Xigatse) enorute from Lhase to Lha Tse. Did not stop there though. Our Nepali sherpas had packed a cooked lunch from Lhasa consisting of Rice, Puris, Mutter aloo (note not aloo mutter, as it had lots of mutter and very little aloo) with the mutter a tad undercooked or al dente!! We also had one dry mix veg and a plantain each. The plantain was a must have, to address the potassium depletion on account of the Diamox. We halted on the roadside by a flat open space and gobbled down the food just after around half the distance of say 200 kms. There was a speed restriction of 40 kmph with laser guns checking at random. So the drivers had to maintain a sedate pace of 40 kmph most of the way. They had laser detectors in the buses and it would give the drivers a warning of laser beam checking ahead, prompting them to slow down to a crawl. There was a slight drizzle enroute. We reached Lha Tse town at around 1830 hrs. Was bright and cheerful at 1830 !!

Lha Tse is a small town largely agrarian economy. Farming of Barley, Mustard, rearing livestock (cows, sheep, goats), brick making , making Chinese noodles like Italian pasta , wooden furniture making and painting etc are all important activities that we witnessed. Barley, called Tsampa, is used in powder form and also used to make barley beer. Mustard oil is extracted in small mills and the residue is used as feed for livestock. Nothing goes to waste in these harsh environments.

Our stay at Lha Tse was in a hotel called Lha Tse Farmers Hotel / “Tibet’s first hotel of peasants” and was a Star Rated Home Inn (Gold)!!. The other major modern hotel was not available to us as it had been reserved by some other group. No attached toilets / hot water etc, but the Farmers hotel had wifi!!

Sherpas busy at the kitchen...

We were to stay here for two nights to get acclimatized. We were told no more showers / bathing as the body was not to be subjected to any unnecessary thermal shocks. We volunteered to accommodate one more person in our room so we had three guys to a room. Had an evening medical check up for BP and oxygen saturation levels.

Dinner was dal , sabzi, roti and rice and the highlight was a nice hot tomato soup!! We were gradually getting used to the monotonous routine for food and the limited repertoire of the Sherpa cooks.

The next morning was to be a leisurely day of just hanging around Lha Tse town and so there was no early morning rise-n-shine routine or unpacking/packing to worry about!! The mattress was rock hard and a delight to sleep in !! Slept like a baby on a hard rock bed!!