Day 12 :: WEDNESDAY 26 Aug 2015 ……. Saga to Lha Tse

Guru Puja at the Saga hotel, a quick breakfast and off we were on our trusted 4 buses to Lha Tse. 

The highlight of the return journey was that all the 4 groups were to present a skit at Lha Tse in the evening or at Lhasa the next day. So everyone was busy cooking up ideas for their respective skits and the air was very competitive. With no group sharing their ideas with the other.

Writing out the scripts, playing the planned roles and rehearsing, all when the buses were in motion. We also took time out to play a game called Mafia in our D company bus. Time flew past, with bio breaks thrown in and a lunch break for pre packed lunch.

The sherpas did an amazing job each day. Apart from making a quick breakfast in the morning, they also had to cook a packed lunch for all 61 of us. They also had to manage the duffel bags every night. We used to leave the duffel bags outside our rooms at nioght and the sherpas would go around and pick them up and load them in the truck alongwith their food provisions, gas cylinders etc etc. Guess these guys hardly ever slept.

The stay at Lha Tse on our return was in a far better hotel, right out of a south Indian film set.. jazzy and garish décor but decent rooms with very good showers and hot water and wifi !!!!

A few of us wanted to reciprocate by cooking a meal for dinner and we sought an okay for this. Five of us volunteered to do this and we planned out a simple South Indian meal menu based on available provisions. Luckily the sherpas had tamarind and essential spices.

On reaching Lha Tse the 5 volunteers raided the hotels kitchen and with the aid of the sherpas got the kitchen up and running. Connected the gas cylinders, cleaned the veggies and started chopping them up. The sherpas pitched in in chopping veggies. We were running short of sambar powder and vettakuzhambhu powder wo we fried raw ingredients and powdered them after borrowing a mixie from  the hotel’s main restaurant.  The menu consisted of potatoes minced into small cubes and roasted, a cauliflower dry roast, a tomato rasam and a brinjal vettakuzhambu with rice. Dessert was sweet kesari with lots of cashews and raisins thrown in. We had to send the sherpas scrambling for fresh ghee and tomatoes.

We started at 1800 hrs and wanted to serve dinner at 2000. It was fun and chaos, combined. The water outlet choked and the kitchen floor was in a couple of inches of water!! Skiiding along with Dr Sundar managing to fall down and not overturn the rasam, escaping unhurt !! Mrs Latha Parameswaran was the main recipe queen dictating the proportions for such a large crowd of people. Wanted the dinner to be ready by 2000 pm but because of the kitchen water flood fiasco and the missing ingredients, it was ready by 2100. Luckily we found proper stainless steel plates (the dimpled kind that you find in messes) and we were also able to use the restaurant in the 3^rd floor of the hotel to serve the meal. We began by serving our annadaata sherpas first and then the crowd plunged in. It was our gesture to try and say Thank You to the Sherpas who had been feeding us all these days...

The meal did come out nice and spicy and finger licking good!! The qty of rice that was consumed that night was twice the ordinary amt and all the items were wiped clean except for a bit of rasam and a little kesari.

A few other volunteers pitched in to help ( Ramki anna, Vinutha akka, Vidhya Vinothini akka) 

the cooks...

empty containers !!

We hope that all of the participants enjoyed eating the dinner as much as we had fun preparing it!! And we thank the participants for trusting us with the ability to serve a meal!!!