AFVOA Newletters of Year 2013

Page 28 of 61 TRAVELOGUE KAI LASH MANASAROVAR YATRA by Col N Viswanathan (Continued from last issue) 7th Day Actually we were to spend an extra day at Darchen but the Buddha Poornima festival had started. The Chinese sensed trouble from the Tibetans and did not want any tourists, particularly Indians to be around at that time. They wanted our lodge for their police and military officers. The town as such was already decorated with flags and coloured festoons. That was the reason given by our Tibetan guide, which was a fact, as those of us who went on the parikrama and returned on the 3rd day did not have access to their rooms. I was also denied access to my room on the 1st floor by two smartly dressed Chinese uniformed personnel who kept on gesticulating and saying something in Chinese. Coming back to the yatra, as mentioned earlier Darchen (4600m) is the base camp for the parikrama. For commencing the parikrama we had to go to a place called Tarboche (Yamadwar). The southwest face of Mt.Kailash was visible from here. There was also the face of a Nandi adjoining the Mt. It was all a wonderful sight to see and behold since these were the only ones with ice formation on the peaks. After breakfast we were all taken by our dedicated vehicles to this place about 8 km away from the plain where Darchen is located. Pack lunch was also given to us. There is a small structure here seen in some photos. We were asked to go around this before commencing the parikrama. This is also the place where everyone gathers and is allotted horse and porter. The whole exercise is carried out by draw of lots and if you get a good horse and a good porter then you are really lucky. Of course most of the porters are quite good. The porters as I mentioned earlier is for carrying your back pack. One by one our names were called out and assigned our horse and porter. As I had decided to make the pilgrimage on foot I was allotted a porter only, a young and pleasant faced guy, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. There were seven of us who had decided to make the parikrama on foot. Surprisingly we had three ladies also who were doing it on foot. Of course they were relatively much younger. The rest travelled on horse back. Incidentally the horse will not carry your back pack. So you have to have a porter for that. The whole process took about 45 mins after which we set off on the parikrama one by one. I too started off along with my porter or rather helper carrying my backpack. The back pack contained my pack lunch, dry fruits and other eatables and also changes of inner clothing, medicines etc. These guys carrying the packs were quite young, mostly in there 20s or early 30s. They moved on the terrain with comparative ease and some were even whistling along whilst we were struggling for our breath. Initial few kilometres had only a slight gradient and after about 3 hours we stopped on the way for lunch. Many of the porters and horsemen were carrying mobiles which was quite surprising considering that the place was sparsely populated and there were no towers visible. The journey was along a valley, with barren mountains on either side or a partly frozen river flowing alongside. There were some patches of ice on the hills faces but just no greenery whatsoever. I forgot to mention that from the start point at Tarboche, we were also accompanied by yaks which were carrying the heavy load for the kitchen including gas cylinders. One had to be very careful of these animals along the route as they would suddenly burst forth on your path and we would have to make a quick getaway to the slopes so that you don't get trampled. They use the same trail but sometimes wandered off to the slopes. They were only