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Sunday, November 17, 2019

Chinese Tibet

Chinese Tibet ...

In 1951 China signed an acession agreement with Tibet and in 1959 Dalai lama escaped into India
My post of his escape
http://hariwrite.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-escape-of-dalai-lama.html?m=1

After a decade of supression cruelty and  destruction of Tibet the Chinese gave more freedom built good infrastructure and attracted the younger generation who found life more easier with greater pleasures than thier old forgotten country .
Today with train from Beijing to Lhasa Tibet is very much part of China .
The Tibet which we went round mount Kailas was still in the process of modernisation .
It was never easy as geographically Tibet is a rugged plateau with high altitudes and building roads and  bridges and towns was an uphill task but rely on the Chinese to take hard tasks easily .
Overland route from kathmandu the capital of Nepal to mount Kailas was around 948 km
It went over Himalayan mountains
The border between Nepal and China and the customs building was in a place called
Keyrong .
It was reached after 2 hardy days of travel in bumpy narrow roads on high mountains and sheer falls .
Nepali villages were dusty unkempt in plains
In hills they were cute with flowers but the way up was filled with danger of imminent landslides .
We managed to avoid some but once needed to walk through a narrow edge where a landslide had destroyed road and reached other side to take a bus on other side arranged for us
Finally we reached Keyrung .
The Nepali custom was in a ramshackle building and we could see a big bridge on other side was China and its building was new big and neat .
We had to wait on bridge for some hours as one German couple with our troupe had to come the next day due to some visa issue .
Later we went to other side and sailed through very efficient customs .
We got into spank new buses and good roads but later roads became bad as they were being built and we needed to go off road though there were large empty spaces to go off road but they were bit muddy with rains and several times one of our troupes 2 buses kept sinking in mud and we had to wait for a JCB to pull it out .
By the time we reached Manasarovar after staying in a city called Saga for acclimitastion for 2 days it was like a very long journey .
Saga itself was a fine city with broad roads traffic lights hotels shops etc
Manasarovar gave us first glimpse of Kailas which was an emotional moment .
No one is allowed to swim or take bath these days in the freezing waters of the lake .
There was a bathing area where water was let in
Some of us just washed our faces including me .
We stayed in Manasarovar for a night next day morning we did some pujas offerrings for ancestors who had left us and then went to Drachen our final city with civilised hotels etc by late afternoon
Evening we walked up as an exercise to acclimatise to thin air
Tibetians sold oxygen bottles along with souvenuirs .
The next day morning we were dropped by our buses to yama dwar about 14 km nearer to south face of kailas
It was a big opening in 2 mountains and was named after the God of Death Yama
In the opening we could see the magnificient kailas
We got into our horses for a days trek to north face a place called Dirapukh but thats for another day .

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