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Yamdrok Tso - the Crab Lake

Map 2, From Tsetang, (click on the map to enlarge), past Gongka (the Lhasa airport) and the Tsangpo bridge to Lhasa, Kampa La (just north of the large, irregular Crab Lake), along Yamdrok Tso, Nakartse, Karo La, to Gyantse; Shalu Gompa and Shigatse next day (the spelling of the Tibetan names is slightly different on the maps).

A seemingly dangerous and endlessly winding dirt road took us from the Tsangpo bridge near Lhasa airport 1300 m up to the top of Kampa La (4700 m) where we were suddenly faced with this spectacular view of Yamdrok Tso. Cornelius had been here before, he is practicing his Chinese with Pujung. The three drivers squat in the foreground having a smoke. Marianne had complained bitterly of her driver's smoking in the car, Katrina joined her and Pujung finally decreed that they could only smoke at a rest stop. Soon we had "smoking-stops" and "pee-stops" — more about these later.  

From the top of the pass an acrid cloud of smoke drifted with the wind — and then we discovered that the fire was surrounded by hundreds of bits of paper.... A dump at such a beautiful place!? Each of these little trash squares turned out to be printed with a prayer in Tibetan and a lung — a "Wind Horse" carrying the Chakrakala symbol. Prayer papers! A gust of wind scattered them north towards Lhasa. And the smoke came from Juniper twigs. To please the noses of the Gods. Marianne and Cornelius examining the pieces of paper.  

 In 2002 Cornelius and Anne-Cecile passed here again in sunnier weather, and AC took this picture, which shows the high mountains of the Himalaya chain, which we had missed. 

However, the subdued light of our day muted the colors to a subtlety not seen in the high contrast of a sunny day at this altitude.  

We followed the many bays and arms of Yamdrok Tso for over an hour. 

 Lunch at a truck-stop in Nakartse. Pujung by the window and our three drivers.

Behind Nakartse the road climbs a second, even higher pass, Karo La. One can get used to the altitude, one just slows down to half-speed, but the rapid altitude changes the cars make possible can be truly dangerous.  

Karo La was to be our last spectacular high pass (5200 m)— notice the curved mountain flank on the left — until we would cross the Himalayas again on our return to Kathmandu. This may sound baffling, but Tibet north of the Himalaya chain (the Tibetan Plateau) is larger than France, higher than Montblanc, and flatter than a breakfast table.... We would drive up the Tsangpo Valley which is separated from the Tibetan Plateau proper by the Gangdise Range which peaks at Mt. Kailas. The effect is the same: the Tsangpo Valley is on average about 4300 m high and 100 km wide in places, the 8000-m-peaks of the Himalaya are far away, and Kailas at 6670 m is less than 2000 m higher than the valley floor.

 Cornelius and Marianne admiring the glacier on Karo La.

 As we approached Gyangtse it began to rain. We had to ford many rivulets draining from the mountains. It was cold and we were not yet used to the jumps and bumps of our Toyota monkey-cages. One had no shocks and another had a carburetor problem and oozed gasoline fumes. Marianne, especially, was destroyed.

Gyangtse

In Gyangtse Bart took us to a Tibetan guesthouse he had once stayed in. It was such a dump that even I refused to sleep there without my sleeping bag, which was on the truck. Eventually, while we were shivering in the cars, Barbara took our headless guides to a Chinese place where we found more tolerable lodging.

That night Cornelius led us to a Chinese Sichuan-restaurant. On the way Marianne took me aside and demanded a rest day to recover from our drive. I had to tell her that this was impossible, she was one of a group of nine, and our schedule could not be changed. I suggested that she should consider to leave the trip in Shigatse while we were still in civilized territory where she could go by bus. She understandably frowned. For the first time Bart showed his escort skills and negotiated her departure with Pujung. As it would turn out his was an immeasurable service to her and us. She would not have survived the weeks to come.... 

Gyantse's main street leading to its famous gompa. Its entrance gate is visible at the end of the road.

 The hill with the historical Gyangtse tsong — castle, which was destroyed by the British Younghusband invasion at the end of the 19^th-century. The picture was taken from the roof of the main meditation hall of Gyangtse gompa. Barbara and I also climbed the "Kumbum" a step chörten nearby covered on the inside with hundreds of singular Tantric murals. But it was too cold, and we were too exhausted to take pictures. In the afternoon we drove first to Shalu Gompa, a very special Sakya sanctuary with magnificent murals of mandalas (somehow my Shalu photographs have vanished). By nightfall we reached Shigatse.

Shigatse 

 This time the Tibetan guesthouse was good enough for all of us but Marianne who demanded a better hotel. Pujung spent hours at the foreigners police office separating her from the group and finally paid for several nights accommodations for he at the best Shigatse hotel. As it were her stay there cost more than all our "hotel" expenses for the rest of our trip.... We said good-bye to her who was coughing and ratching for air, but was otherwise happy. — As it were, from then on I had recurring dreams that she was lying dying of high-altitude edema in some Tibetan ditch by the roadside.

Map 3, From Shigatse to Sakya

Sakya Gompa

Seeing Sakya Gompa, the center of pre-Gelugpa Tibet, had been one of my great wishes. we were lucky that in that year Sakya was accessible to tourists. No one I know has been able to visit Sakya then or later. We joined up with our truck, which carried all of our camping gear, the kitchen, a "dining" tent, the food supplies, and in big oil drums several hundred liters of gasoline for all four cars for the entire four-week trip. We left Shigatse early and....

...an hour east along the road to Kailas waited at the Sakya turn-off for a truck going to Shigatse which could take Marianne's luggage back to Shigatse. From the left Cornelius, Barbara, Pujung, Peter, a driver, Jeroen, the Kampa hitchhiker who wanted to visit Kailas, the truck driver, and Agha, the former opera singer who drove the third Toyota.  

Late in the afternoon under billowing clouds we drove up the valley to Sakya. 

 Sakya Gompa consists of two parts, these are old, historical buildings a second campus, badly destroyed in the Cultural Revolution is across the river out of the picture to the right. The abbots of Sakya were installed as governors by the Chinese emperors of the Mongol Yüan Dynasty (14^th century) in acknowledgement of their help in converting Mogolia to Buddhism in the 13^th century. During the Yüan Sakya became immensely rich, it still "owns" villages and monasteries from Kham to Ladakh and the Mustang in Nepal. The succession of the abbots passed from uncle to nephew. The present Sakya heir lived in Seattle, WA. In the late 14^th century political corruption pervaded Sakya rule. It was then that the reformer Tsongkhapa founded the Gelug Order for which he invented the "reincarnation doctrine" of their abbots who would eventually become the Dalai Lamas. The Sakyapa remained the "Red-Hat" intellectual and spiritual elite of Tibetan Buddhism, while the Gelugpa ruled Tibet by the armies of their monks.  

The immense main prayer hall of Sakya is hard to appreciate from the outside.  

 The interior is larger than Grand Central Station, the walls clothed with precious silk brocades and gilded statues. Behind the main altar hide the three-story-high shelves of a complete library of Buddhist texts, covered with two-finger-thick dust, locked by the Tibetan administration behind wire mesh.... 

The roof. The two monks give an impression of the size of this architecture. On the walls of the circumambulation courtyard one can dimly make out a series of gigantic mandalas, the teaching tools of the Sakyapa. All Sakya buildings including those in the Sakya villages are painted dark gray and are girded by a, usually horizontal, red-white stripe.