We left the hotel in Lhasa at 5:30 this morning, and we got to the airport in about an hour. The staff are lovely, kind, speak fluent Chinese, but they strictly enforce all the rules. My luggage had to be re-scanned three times... first, they took out the batteries. They checked this in Shenzhen but put it back. Not here. In hand luggage. Then my headlamp because it also has batteries, and finally, the machine also detected the blood oxygen meter that can be clipped to my little finger because it also has batteries... That was the check-in and baggage security. After that, I could go to the security check. There, everything had to be put on a tray, the batteries were checked and the devices they were supposed to be in... in the end, everything was OK. It takes time to check in. So, we didn't have to wait long inside. There is no Starbucks coffee shop in Lhasa by the way... this is a big miss for a Hong Kong person... because in HK we are very used to Starbucks coffee but now it is everywhere in China... There is not one in Lhasa yet.
Flight west 1,2oo km 1 hour 40 minutes. Before landing, they announced several times in all languages that Ngari (Ali) airport is also a military airport and that no one should dare to take photos of the surroundings through the window during landing or of the airport after landing... The announcement didn't seem so funny because the hostess also announced that the airport is not secured by normal personnel but by a special army unit...
When disembarking, there are stairs pushed up to the plane, and on the concrete there are indeed masked soldiers with machine guns. Everyone could see the fighter planes parked on the concrete in the open, but I wouldn't dare write either the type or the number... but there are a lot of them... I love China, I avoid describing things like that.
My luggage came out quickly and the driver waved outside that we were ready... outside, you could already take photos of the front of the airport building and there is also a designated place for photos. They think of everything, everything has its place.
From Ali airport it is a 3 hour journey on a fairly good road to Darchen. I had searched a lot on the map before but it is called BaGeXiang. It is a small town, but there is a lot of accommodation. There are 3 larger good quality hotels, converted to about EUR 23o per room per night. I came for a pilgrimage and did not want to spend money, we booked a small Guest house but this was also converted to about EUR 48 per night. The mountain guide has accommodation because he comes often. Kalsang has done 33 times around Kailash so far.
The Kailash National Park is a protected area and everyone needs a separate entry permit and the guide is mandatory. We need it too, all Chinese IDs are required. This gives many Tibetans work. By the way, as I see, everything is free for local Tibetans everywhere, they scan the ID and the data is included, the Chinese pay for everything which is a huge income for Tibet and a lot of jobs for Tibetans. They calculate every day from the time of entry and you have to pay per day. I do not know how much because my wife arranged it through an organizer.
The office was closed at 1:30 pm, it opens at 2:30 pm because you have to eat from noon and then you have a siesta. We went to eat until then. There are many small restaurants, we chose a Tibetan restaurant. I ordered steamed Chinese kale, potatoes with curry and red-fried momos with vegetables. I don't eat meat, but Tibetans and Tibetan monks also discourage meat eating... I don't understand this part, Rinpoche couldn't answer it either. In any case, meat dominates Tibetan food. It's harder to ask for non-meat food. I called the chef and explained to him how he makes it. Today's lunch was very good, but I have a feeling that I ate a kind of Chinese food... their spicy homemade sauce was fantastic with the momos.
After lunch we came back to the small hotel, Kalsang went to do his business, then we would meet in the morning, we stayed there and left at 7. I got dizzy and had a headache, I took some acetazolamide and went to sleep, which I more or less succeeded in doing. When I woke up it was already around 7 pm, the wind was howling strongly through the cracks in the window, it seems a cold wave has come, the air has cooled to 7C and the wind is strong outside... accordingly, the room cannot be more than 9-1oC... So sitting in front of the iPad you get cold. I put on the warm layer of high-altitude equipment under the trousers, a wool polo shirt, a fleece top, but I am still cold, I might not wear the down top. Fortunately, there are thick blankets in the room, it is completely covered and the weather is better under it. According to Kalsang, up on the Dolma La pass it can be as low as -12C now. Good thing it's July...
My head still hurts, acetayolamide can be taken every 8-12 hours, the next tablet is due at 10 pm, then at 6 am. I might not take it on the mountain but I will take it and Viagra if I have difficulty breathing then Sildenafil citrate 100 mg per day for max 2 days. I bought a generic, it is not called Viagra but it has the same active ingredient.
It is 8:30 pm here now and it could be bright sunshine if the wind were not raging and the sky was not overcast. Kailash was completely shrouded in fog, it did not show itself. There is only one time zone in China and although we are in the time zone of India and Kazakhstan here, we calculate Beijing time. I think this is very good for the administration but what we perceive from this is that it gets dark around 10 pm.
So tomorrow morning at 7 am we are leaving for our first ascent. As I looked at the mountainside, the climb is not that gentle from here, but according to Kalsang, it rises a thousand meters in about 14 km. Everything will be revealed tomorrow.
A lot of people come here and there was a flight from Lhasa every half hour in the morning. Our flight was full of Taiwanese tourists.. I saw one lady with a Hello Kitty rolling suitcase in a long skirt... but since she came to an extreme place, she brought serious hiking boots... well, there will definitely be plenty to see on the mountain if they really do the ascent. However, the tourists go around in 3 days, I plan 1 ascent every 2 days. This will reveal how my body reacts to the conditions of the Himalayas in the next 2 days.
On the 7th and 8th I did my first hike in 2 days. 57 km.
On the 7th we started at 6:30 in the morning, the day started out nice but soon it started to rain which turned into a continuous, persistent rain with strong winds. The temperature dropped to 1 C. I was wearing a Water and Wind Proof jacket but my boots, pants and backpack were soaked to the core despite all the protection. We were so cold that we went into a shelter at 3 pm earlier than planned for the first day. Such a shelter is the only room with large benches with backrests, including tables, which can be used for eating and sleeping. There is a fire pit in the middle of the room where you can put wet clothes and boots. I wrung out a lot of water from my insoles and socks and put them in the dryer along with other wet clothes. In the evening it must have been well below zero because the muddy ground was frozen hard. The door to the shelter is kept open all the time so it's never more than 10 degrees inside. Those who spend the night there are given thick blankets and pillows. I tried to warm up under them.
Late in the afternoon, a Chinese nun from Anhui province sat down on the bench opposite me. We talked about Buddha, Buddhism, the koras... When the nun found out that Kalsan was my mountain guide, she bombarded her with questions. How many koras had she done so far? Kalsan said 33. How did she feel after that? Kalsan said: Nothing special. Kalsan quickly got tired of the nun's questions and turned to deal with her phone. Later, we talked to Kalsan and she said that this nun had no idea about anything. She came here to think that a miracle would happen to her, that the Gods would come out of the mountain before whom she could kneel and when she went home she could tell about her experiences with the Gods. But in the souls of Tibetan people, it is not like that. There are Tibetans who dedicate their whole lives to walking around Kailash, there are those who lie down every three steps with slippers in their hands. Tibetans do not consider their kurra as a worldly thing, but rather as something that will benefit them in their next life. The more kurra they do, the better off they will be in their next life. I saw Chinese people on the road who were taken up as high as possible by car, where they would take their clothes off and then return to their comfortable hotel. I saw a group of Japanese people who were put on horseback and each horse was led by a Tibetan man through a narrow path on the Dolma La Pass. However, Tibetans only do the rounds traditionally and on foot. They usually do 13 rounds one after the other.
My cold slowly subsided in the afternoon, my clothes were still mostly wet, and I managed to sleep a little during the night under the thick warm blankets. We got up at 4:30 in the morning and resumed the kurra at 5. The temperature was well below zero, so the rain turned into snow, which was much better than rain. We stopped for tea before the Dolma La Pass, there were Chinese and Japanese groups there. We reached the pass after 1 o'clock in the morning. It had snowed so much that the wind horses or prayer flags were completely covered with snow, at least half a meter of snow fell.
We took photos at the pass and moved on. The plan for this day was 38 km. The descent after the pass was not easy either on the slippery, icy, snowy rocky paths. Finally, we reached the mountain where we had campa with black tea in a shelter.
Unfortunately, Kailash did not show itself, it was constantly shrouded in fog. It was a long walk to Darchen until 8 pm to the hotel. Sometimes I felt like I could not go any further... Everything hurt, I lacked oxygen, which made me breathe rapidly and I was extremely tired. But I went because Kalsang was also going and we had to finish it today. We reached the hotel at 8 pm. I was unspeakably tired, primarily from the lack of oxygen because my body had not yet acclimatized. At the hotel, I collapsed into bed and just kicked off my boots and fell asleep.
I had coughing fits at night because I was breathing in the cold air on the mountain, so I didn't sleep much.
The next day I asked Kalsang to go to the hospital for a check-up because something was wrong with my lungs. The doctor said that I had a bad cold, and if I continued like this, it would lead to pulmonary edema, which is the worst. He prescribed a 3-day infusion course with strong antibiotics. Today was the 2nd course. I have improved a lot, tomorrow will be the 3rd course. If the doctor says there is no big risk, then I can continue with the other courses. Now that I can't go because of the hospital, Kailash is shining in the sun. So I will continue the day after tomorrow anyway...
