Zhongba to Darchen

Another loooooong day in the 4WD, this time capped off with dust blowing in from every direction. Our bags and clothing (not to mention ears, nostrils, face) are covered in a layer of fine dust from the sand dunes we passed rolling along the trek.

Did I mention that the roads go from bad to worse, usually worse? We hit pavement about 4 kms from Darchen and didn't know what to do with ourselves.

The morning started out with the classic Tibeten meal...tsampa and butter tea. Tsampa is made from mixing barley flour and yak butter tea, but then you get an extra cup on the side!!!! mmmmm!!Salty, buttery, and not a lot of 'tea' involved. Tsampa is like eating play dough - though sometimes they dry it out and eat it hard. So I guess that'd be like eating dried play dough.

Heather & I just played a game of 'would you rather...' and we both concluded if we had to we'd drink a pint of yak butter tea over Mongolian fermented mare's milk but differed on a big bowl of tsampa versus Mongolian dried mare's cheese (I said the cheese, she said tsampa).

The scenery didn't change as much in this route as the previous day but it was just as long - we left at 9am and arrived at 7pm. It involved 3 checkpoints though (passport, travel permit for Tibet, wave to the Chinese soldiers) and donations of 200 kuai each to the preservation of Mt Kailash & Lake Manasovar. This mostly irritated us because we didn't know to expect it (Thanks, Tibetan Connections!).

Lunch was more yak and potato in a tent somewhere past the first checkpoint. The toilet situation is getting more and more...er...basic. Today I've weed in a rubbish tip, a pit across the street from a hotel (stones and sticks on hand in event of aggressive dogs) and a pit across the carpark from the hotel room. You know you're a 'hardcore' traveller when you look at a cement slab toilet with 4 walls and an open door, with no privacy in between the 2 or 3 square holes cut out of the slab, which leads to YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW and think "well, not bad, at least there isn't any s*** on the walls" (or worse...Tibetan ladies could use some manners in that department).

By the middle of the afternoon I was longing for my sports masseuse, or at the very least a dust mask but we made it to Darchen finally. The next hour was spent organising our packs for the 3 day kora around Mt Kailash and deciding on whether to get a porter - Kai was the only one who wanted one so we all have to kick in 75 kuai (which to be fair isn't that much but we didn't have too much to carry either - cameras, change of clothes and a few packs of 2 minute noodles). More rearranging took place as Galek (our guide) organised the porter. It should have been about 240 kuai according to the guidebook but it was 300 - making me think that Galek organised the porter for 240 and himself 60 extra. Especially since it was the first time he offered to pay for anything and have us pay him back. There have been a few incidents to make me think that, including the hotel arrangement tonight - I asked the hotel guy the price of the room, who spoke a bit of English and certainly would have known 'how much', and after what seemed like a ridiculously long conversation in Tibetan with Galek to answer that question he responded 100 kuai per double. Hmmmm...

Anyway dinner wasn't yak for once - we ate at a Chinese restaurant with no English menu, which is always a bit of a risk. Galek ordered for us and we had green peppers with pork, mixed vegetables, and tomato with egg. The last one was meant to be stir fried eggplant but he only got the 'egg' part of the description there.

Here we go now, a gentle 6 hour/ 20 km stroll tomorrow followed by a strenuous 8 hour / 18 km ascent to 5630 meters and then a 4 hour walk back to the town on the third day.

We keep reminding ourselves...It's just a walk.