En route to the Guge Kingdom
From the journal (expletives not deleted):
Man! Was it cold last night!
Finally got to use the sleeping bag as a bag. Socks, long thermals - top and bottom, beanie, gloves, silk liner, bag - and I was still cold early in the morning. Ice heavy on the tents in the pre-dawn. My handwriting's different 'coz I've still got gloves on.
A glorious dawn.
Chiu Monastery in the early morning light
on the monastery roof, looking north toward Kailash
and east - Lake Manasarovar on horizon
We're at 14,500ft here and breathing while sleeping is difficult. I keep playing catch up. I'll be breathing OK, then slow down as I fall asleep, run out of O2 at some point and be woken by the first gasp of several quick breaths. My lips are really cracking up too - I'm a bit worried about having enough lip balm...
Happy Birthday Sqek: I remember when you were little and I used to stay home with you. You little terror - you'd run off up the street to Karen's whenever you felt like it! You're a big girl now - I hope you're happy with your life. I love you xxx
Today we drive all day toward Tsaparang - the lost city of the Guge Kingdom.
It'll be good to have a day out of boots...
on the road - and followed by Gurla Mandata (25,350ft)
It's surreal and heart-wrenching to be driving through this amazing landscape with our driver's reggae versions of "I Can See Clearly Now" and "Wild World" playing on the 4WD tape player. I can't believe I'm feeling so homesick after only 12 days away - but there it is! It happened last time too, although I lasted three weeks before really suffering... It's a strange, almost schizophrenic headspace, flipping between awe and wonder at being here, and intense longing to be home.
We've been driving for hours now. I'm dozing fitfully, sliding in and out of consciousness as we make our way into western Tibet. We're travelling parallel to the Kailash Range and have passed Darchen and the foot of the mountain where we'll begin our next trek in a couple of days.
It's remarkable how similar the land is to northwest Western Australia (if you don't look at the mountains!). Same dry, stony, rolling hills and very similar looking vegetation. Much like what I remember of the country around Carnarvon and Roebourne.
We drive for hours more. The track is incredibly rocky and bumpy - I'm sure the headrest has rubbed all the hair off the back of my head. This drive is turning into a nightmare. It doesn't matter how stunning the landscape is, when you're stuck inside a vehicle, it's like watching television. You've just got a window - not the experience.
On horseback would be heaps better...
So: Watching TV quickly becomes an incredible pissoff when you're subjected to constant bone-jarring vibration, incessant dust and the cramp of being confined to one posture for so long.
After nine hours of this I'm really shitty. I can't even have my eyes open coz of this shitty dust and my nose is giving me hell. You could get silicosis like this!
Think about the good stuff:
The broad valley parallel to the Kailash Range, scalloped by numerous small meltwater streams.
Kailash itself. Despite my not being a deep believer, that impressive mountain exudes a powerful and attractive aura.
The breakup of the valley as its scalloping streams turn to rivers in deep canyons.
The nomadic herders' tents in the side valleys. Prayer flags flying amid herds of goats and yaks.
The climb up out of the valley over a 16,400ft pass into vividly coloured and contorted mineral mountains - scary!
The incredible expanse of rolling land framed by mountains. Vision just goes so far...
The huge vulture sitting on a clifftop by the car who rises and disappears in the direction of our travel. A big bird - BIG! Twenty minutes later we see him circling over the far bank of a river. As we approach, a small tributary valley enters the river opposite us. On each side of this valley are raised stone platforms and prayer flags. A few crows scatter from them as I look. I think I've just seen my first sky burial site...
We stop for lunch in a little town (I think it was Moincer) where everyone piles into a restaurant to eat noodles. I'm not up for it, 'cause the damn diarrhoea's back. I'm leaning against the car, drinking Chinese Coke and watching the street activity.
A person begins to crawl out of the courtyard of the house opposite. I can't tell if it's a man or woman. He/she appears very old. There's a 10m length of rope which begins inside the house, runs through the courtyard and terminates in the street. The person I'm seeing crawls slowly to the end of the rope, rises to a squat, drops pants and voids one enormous turd. (I'm jealous of this ability!) Pants retied, the old one turns and inches on hands and knees back down the rope to the house. The end of that rope looked like a dangerous place for a blind person's toilet...
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I call myself a photographer, but there's so many deeply moving scenes I just can't convey. One inhibition is my perception of invasion of privacy - of treating people as subjects in the creation of an image that attempts to convey my emotional response. Unless I'm able to make some kind of personal contact and seek permission, it feels too voyeuristic... somehow exploitative... Another is that the act of raising camera to eye separates me from the reality I'm experiencing. At that moment, I'm removed from engagement and immersion and instead am thinking of composition and focus, lighting and exposure. Too much time spent creating images results in: "What was Tibet like?" - "Dunno. Haven't seen the pictures yet..."
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Evening at wildlands camp:
I'm sitting in the now empty dining tent, fairly pissed off at the organisation of this day. Some of our Nepali porters have had to ride all day in the rear luggage compartments of the 4WDs. I swapped with Boras in the back of ours to give him a spell. It's a truly cramped, bone-breaking, dust-smothering hell! Wrong, I reckon! Three vehicles would have been the go - especially since one of the two we have will never make it to Lhasa without repairs.
We covered just over 200km today and have to travel another 50km to Tsaparang tomorrow, then back to this campsite. Then retrace our route to the mountain.
I'm not looking forward to it...
Oh well...
the mineral mountains' pool of blue dreams
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