We’d been in Lhasa three or four days when we thought we’d check out trip possibilities via the main back-packer meeting place, the Yak Hotel. It was there we met up with the Dutch couple and the Aussie pilot with whom we hired a 4WD and driver to take us to Lake Namtso.
We were told that the track to Namtso might not navigable due to snow and ice, but someone thought a supplies truck might have got through the 5,000m pass. That that was enough for us intrepid explorers to head off for what was about an eight-hour journey along 240km of very bumpy ‘highway’ and rough mountain tracks. Very few other vehicles were seen during the trip. We did see lots of yaks, bare, rocky ground and bloody big ‘hills’.
At one point we were passing a small village that was set back on higher ground, the flat ‘area below the village being ploughed by gaily decorated yak teams, traditional red being the dominant colour with man and beast.
Further along, during a pee break (ladies to the left, gentlemen to the right), we saw a lone figure coming quickly towards us from the fields, a yak herd spread out in the distance. It was a young man, wearing traditional wrap-around over-garb with the pouched area created at the front where handy items, or just your arm, can be stored. He ran to about 20 metres from us and just stood there looking inquiringly and smiling. We, pretty much, did the same thing for a while, then we exchanged big smiles and waves as we continued on our little adventure.
Was this his first sighting of Europeans? The young man was extremely eager to run across the field to look at the westerners stopped on the road. Lots of smiles. We were novelties to each other. This was one of several moments in the trip to Namtso that indicated that, maybe, not too many outsiders had beaten a path to the lake. That is certainly not the case these days, though most of the visitors are Han Chinese.
The ‘highway’ deteriorated the further along we went so when we eventually came to the mountain track, we were well used to being bashed about. Along the bare, rocky terrain, the track rose to around 5,000m. and the crucial pass we needed to negotiate. Fortunately, a path had been recently hacked into the metre-thick snow, and we were able to slither and bump away down to the 4,800m plain, views of the lake and the lower surrounds giving hints of what to expect geographically. But we would never have guessed what awaited us.
Next in Tibet...a mind-blowing Jochang Temple and The Barkhor experience, plus an open door at the palace of the Dalai Lamas – the wonderful Potala.
