Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 6

It was quite late by the time we left Saga on our way to our next destination at Paryang situated at a distance of 235 km from Saga. We could leave only by 10:00 a.m. local time.   This route is quite treacherous and we had to pass sites where the roads were actively under construction, and the prevalent rock types (purple, green and carbonaceous shales and in variegated colours) yield a rather clayey mud that forms a thick gooey slush through which the cars have to negotiate. One of the cars lost direction and missed the path and came down a precariously steep slope that left the occupants of the vehicle quite rattled.

(Photo below: Highway where we were stranded by the authorities)

Along this muddy and bumpy route that rattles your bones, you find that the authorities block large tracts of the path and force the convoy over the rough countryside. It may even happen that the road authorities may deny permission to move ahead and forcing you to spend hours on end stranded in the middle of nowhere. This is precisely what happened to our convoy around 11:45 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. when we were halted by the authorities who vaguely said that they may condescend to give us permission to travel further by 2:00 p.m. or failing which we would be permitted to move ahead only after 10:00 p.m. in the night. This was rather disconcerting and the leader of the team decided that in such an event we would move directly to Manansarovar without stopping at Paryang. Such a scheme of things would really be exhausting and we kept our fingers crossed that matters would not come to such a head. In the meantime we decided to put the time to the best possible use and finished our lunch as we waited. Luckily, the authorities cleared our passage by 2:00 p.m. and we headed on our way to Paryang.




Enroute we saw some wonderful arcuate sand dunes of quite large sizes that appeared very attractive in the golden glow of the late evening sun.

Arcuate Sand dunes

Sand dunes

For the first time after several hundreds of kilometers we saw a petrol filling station with filthy stinking toilets. It was the only gas station that I saw on the entire route.

After a drive of another hour or so we reached the village of Paryang at around 8:00 p.m. The hotel there is a very threadbare one with four beds to a room of rather small size. The toilets are in a miserable condition which forced many of our group members to go out in the open. We were warned about the dogs around here as they are reputed to feed on corpses of humans that are abandoned in the open air when they die. So we were advised to be wary about the dogs here which created an additional problem of going out to the toilet in the open air.  Later in the evening we had a satsang and around dinner time, the B3 Group which had left for Manasarovar around August 16th came to Paryang on their return trip to Katmandu.

In my effort to get some information on the difficulty of the Shershong - Dirapuk trek I was surprised to find every single man and woman advising me to take a pony for the journey. Not one person assured me that I could make it on my own steam. This was bad because the pony costs 1200 Yuan (Rs 9000) and I did not have that kind of money on me. Further, I viewed the trek as a challenge to my physical capabilities and I had undertaken to do it on foot as a religious observance and vow of some sort. After dinner we rested for the night.
(Photo Left: Hotel at Paryang)

Late evening Views of  Paryang Village at an altitude of 15000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau