Day 87: Circumbambulate Mount Kailash Final Leg (转山) – September 12th

Sleeping in high-altitude is hard, even for an easy sleepers, and it didn’t help to wake up at 2am to the sound of hail thundering on your shabby tent, feeling your face being wet and the outside of your sleeping bag (thankfully, fitted with Quantum Pertex fabric that’s light AND slightly waterproof!) being damp. Too tired to care!

At 9:30am, everyone was ready to tackle the rest of the trip, despite the foot of snow that’s covered the landscape. We were EXTREMELY lucky to have crossed the mountain pass the previous day, as it would NOT have been fun trying to so in slippery snow! Through a combination of a lot of meds and a lack of food, my stomach was churning badly, and the stupid host wouldn’t give us much hot water. I had to show him how much pain I was in before he subsided to filling 1 of 7 water bottles. JERK!

We walked at a brisk pace, and being mostly flat/downhill, there wasn’t much issue before we arrived at the first stop for lunch after 2hrs of walking. After eating a 200% markup of cup noodles and a infinite markup of hot water (its usually free), we were on our way again.

Friendly Note: Bring preserved veggies for hikes to make cup noodles taste infinitely better!

Once again, Jiajia kept a brisk pace while Alan was once again starving from the lack of actual food. It was hard to keep pace, and the lunch of preserved veggies and cup noodles were quickly turned into fuel for a stove. Snickers bars and glucose water was the last resort, and from now on there was nothing but salty-tea (a local favorite, told to be very helpful in restoring energy) that tasted like miso-soup without any of the goodness.

Wildlife Note: Everything IS BIGGER in Tibet. Flies are the size of your pinky nail, rabbits are bigger than obese cats, and groundhogs can probably take on Bacon without any problem. Stray dogs are everywhere, and they like to follow you!

So we pushed and pushed until we finally made it back to town at 4:30pm. So we managed to make the round trip at about 15hours!!! Woohoo! Once in town, the first thing we did (at the request of Alan) was to stop by for some food. F O O D. Not before long after arriving into town, it started POURING RAIN! Again, it was a brilliant idea to have crossed the mountain pass earlier, otherwise we would be still on the road and drenched in rain. Good karma =)

And without much though, we realized it was 9/11. Throughout our circumbambulation, we had constant prayers hoping for world peace. Coming back to read the news though, it may take a bit more than just prayers