Nepal and Tibet

In the morning, we go to see the most interesting place in Gyantse. This is the Gyantse Kumbum. It is a chorten or temple built in the 1440's. It was badly damaged in the Cultural Revolution but has been restored somewhat and is quite an impressive site, with its golden domed roof, which sit atop the painted Buddah's eyes which gaze out, watching, across the countryside in all directions.

Today we share the vehicle with our guide, who is feeling very unwell. She does not come into the Kumbum with us, preferring to use the time to catch up on some sleep in the vehicle, with her head resting on her newly-bought, very ugly, green satin cushion, the best, she says, she can find. Her off-sider becomes our tour leader in her absence.

As we leave Gyantse, on our second day of driving, we find that the road from Gyantse to Shigatse is under repair and we are directed off the Friendship Highway onto another route. The road today is indescribable. Up until now, we have thought the road was bad but this is unbelievable. It is so rough it precludes any attempt of speech or drinking water from a bottle. Our heads hit the ceiling of the vehicle from time to time and as we jolt over rocks and rubble, our breath is expelled from our lungs from the force of the jolting vehicle, making it impossible to say anything.

But it is all made up for by the fact that we are taken through little, well-established villages, with their whitewashed, flat-roofed houses on which flutter the essential prayer flags. The villagers are obviously so unused to Westerners, they watch us pass with great interest. And we watch them in return, because it is so good to see just how these villagers live. Well-built, mud brick walls surround their well-swept compounds. Chickens and dogs scurry out of our way. On the roofs of their houses are stacked the yak dung so essential for their heating and cooking. Groups of shy children watch us with amazed faces but wave when we wave to them. Men work, stooped over in their fields and we see young boys herding flocks of sheep by the roadside. I watch with great interest as a shepherd boy uses a sling to so deftly, propel his flock across the hillside more quickly. He places a small stone in the pouch attached to his sling and spins it around his head for a moment before letting it fly off in the direction of his sheep. It appears to hit the rocks just behind the hoofs of the last animal in the herd, which is enough to send them all scurrying ahead. I have read that these boys rarely miss their mark.