After the ordeal in Drongba I wanted to get past the checkpoint in Paryang as quickly as possible. I arrived on the outskirts of town during midday with little interest in waiting until dark to get around the police. It looked like there would be enough space between town and the foot of the mountains to skirt through the sand dunes unnoticed. From what I could tell it looked like most of town sat a couple hundred yards south of the foot of the Gangdise Mountains. After a short rest and strategy break, I started working my way from one sand dune to the next, trying to stay out of sight as much as I could. While I rested behind a dune about halfway around the checkpoint, I heard the bells of a Tibetan horse behind me. I left my bike to climb the dune and investigate. A handsome Tibetan sheep herder rode on horseback surrounded by a flock of thirty or forty sheep. A few minutes later he passed right by where I rested with my bike. I nodded and said “Tashi Delag” as I sat at least a quarter mile from the nearest road without a single trail insight. My mind wondered what went though this man’s head, for encountering me must have been the Tibetan equivalent of sitting in the back of a pickup truck drinking a few beers while a UFO hovered over head.
It had been another hard day, well, for that matter I think every day was hard. I had been feeling a bit depressed also. Up ahead I saw a truck coming toward me. I pulled off the side of the road to let it pass. When I went off the side of the road the truck headed straight for me. With just forty feet [12 meters] between me and a couple tons of steel I recognized the Tibetan driver, this truck carried the group of Westerners whom I had met back in Lhatse. They had already made it out to Mt. Kailash, and now they were on their way back. I was ecstatic to see them. I quizzed them on all the checkpoints that lie ahead, all the places I could buy any food and what I could get. I heard stories about Chu Gompa (Tibetan for “Water Monastery”), located on shores of the sacred Lake Manasarovar with a hot spring deep enough to bath in. They were all going to the Nepal border, via the shortcut track that I had just come on. The entire group had all made it through the hardships of traveling to Mt. Kailash and now looked forward to the comforts and luxuries of Kathmandu. My friend, who had given me the peanut butter before, produced a small jar of honey and some packages of crackers. A few of the other people handed me any extra food that they carried. I enjoyed a feast that night as I sat inside an old stone sheep pen protected from the cold winds. A can of Chinese orange soda, noodles, honey on crackers, I could not have dined on a more delicious meal.
This section of road between Drongba and Mt. Kailash represented one of the most isolated and difficult parts of my trip. The road itself lies in the massive valley between the Himalaya and the little-known Gangdise Mountain Range of Western Tibet. For hundreds of years the main overland route between Leh, Ladakh in north India and Lhasa ran through this valley. During the summertime, the traders brought goods in from India and took back hand-woven Tibetan carpets and salt. Today none of the truck drivers likes to travel on the “south road” because of the fine sand and deep river crossing. They all follow the newer “north road” that cuts across an equally desolate part of Western Tibet that has less river crossings but more high passes. In Lhasa, I listened to a story told by a Tibetan guide about a time when he crossed one of the rivers on his way back from Mt. Kailash on the “south road.” The driver of their Toyota Land Cruiser did not know exactly where to enter the muddy water of the river. He ended up slightly off the main track, with waves pouring over the hood of the vehicle. It took three days before they could locate another truck to pull the Land Cruiser out of the river. Mostly the vehicles that travel this route today are a few Toyota Land Cruisers that carry wealthy tourists to Mt. Kailash with their official guides on organized trips from Germany, Japan and the USA.
From Saga to Mt. Kailash there were no places for me to buy any more food. That meant I had to travel for two weeks, and about 300 miles, without acquiring any additional supplies. I knew that there was no possible way that I could carry two weeks of food. Between cycling eight hours a day and the high altitude I ate at least double my normal food consumption. Fully loaded my bike weighed approximately eighty pounds, the only good part was that the more I ate the lighter it grew. I knew that there were some shops in Drongba but I could not afford to stop because of the police problems. That left me in a situation where I had to ration everything I had. I studied all of my maps and tried to estimate how many days it would be to Mt. Kailash. I then added another two or three days on to that in case I misjudged it. The problem then became that I could not stop for any real rest days, because then I would need to carry even more supplies for any additional days.
The practical result of all this logistical planning basically meant that I went hungry all the time. During the afternoon and evening I suffered from pains in my stomach from the lack of food. My blood sugar dropped as did my mental acuity, but I could always ride my bike in a coordinated fashion even when I found it difficult to walk. I ate enough so that the pains would not be that bad, but I was always hungry and weak.
The trip would not have been possible without my sturdy Katadyn water filter. Whenever I found any water I would first filter all the water I could possibly drink. Once my stomach became full, I spent ten minutes filtering water for all my various water bottles. I carried a few that I could reach while I rode and a few that I stowed down in my packs. By the time I finished filling all my bottles, I could drink some more, once again filling my belly with as much water as I could. In this way it became possible to travel sections of road where I would only find water two times in a day. But, there were days when I passed by a water source because I thought that I already had enough or because I thought that there would be more water farther on, only to find myself a few hours later in desperate need of liquids. On a few different occasions, I was totally dehydrated and would continually search the horizon for any sign of water, looking for plants, nomad tents, reflections on ponds, or ditches left by road construction crews. With my filter I could drink just about anything from mud puddles to the dirtiest ponds. Sometimes I would see some sign of possible water in the distance. When it led me away from the road, I would have to decide if I should walk ten or fifteen minutes each way for the chance I’d find water. I would study all of my different maps to see what lay ahead and which valleys had any markings of rivers. Sometimes there would really be something there to drink and sometimes not. The stream beds were often dry and all the water ran underground, or salt water filled the ponds and lakes.
When I am in the USA logic and reason control my life. It is all part of a way of thought that is integral to life in the Western world. The culture in the US operates on a premise that we can control and manipulate the environment around us to suit our needs and desires. Everything from meetings to TV shows happen at precise moments in time that are scheduled months or years ahead. All of this leads to the illusion that we as humans can actually exert total control on the universe around us.
Three months before I had left the land of the logical. Tibet is most certainly not a land of precision, logical thought and control. Tibet remains a land of mystery and the unknown. I have heard fantastic stories from other Western friends of seemingly supernatural events. But somehow, when I listened to them talk about things like lamas that knew the future, they fit in with my model of what was possible in this part of the world. If I had heard the same stories back at home, I would have instantly discredited any such notions. In the West we have heard stories of supernatural feats that Tibetan monks are capable of, levitation, trance walking, and foreseeing the future. I have been told that when Tibetans first started hearing stories of the magical objects from the West these also sounded like impossible feats. They heard about boxes that have moving pictures of distant lands inside them and of objects that let you talk to people located on the other side of the country. In the West commonplace telephones and TVs produce seemingly supernatural events.