Location: 20km east of Druka Zampa
| Lat/Lng: |
29.71928, 98.42728 |
| Kilometers: |
73 |
Last night, before we fell asleep two confused Tibetans stumbled across our campsite on their way across the river to their home. We said hello and told them we were heading to Lhasa and they gave us the thumbs up. We were up and biking by 9 a.m. and stopped about a half hour later at a small restaurant for breakfast.
The cook took us right into the kitchen and described the different meats by playing a little charades. We played too and finally decided on some yak and green peppers and pork and onions. When we saw him pour the rice into the pressure cooker, we thought it might take a while, so we began to clean our gears and chains which had become covered with dirt and grime over the last couple of weeks. The morning sun was great and as we cleaned, we watched the military base across the road get ready for their convoy. We also saw a Tibetan sheep herder, walking up and down the river banks collecting his sheep. The food was ready sooner than we expected, so we had to finish the cleaning job after breakfast. The meal was excellent and by 11:30 a.m. we were off biking for the day. We had two passes to cross today, one at 4100m and the other double pass at 4338m. On the way up the first pass, we had a few hassles with some punk Tibetan kids who almost caught a beating with a baseball bat after they tried to stab one of our panniers with a knife. If you are interested in the full story, just let us know. But for now, we will leave it at that. This whole experience was pretty unexpected, as all of our experiences and those of others, have been relatively positive. Perhaps these kids were the bandits Dom had been warned of on his way to Litang, causing his initial hesitation when he saw Keith waving him down from the top of the rock buttress. In any event, we reached Markham around midday, bought some supplies, and headed toward the second pass. It was pretty easy going to the top of the pass, but it was also pretty late. We rode downhill until it got dark at about 7:00 p.m. We met a girl leading a horse and asked if we could set up our tent on her land. The whole family came out to greet us and before long, we were eating roasted barley flour and yak butter tea in the comforts of a Tibetan home. The family consisted of 3 daughters, a mother, father and grandmother. They were amazing, their house was incredible and we will describe it all in an upcoming Journey’s Way.
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