OVERLAND TO LHASA

Day 2 Tuotuo He to Naqu

Barely had our heads touched the pillow when it was morning call at 5 am and we were on the road again. This stage would take us from Tuotuo He to Naqu over 433km in blank hours, no one dared hazard a guess. We were beginning to feel suicidal and fatalistic as the previous days pattern was replayed. The worst ordeal was when we were held up for 3 hours. Some of us then decided to convert our seats into daybeds by pulling out the centre aisle seat and settled down for a well earned snooze. Those of us who did not gain this privilege commented that the coach was taking on the appearance of an ambulance.

After all the jams and blocks and diversions, we were finally riding on the highest road in the world. With glaciers flanking both sides of the road we ascended the Tanggula Pass at 5231m which is the highest point in the Qinghai Tibet Highway. For a lowlander like me, 5231m was indeed a high point in my life. And now I felt that the hardship of traveling this road was well worth it. I couldn’t get over the wonder that I was higher than the peak of Europe’s Mt. Blanc or the Annurpurna base camp. “What is a mountain peak elsewhere in the world is but a highway in Tibet!" - is an appropriate tribute to the ingenuity of the Chinese road builders.

Tangula Pass at 5231m is the highest point in the Qinghai Tibet Highway

At this altitude harsh natural conditions are the order of the day. The average annual temperature is -8C with the lowest temperature reaching -40C. The oxygen content here accounts for only 50 percent of the volume at sea level hence the area is regarded as a “life-threatening zone" Even in August we donned down jackets and mittens when we stepped out into the thin air and bitter cold to experience the barren wilderness.

Tangula Wilderness

For obvious reasons, the pass is not a place to tarry and we descended swiftly following the highway until we leave Qinghai province behind and arrive at Tibet’s most northerly town Naqu. Naqu is the administrative headquarters of Northern Tibet and here in a symbolic gesture to mark our stepping on Tibetan soil, we were greeted with white scarves.

(Day 3 to be continued in next post)

OVERLAND TO LHASA

Day 3 Naqu to Lhasa

On our third and last day’s ride into Lhasa, the road improved and we covered 330km over 5hours. From Naqu onwards the bleak and desolate Qinghai plateau is replaced with pastoral scenes of sunny valleys and running streams. We start to catch glimpses of colour - valley floors golden with rapeseed wheat and maize, hill slopes dotted with clumps of mauve, pink and blue wild flowers and of course black yaks, white goats and wild ponies. Footbridges over streams are festooned with prayer flags, medieval Tibetan farmhouses with flat roofs and square cut windows are hung with bright strips of cloth, while electric wires compete with prayer flags which fly like ship’s mast from every Tibetan homestead. It gets to look more and more like God’s own country and it is not for nothing that Tibet is known as the Holy Land.

Where beauty walks in God's own country

Stopping by the Yangbajing Hot Springs we are an easy 91km away from Lhasa.

Yangbajing Hot SpringsAs we approached the Holy City we felt charged by energy from the sun. Lhasa is also known as the City of Sun with 3000 hours of sunlight annually and the intensity of the sun is like nowhere else on earth. Bathed in this radiance we follow the tree lined road until the golden roofs of the Potala Palace told us that we had arrived.

Potala Palace, the essence of dreams

Route Map