Kailash Manasarovar Yatra 2011 - Batch 1 - Day 18

Jun 15 2011 – Day 18

Journey – Zongzerbu to Qugu – via Darchen, Parakha, Hore – 6 kms by trek and rest by bus

Today our Kailash Parikrama (circumbulation) ends and Manasarovar Lake Parikrama (circumbulation) starts.

In earlier days, the Manasarovar Lake Parikrama is also undertaken by trek; but now the Chinese authorities have laid roads, the Parikrama is undertaken by bus.

Today we got up little late and started our trek. The reason is twofold – one is we had a very tough trek the day before and today we have to trek only 6 kms which will take about 1 to 2 hours only. After that our bus will pick us and take us to Qugu Buddhist Monastery.

Without any difficulty we reached the place where our bus is waiting for us to pick up. On reaching the bus, we took several photos and paid the porters and pony men in Tibet. Once all yatris reached us, we proceeded our rest of the yatra by bus. With 20 minutes drive we reached Darchen. With this our Kailash Parikrama comes to an end.

Our bus proceeded further to go the Qugu Buddhist monastery. On its way we had stop at Hore village to buy some rations for our stay at Qugu. The village is very calm and only few Tibetans were living. After spending some time, we continued our yatra to Qugu. It took roughly 4 hours to reach Qugu. On our way we stopped in another Buddhist monastery as well. We spent some time in the temple and proceeded our yatra.

On reaching Qugu we settled own in our rooms. Here in a room 7 to 8 persons have to stay. It is little crowd. But we love to have more people.

After settling down, we proceeded to Manasarovar Lake to have bath. With Ashok Radiaji guiding us, we had 5 dips in the holy manasarovar lake. We enjoyed our bath so much that we decided to have bath daily. We were shivering due to ice cold water and cold wind.

The facilities at Qugu are very basic and we have only the open toilet system.