Nam Tso lake...absolutley beautiful and definately one of the highlights of my trip. Ant and i took a bus to get there, a mere four hours away..the shortest bus journey so far but the highest. I had to pop my ears so much along the way and not surprisingly so as by the time we arrived at the lake we were at 4900 metres!
We arrived and then had a look at our accomodation.....there wasnt really much of a choice to be honest. A permement tent which looked very breezy or a tin shack...um what a choice! Ant did a great job of bartering and we went for the tin shack. We had met two other guys on the bus so we were bunking in together, Bill from Oz and Mark from Wales. We ate lunch together and then went off to explore our new surroundings.
The lake is just magnificant, it really is hard to put it into words....its so big that i had to keep reminding myself that it is a lake and not the sea. The water was bright blue and with the sky complementing it in a lighter shade it was quite mesmerising.
On the walk down i got absolutely bombarded with smiling snotty nosed scruffy but very cute kids. I was wearing my light blue ripped jeans and this seemed to fascinate them, one by one they came over and stroked my knee....then i was whizzing them in the air. If i could speak Tibetan i am sure they were saying 'again again'.
We did the kora around the rocks, exploring the caves and trying to fend off our impending headaches with copious amounts of bottled water! It was an amazing place to be.
In the evening we (Ant ,Mark and i) all walked up on of the mountains (ok it was just a high, v v v steep hill) to watch the sunset. When we reached the top (quite an achievement in itself!) we realised that actually our position wasnt so great after all....the sun was going to set behind another hill. So we went on a march....up the next hill and that wasnt the end of it....Mark said 'shall we go up that other one?'. I was so puffed but what was another hill...! Eventually i made it and it was more than worth it! It was so windy up there, but wrapped up warm it was actually quite perfect! Something happened to me up there, not really sure of the reason why but i burst into tears......talk about being moved to tears!
After seeing such a wonderful sunset i thought nothing could top it off......well yet again i was wrong. The night sky came into its own. I dont think i have ever seen a sky like it.....thousands, millions, billions and more stars lighting up the sky with the milky way as clear as anything. To top of this phenonomen...shooting stars! I made a few wishes.....hope they come true.
Bedtime......the tin hut was freezing, and i went to bed fully clothed! This was also topped off by the not so wonderful dog singing outside...ALL night!!!!!!! It also made me v twitchy about going to the loo!!!!I think that i could be in the guiness book of records for the fastest pee-er ever!
Well after a not so great nights sleep we had the greasiest egg breakfast ever (wasnt really much of a choice) and climbed our last hill before leaving......and this was a toughie, so much so that Ant promptly left his mark on the hill....bye bye egg! As in everything though it was a good challenge to myself and i felt good as i stood at the top and took in the scenery for the last time.
It truly was amazing and i loved every minute!
