Shegar – The Beautiful Girl with Khatak
August 26, 2005
Donchuk’s House 15 Yuan
What a lucky day! After hiding behind the clouds, the beautiful Everest at last showing up. The slight clouds around it looks like a khatak (Tibetan scarf) on a princess’ neck. The sky was dark blue, emphasizing the coldness of the hugest mountain on earth. And being able to see her beauty was really knocking my heart. Some people spent even some nights here without seeing anything. But this beautiful scene went off very fast. Just after two hours, another big dark cloud came and covered the whole area.
Today I tasted tsampa, the Tibetan powder mixed with the butter tea. A real traditional Tibetan dish. I put much sugar to suit my Indonesian taste.
The way back to Shegar took around 6 hours. The moto has to climb a hill, reach the top (Chou-La), then climb down. The road is zig-zagging, and there are about 108 turnings in total. Feeling tired of zig-zaging, I chose to climb with my legs. Just about four points, there was a jeep of Chinese tourists passed by. And they were excited to see a poor dirty climber with big bags, they said “BRAVO!!” to me and took some photos of me (usually it’s me who take photos of people, but now I’m an object of Chinese tourists!!!).
Today I stay in the Donchuk (my driver)’s house. What a fantastic experience staying in Tibetan’s private home, as it’s completely different from any “Tibetan hotels” in Tibet. And if you notice when they eat soup from the bowl, they will lick the bowl until it dries up. There is no toilet nor shower, as everywhere can be toilet. Well, this is a small village, so not a big deal (remember the huge Mongolian toilet…)
Before I left to Everest, I put my bag in this family’s house. But when I saw my bag it has been touched by anybody else. I noticed how my luggage inside was not in the original position. I dont know whether there is something lost, but I cant check now as it’s really dark (with only small bulb in the room).
Hehe. You’re getting up to a lot of covert activies in Tibet (Sneaking into Monasterys by climbing walls, sneaking into EBC area wearing a workers jacket). Sounds exciting. Pity the mountain was cloud covered. At that time of year i guess that’s always a risk. Sounds exciting though.
Well done Uncle. You saw the Summit at last. How did you find the Tsampa? I find it boring. But it’s the common food of Tibetans. Imagine if you were allergic to Tsampa as a Tibetan. You’d have a difficult time..hehe.