Chapter 51 - Trek over the frozen river

(missing pages 352-353)

mighty snow-peaks and completely cut off (torn the outer world This proved a blessing in disguise, because it was a real 'Shangrila', in which we spent almost a quarter of a year of unalloyed happiness in the company of simple but most lovable people and at the feet of the last of our Tibetan Gurus.

However, before we could reach this oasis of peace we still had half a months journey before us. Just when we were Hearing die safety of the main caravan road, we were informed that it was already closed. We had no means of ascertaining whether this was so or not, but the villagers, who informed us, declared themselves ready to guide us and to carry our luggage through the frozen gorges of the Langchen-Khambab. It was only during the coldest part of the winter that it was possible to travel through these gorges, which were so deep and narrow and threatened by rock-falls that no path could be made between the swirling waters of the river and the steep rocks which hemmed it in on both sides. Thus, it was only when the river was completely frozen that its surface could be used as a rough track, though it was impossible to employ yaks or horses. The reason for this soon became apparent: there was not even a path leading down into this tremendous canyon which cut through mountain-walk that rose not less than 8,000 feet on both sides of the roaring river. Moreover, no packanimal could have walked on the ice, which due to the turbulence of the water did not form an even surface, but followed the shapes of the waves and cataracts underneath when it was not broken into a jumble of ice-blocks and -floes.

We therefore had to engage some twenty people for our luggage from the last village, where we had been staying for two days in order to visit a small but fantastically situated monastery on top of an isolated mountain, that looked as if it had been thrown up by a gigantic force and had become solid before it could fall back into the depth from which it had been hurled. The name of the monastery was Pekar Gompa, Pekar being one of the ancient, probably pre-buddhistic, telluric deities of Tibet, who had been retained as a protector of the country and the Buddhist faith.

The Dzongöns man, who had turned up again, after some days' absence, apparently did not like to risk life and limb in the treacherous gorges of the Langchen-Khambab, especially as he might not be able to get back before the end of the winter if a sudden snowfall should block even this route.

So he took a tearful leave from us -- probably thinking that we were going to our doom; or was it merely that he had had too much chang? At any rate we felt glad to leave him behind and to move on with a crowd of cheerful and friendly people, in whose company we felt safer in spite of the uncertainties of the days before us. The dangers of nature seemed to us always preferable to the unreliability of low characters, like this Dzongpön's servant.

When, after a few miles from the village, we came to the edge of the canyon, we all just slithered down a series of steep sand-falls till we reached the bottom of the gorge, several thousand feet below the level from which we had started. It then occured to us that we had taken an irrevocable step, because it would have been impossible to climb up again on these moving sand-falls, especially with our heavy luggage! I don't know what we would have done, if the river had not yet been sufficiently frozen to bear our weight and the impact of falling luggage, when people slipped and crashed on the ice together with their loads. This happened every few moments, because the ice was as smooth as a mirror, but unfortunately not even, so that we, without loads, could hardly walk a few steps without falling.

Thus very little progress was made on that day, and when the evening came, we pitched camp on a narrow boulder-strewn strip of dry land. That night we felt for the first time comfortably warm—partly due to the lower altitude and the protection from wind, but also because the sky had become slightly overcast, as if a change of weather was imminent. There had been a lovely sunset, and our camp, surrounded by yellow reed-grass, was enveloped in a warm glow, which heightened our feeling of comfort and almost made us forget the ice of the river and the hazards of our trek. We were filled with a strange, unaccountable happiness, which made us oblivious of the past and the future and fully aware of the peace and the luminous beauty around us. Just as when we were stranded in the Valley of the Moon Castle, we experienced a kind of euphoria due to the utter strangeness of the situation, in which the world we had known ceased to exist, so that we felt a kind of release from all that had been or would be, and from all responsibility of decisions, accepting quietly and completely what was around us, a world in which we were entirely thrown back upon ourselves, as if we were the only people alive in the universe. The wonders of a journey consist far more of such intangible experiences and unexpected situations than of factual things and events of material reality.

Thus, to us this camp, though it happened in the middle of winter, remains in our remembrance the 'summer camp', as we called it that evening on the Langchen-Khambab, before we had retired into our tent. But how great was our surprise when we woke up the next morning and found ourselves snowed in and surrounded by a real winter landscape! We rubbed our eyes, awaking from our summer-dream and trying to cope with this new situation. Would we be able to continue our journey, and if not, what then? But we found our people quite unperturbed. They seemed to have slept in the snow as soundly as we in our tent. We could not help admiring them for their hardiness and their cheerful acceptance of all circumstances and this reassured us greatly. In spite of the snow, the air appeared to us mild and pleasant. It demonstrated to us again the fact that in Tibet snowfalls seldom occur when it is very cold, and that snow therefore is welcome as a sign of milder weather.

After the intense cold of the highlands, where everything was frozen, but no snow was to be seen anywhere, except on the highest peaks, we now realised with astonishment how much less we felt the cold in this really wintry snow landscape -- the mere sight of which would have made us shiver under normal circumstances, considering that Li was born and bred in Bombay, on the shores of the Arabian Sea and that I myself spent the greater part of my life in tropical and subtropical countries. Our Tibetans definitely enjoyed the snow: in fact all along this river-trek they were exceedingly cheerful, and when we came to a place where there was a grove of small trees (a sight many of our highland Tibetans had never seen in their life) they got so excited over such an abundance of wood that they built big fires and sang and danced half the night. We too were caught up in the general spirit of merriment and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, while preparing a mammoth amount of chapāties, listening to their songs and sharing their simple pleasures. We had all become one happy family! The whole scene was truly fantastic: the blazing fires in the snow, the colourful costumes of the people distributed in groups among the rocks and under the white tracery of twigs and branches, and all this in the wildest imaginable mountain scenery, which in its grimness formed the utmost contrast to the light-hearted playfulness of these brave people. They certainly were the merriest group we had ever travelled with, and the young women among them seemed to be as tireless as the men, in spite of carrying heavy loads all through the day over ice and boulder-strewn ground. They all slept on the snow, as if it was a featherbed, with no other protection than two sheepskins (the hair turned inside). Between those skins most of them slept naked, with their clothes rolled up as a pillow, a custom which we had also observed in other regions of Tibet.

Even the women would strip down to the waist without concern. Probably they found it rather 'indecent' of us that we went to sleep with all our clothing on.

The snow -- far from impeding our progress, as we had feared the morning after the heavy snowfall -- was actually helping us, because now we were able to walk on the ice without slipping all the time, though, on the other hand, we had to be more careful of hidden crevices in the ice. Farther down the river -- probably due to the stronger current -- the ice was ripped open in many places, and if anybody had fallen into a crevice, nobody could have saved the unlucky person, because the current would have pulled the body under the ice before any help could be given. Fortunately we got through without an accident, and when after our six-day trek on the frozen river we finally emerged at the village of Tyak, near which the Lotsava Rinchen Zangpo was born, we fell quite sorry that our adventure had come to an end and even more so that we had to leave our friendly companions.

We now travelled on with Sherab, who arranged new teams of yaks, horses, and people from village to village, which was not difficult, as we were again on the regular caravan road. At Shipki, we found no sign of the Dzongpön of Tsaparang, though we pitched our tent in the courtyard of the house which served him and other Tibetan officials as a temporary residence. We crossed the Shipki Pass without incident, in spite of high snow, and descended into the happy valley of Poo, our little 'Shangrila' which we reached towards the end of January.