Very heavy storm - brighter later
As we left Deqin I had predicted we would be arriving in Lhasa on this day. Instead we were very very far away still, out in a forest in our sleeping bags after a poor night's sleep and at 6am it was starting to rain and was still very dark By now we had not eaten for over 24 hours and not drank anything for 18 hours.
It was hopeless to try to sleep any more and our sleeping bags would get soaked so we packed our things, donned our waterproofs and set out on the road again, which we could just make out.
We were all in surprisingly good spirits and I often thought that I was glad I was in this situation with Mike & John who treat it as a big adventure rather than a horrific and frightening nightmare which it could easily be seen as if you allowed it.
After an hour as it got a little lighter the heavens really opened to the point where you could see only a few metres in front of you and the rain stung as it hit your waterproofs. My shoes were sodden and getting painful.
Then at last we had some luck as we saw the first residence we'd seen since the jeep had dropped us off yesterday what seemed an age ago. We managed to unlock the gate and sheltered in the wood store. A little dog had started barking as we arrived and must have woken the occupant, a young guy, who was remarkably calm to find three bedraggled foreigners nestled among his stash of wood before breakfast.
We asked him for water and within minutes we were inside his simple home and he had a wood stove going and a boiling pot of tea. Next he set about cooking us all some food. Never before or again will boiled rice with chillies taste so good for breakfast.
He seemed not at all put out by our intrusion and helped us dry our socks and shoes as best we could. Communication was really hard as he didn't understand our Chinese and seemed not to understand the symbols in our phrase book, neither the Tibetan or Chinese. Maybe he was illiterate. Whatever, he was a life saver to us and just a really sweet guy who wouldn't accept any money from us for his charity. In the end we forced Y10 upon him and also gave him Mike's umbrella that he'd been carrying around and never using.
By 11:30am the rain had stopped and we left the poor fellow we'd imposed upon to whatever he normally does and continued on our way meeting a bunch of young monks who we guessed were on a pilgramage to Lhasa. By now though my feet, legs, hips and shoulders were in agony. We must have been at quite a high altitude and the wet pack was extra heavy, but hardest was mentally not having a clue as to how far we would have to walk. I put my Walkman on blasting a tape of hard-core techno into my brain and tried to keep pace with the beats and block everything else out - it helped a bit.
Just as we were giving up we bumped into the Beijing-to-Lhasa Chinese cyclist again who was cadging some food from a household. He kindly arranged a ride for us on a tractor no bigger than a lawnmower for Y30 each which we bartered down to Y15 each. However, as we waited for him to finish his lunch a proper tractor with a trailer came along and we managed to secure a ride in the trailer for Y5 each.
It was so nice to be travelling along and not be putting one foot in front of the other. Actually the ride was great fun as we bounced up and down on the back, the trailer having no suspension at all and the big rear wheels of the tractor having no mud guards so we were being pelted by mud and splattered with cow dung.
Me & John (above); Mike (below)
After half an hour we came across a little landslide. It wasn't too bad except for one huge boulder in the middle which was blocking the way and resisted all of our efforts to try heave it down the hill. So they unhitched the trailer and off went the tractor back the way we had come. Soon however they were back with a box of dynamite and were shoving it under the offending boulder and making sure us westerners were well out of reach of any danger. I had visions of the whole hill collapsing into the valley below, but credit to the guy after a dramatic countdown and blast the boulder was gone and the road still sort of intact - enough for us to drive over anyway.
We did 20km crouched down bouncing along on the back of this trailer which didn't take too long, but at the back of our minds was apprehension as we know the next stop was THE landslide - the big one we had been hearing about now for days and worrying about.
WOW, were we right to have been worried - it was huge, a whole hillside totally wiped away and having slid into the river.
Worse still the earth was very wet, loose, muddy and dangerous.
We were not the first people to have been across it, but probably were after the torrential rain of earlier that day. Well, there was no going back now so we carefully inched our way across.
It took about 3/4 hour to get across with our packs to this spot in the photo above where you can see the road disappear under the rubble. And who should be there waiting for us but the PSB, however we had promised to help Herr, which we learnt was the name of the cyclist guy, to cross with his bike which he dismantled into sections to make it lighter to carry. By the time we had got the various parts across the PSB had got bored and wandered off.
The road only lasted for less than 50m before another small landslide, but caught between them were a group of ten trucks that were stuck with no way to go - they must have been there when the landslide happened which would have been really frightening. The drivers were camped out under their vehicles waiting for the road to be mended - I expect it was a long wait.
It was then we realised we had another 8km to walk to Tangmai, the next village - ahhh - do we have to? We managed 6km when, just as we were about to colapse Herr organised a "lawnmower" tractor to take us the rest of the way.
It was long after dark that we arrived in the courtyard of the quite impressive hotel. With a huge sense of achievement we realised tonight we would eat a decent meal, sleep in a warm bed, be dry and had survived an incredible few days.
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