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South Asian Studies 6 - 1990 | Page 1/2 |
After a long and interesting day of travel by jeep from Lhasa with a Chinese driver, with stops at Yangbajing (a town comprised of steam, geysers, hot springs, a few drilling rigs, and a thermal electric plant that supplies Lhasa) and Damxung (a 'boardwalk' village with the distinct look of the American wild west), we arrived through a series of steep switchbacks at the 5,132 metre crest of the Lar-geh La Pass in Tibet.
As we jumped from the jeep to take photographs, we were confronted by one of the most spectacular views of a lifetime, while at the same time feeling we were standing on top of the world! The deep blue Tibetan sky encompassed barren, craggy, rocky peaks, full of spectacular geological structures typical of the Tibetan plateau. Beside the road was a pile of carved religious rocks and a pole with many fluttering prayer flags. Only 300 metres below was a sapphire lake enclosed by snowy peaks: the great valley of Lake Namtso.

Lar-geh La Pass

Damxung Village

Lake Namtso
According to local nomads, the lake requires about 20 days to circumnavigate on horseback. The lake is surrounded by a number of holy places (equivalent to American Indian 'power places') and small 'gompas', i.e., Buddhist shrines or small temples built mostly within small caves approximately 15 to 20 metres deep and 5 to10 metres high in limestone remnants surrounding the lake. Near one such gompa we encountered over 100,000 beautifully carved Tibetan stones forming a wall over one metre tall by one metre wide and stretching at least 300 metres along the shore of Lake Namtso.

Local nomads

A pair of great pillars
→ The China Rock Art Archive
→ Bradshaw Foundation