Sept 14th Lhasa to Gyantse

We left the hotel at 9:00 am and stopped at the Tibet Museum for a quick tour. We then headed out on the Southen Friendship highway. We stopped and learned about the sky burial that wa right beside the Brahmaputra river. We then traveled up the Kamba-la pass 5200M (17,000 ft) and stopped at the turquoise clear Yamdrok-tso lake with the snow capped mountains in the background to have lunch. This is a holy lake. We also saw a number of solar powered tea kettles which are quite common in Tibet. The other very common site is cow or yak dung patties that are used for burning. First the patties are dried and the stacked up for future use.

We are very happy with our newer 4 WD as we even have seat belts along with a good motor and some interesting Tibetan music to listen to. We crossed two other passes and viewed a second high lake, where we passed a number of western bicyclers who had climbed the passes, earning our great respect. Many of the shepherds we passed were spinning wool as they tended their cattle, even some men.

We passed the kharola glacier lying at 5560 meters in a heavy hailstorm. We arrived at the Gyantse hotel around 5 pm. The elevation here is 3980 M. We had a Tibetan pepper yak sizzler for dinner that was quite good. No internet at this hotel so this was typed on the BB.
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