Saga - Paryang: An Amazing Journey

The break at Saga was a relief to all of us. We were up next morning fresh and ready for the next leg of the journey - to Paryang about 250 kms away.

We were out of Saga in double quick time and soon on the gravel roads ascending up the mountains only to come down on the other side and get on a bald table top.

The journey now seemed to get a trifle boring and at times, I dozed off and realised that we had not missed out on anything...till we saw huge herds of yaks at close quarters....That broke the tedium and we looked around waiting to see some yaks or other animals...

We stopped for lunch at a small dining house as on previous days. This, we were told by the sherpa team, was the spot where hundreds of Tibetan soldiers and citizens were massacred by the Chinese Army in 1959. Thousands, who chose to flee, went to Nepal - the nearest safe haven before they eventually wound up in India. This historical fact has been erased from all written records and the new generation has no knowledge of this.

Post lunch was the surprise package.

First, was the "Divine Spectacle". It was an unbelieable sight and truly something that none of us in the group had ever seen, heard or experienced in our entire life. We saw a semi-circular rainbow around the sun against the backdrop of a clear and stuningly blue sky. We were stunned and just kept clicking snaps of this spectacle and watching through our "dark glasses". The funny part was this phenomenon dis-appeared in about five minutes. This was taken as a blessing and we were unanimous in our view that the yatra would be successful and all of us would complete the "parikrama".

The second was the landscape which just floored us. It appeared that the "Creator" had gone berserk and had conjured up the most bizzare but beautiful landscape for us. We were passing grasslands.....a surprise in itself. This was followed by a small desert with sand dunes exactly the way we would see in Rajasthan. To leave us wondering, HE added a river, low hills and high mountains to complete the painting. I remembered that old Hindi song sung by Mukesh..."Yeh kaun chitrakar hai....".

I sat down on the sand dunes and was lost in wonder at this amazing spectacle. Sitting silent, I realised later that my mind was blank and not a thought crossed my mind. It was time to express gratitude for everything and be "hollow and empty" as the wise Guru says.

The rest of the journey did not matter after this. I do not know when we reached Paryang.

Paryang, is a very small village and the only reason it is on the map, is because, Kailash-Mansarovar yatris stop over for the night. There is a small but comfortable guest house constructed by some enterprising Tibetan entrepreneur. It also claims to have "hot shower" facility, but we found this facility to be firmly shut and out of bounds. Wonder who were the lucky ones to be let inside.....an unsolved mystery.

We were nearing our destination and the next day we would have our first view of Mt Kailash and Lake Mansarovar. There was a air of expectation.