Round the Northern Villages-Dolpa

Round the northern villages-Dolpa

The two-day trail from Chharka to Tingkhu starts with a crossing of the 5,100m Mo La. The Barbung Khola turns west below the pass and the trail that follows it leads across Lower Dolpo to Dunai. Eight very cheerful village girls who were carrying provisions up to the high pastures accompanied us for the first hour, and we had lunch beside one of their camps on the other side of the pass. The Mo La marks another great watershed: that between the Bheri and the Karnali. From the pass we had wonderful views of our route north. Just before reaching our campsite, we had to cross a wide and fast flowing river in a thunderstorm. Thank goodness we had the ponies as the water came up to the waist of our support crew. With an hour of daylight left, a weak sun appeared along with the first of the returning Chharka yaks to share the site with us. Dawa told me that the headman of Chharka was with the group so I went to have a chat with him. Like all his companions, he had been drinking heavily on the trail so there not much chance of having an extended discussion about the challenges of life in Dolpo today! The yaks were loaded with every conceivable type of Chinese goods so I simply asked him what they had traded in return. He raised a closed fist towards me, waved it around, and shouted paisa! So much for the salt-for-grain trade! This has traditionally helped to shape and sustain life in these high trans Himalaya regions but profound changes are now underway. The weather was again mixed the next day: sunshine in the morning, cloudy during the day and rain as we reached Tingkhu in the late afternoon - a typical Dolpo summer day! We passed the rest of the Chharka yaks in groups of about 20 during the day, and there were indeed over 500 of them. It is a seven to eight day round trip from Chharka to the mart on the other side of the border that is specially set up for the Dolpopa. Sadly, the trail was littered with discarded Chinese beer cans and packets of foodstuff. As we approached Tingkhu, we saw across the river the trail that leads southwards over the Chhoi La to the Tarap valley. With ponies, it is a one-day trip for the local villagers. Dawa also pointed out Kula Ri, one of Dolpo’s three great sacred mountains. [The others are Crystal Mountain near Shey Gompa and Ribo, which is close to the Tarap Valley.] He told us that on the next full moon the people of Tingkhu would be doing their annual kora or circuit around Kula Ri - and that the trail was a tough one. In our wet and bedraggled state we were delighted to have Tibetan tea and soup in Dawa’s mother’s house while the tents w ere sorted out. We had briefly visited Tingkhu in 2002 and had planned to have a rest day in it during this trip to see friends and to explore it properly. Our camp was set up near an old Tibetan fort, a visible reminder that for many centuries Dolpo had been part of various Tibetan kingdoms and principalities. The village lies in an open basin at the junction of two main valleys. There are about 35 houses, including some recently built ones, all strung along the foot of the northern slope of the basin, facing south. The main Panzang valley runs west towards Shimen village and east towards the small village of Polde. Before the border was closed, there was a direct trail from Polde across the Bindu La to Lo Monthang. This was the trail used by the kings of Lo when they came on their yearly pilgrimages to ask for blessings and consecrations from Dolpo’s lamas who were highly respected across the Tibetan-speaking world for their ascetic life and deep learning. Sixteenth century biographical texts reveal that the Dolpo lamas also travelled very widely. Now a traveller from northern Dolpo to Mustang has to go on the much longer trail via Chharka. I spent the morning of a sunny day walking round the village, taking photos and chatting to many of Dawa’s friends. We had hoped to see our friend Tenzin Norbu. He comes from a long lineage of Tibetan thangka painters and has adapted his skills to paint impressionistic scenes of everyday life in Dolpo. He has had exhibitions in New York, Paris and Japan. He has a studio in Kathmandu where he and his family spend the winter. His wife told us that we would see him in Saldang where he was spending most of the summer masterminding the painting of a large new fresco in the gompa. After lunch, I walked up the steep trail to Trolung gompa which sits high above the village. Norbu’s father had been the lama there and the family had only moved down to a house in the village after his death. To my surprise, but clearly alerted by Dawa, Norbu’s mother was waiting for me with Tibetan tea and tsampa. She is a regular visitor to her old home inthe gompa. We walked down to the village together and had more tea and chat in her house. She is a very special lady with a wonderful face and featured prominently in the film Himalaya as the wife of Thinle, the hero of the story. It is an easy five-hour journey from Tingkhu along the Panzang valley to Shimen, an attractively laid out village in a large valley with houses and small groves of willow trees spaced around the fields.
source:-khukuri-2011 pdf