[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 17 January 2016]

 

5 August 2015, Tuesday

Today, we would be making a long drive from Shigatse to Namtso Lake, another of Tibet’s famous sights. The original Mt. Kailash itinerary provided by Tibet Highland Tours did not include a stop at Namtso Lake, but we specially requested to make an additional stop there because I had read about it online and Namtso Lake got rave reviews from other tourists. I was also partly swayed by Lonely Planet, which described Namtso Lake as being “devastatingly beautiful”. As such, we felt that we should pay Namtso Lake a visit to see if it was really so devastatingly beautiful in real life. Tibet Highland Tours was able to accommodate to our request and we added one night’s stay at Namtso Lake.

To get there, we took a different route from the one before, so we got to see some different sights along the way. The most memorable moment came when we were driving and came across a huge herd of sheep and yaks at a huge watering hole, so we stopped and took some photos there. It was some random watering hole and I don’t think it has a name. The cattle belonged to nomads, who had pitched their tents there. These were not small tents but very nice looking and sturdy ones. We didn’t peep inside but they sure looked grand and comfy from the outside.

We witnessed the yaks lounging in the water before being steered away by their handlers towards the plains. It was a majestic sight to see a whole herd of yaks and sheep in their natural environment so up close. We had fun chasing the sheep but they were too fast for us.

 

We also visited the coolest toilet in the world. It was super open concept and in the middle of nowhere, and you really cannot find another toilet like this anywhere else. Check it out:

After that brief intermission, we continued our journey towards Namtso Lake. By the time we arrived at the guesthouse, it was 7:45pm. We had departed Shigatse at 8:38am so the entire journey took almost 12 hours.

Namtso Lake lies at an elevation of 4,718m and it is about 112km from Lhasa, making it a popular destination for a day trip from the capital. It is a saltwater lake and it is the biggest lake in Tibet. The word Namtso means “Heavenly Lake” in Tibetan, so it is considered one of the holiest lakes in Tibet. During winter, the lake freezes and the road to Namtso is typically closed from December to March due to bad weather conditions. The best time to visit is during the summer months between June and September.

As we drove over the mountain pass, we had our first glimpse of Namtso Lake and it was a beautiful sight. It was drizzling slightly when we arrived and the sky was cloudy that day. Otherwise, I think it would have been even prettier. Due to its size, it took us a while to drive around the lake to reach our accommodation site.

Before arriving, I had pictured Namtso Lake to be a tranquil place with a nice resort feel but the place where our accommodation was located felt more like a carnival with a commercialised atmosphere. All the accommodations were clustered in one giant flatland and they all looked the same, characterless. It was crowded and did not feel like a place to relax.

After dropping our bags, we proceeded to hike up the hill that was located behind our accommodation to see the sunset. It wasn’t a very steep hill, but somehow it was really tough climbing up, due to the high altitude, and we had to pause after every 10 steps or so. It was like the Mt. Kailash trek all over again.

After making our way laboriously to the top of the hill, we were rewarded with a panoramic view of Namtso Lake and the surrounding snowcapped mountains. Namtso Lake was so huge that it felt more like a sea than a lake. To be honest, it was beautiful but not spectacular, and certainly not “devastatingly beautiful”. There was still a way to go to reach the end of the hill, where the view would have been more spectacular. However, it was a cloudy day and the sun was obscured, and we were really tired by this point, so we felt like it wasn’t worth the effort to exert ourselves further to walk another kilometre to the end of the hill. So we turned back and had dinner at our accommodation’s restaurant.

At this point of the trip, everyone was exhausted and no one was feeling 100%. All of us had some form of ailments of varying degrees – be it headache, stomachache, nausea, flu, fever or cough. I think ST summed it up best when she joked that “where got people go on holiday and count down to the number of days to go home one?” We all had a good laugh over it. It was not a bad holiday at all, just that it was really physically demanding due to the high altitude and even the fittest of us had problems adapting to the environment.

After dinner, we all headed to bed early. There was no toilet at our accommodation so we had to use our head torches to go to the public toilet (which was a grade ‘0’) outside in the pitch darkness. There was also no sink so we just brushed our teeth at some random spot. The accommodation at Namtso Lake was a major disappointment. Thank goodness it was only for one night.