Sama to Samdo – High as a High Flying Cloud (3rd blog today)

Thanks Ivan.

And coincidentally we strode through fields all wet with rain. I don’t think I mentioned it previously but on the flight coming here I also listened to Astral Weeks, twice. It has overtaken The Big Huge by ISB as the greatest album of all time. Headphones really brought out the intricacy and beauty of the greatest work of musical art in the history of the world. End of – no surrender. Well, he is from Belfast.

I looked out of my window and after the rainiest night so far the clouds were capitulating to the sun. I grabbed my iPad, got my trainers on and shot outside. And there was Manaslu in the sunrise.

Even the modest local mountain, which was higher than most in Europe, looked great in the morning sun.

A decent breakfast of porridge and honey set me up for the walk, with milk tea of course, and we set off for a relatively short dap to Samdo, a village of Tibetan origin just a thousand feet higher than Sama. The valley opened up before us.

To our right there was a battle going on between the sun and cloud in the upper reaches, and it was 50:50 at the moment.

Up to our left on the hill was a tower of stone that looked for all the world like a giant guard from Lord of the Rings, with a wooden spear. If you didn’t look twice then you might miss the local guy two thirds of the way up the hill and in the centre of the photo.

It looked like the sunshine was winning in the mountains

and the valley

Each half hour brought a new perspective and I was hoping for a complete cloud clearance.As on the Annapurna Circuit a lone horseman coming along the valley cut a dash. Rob Carter, matey, I bet some of the horse gear would sell well in the UK. Whaddya fink?

We were nearly there, before lunch, and had been warned to get a teahouse room early as there were more climbers coming over the pass and the rooms could all be taken. Looking forward Bhim was crossing the last bridge before the climb up to Samdo.

We got to the first teahouse and grabbed rooms. Mine was an executive suite.

Lunch, laze, tried to message Antonia as she was in Leeds but strangely could not connect, even though earlier I’d posted a photo on Facebook. Then we went up into the mountains, to within 4 miles of China, to get higher altitude acclimatisation. The peace of the mountains was amazing.

As we headed back down to the village there were some local youths dressed in Worzel Gummidge type outfits, running round going berserk. They had whips and were shouting and banging on the doors and wooden shutters of houses to make maximum racket. According to a women Bhim spoke to, if the elderly die they automatically transition to the next phase. If younger people die in an accident, for example, their spirits won’t let go and hang around the village. These youths periodically rampage to scare the spirits into moving on.

Back for dinner and the menu was written by a Yorkshireman.

Night night.