Day 9: Markha -> Tahungste

We started the trek early today. Stan made sure that we left at 8 am. It was a good idea as we will be reaching the camp earlier than before, giving us enough time to rest.

We climbed the cliff at Markha where the monastery is situated. Once above we had the beautiful view of the valley on one side and the village on the other side. After about 40 min we had our river crossing. I made sure that I had the sandals this time. Though that made walking through the rocky river bed easier and the water was only knee deep, the water was colder than yesterday. At midway through the crossing my feet started to paining because of the cold temperatures Still it was an interesting experience.

Most of the time we walked along the Markha river. We passed the Umlang Gompa, which sits on a cliff overlooking the valley, on the way. Stan told us that there were only a couple of monks living there. We passed the Umlang village shortly afterwards before proceeding to the village of Hankar. We stopped there to have our lunch break. It was close to 12 noon now and the sun was getting hotter as before.

Once we passed the Hankar village we started seeing the peaks of Kang Yatze (at 6300 m altitude) at  a distance. We took a shark left turn from the valley and leading to a steep climb. We passed the ruins of a Gompa and ended up in a beautiful village with Mani stones, stupas, mustard fields and the ruins of the Hankar Gompa. It was so beautiful that the whole landscape looked like a postcard. Proceeding further we reached the Nimaling Chu river, which also opened up the entrance to a gorge leading to our camp. Strange rock formations on both sides of the Nimaling Chu river welcomed us as we made our slow climb towards the camp which is at approximately 4200 m high. At some stretches the climb was very very steep. The heat of the day made our ascend very stressful.

We reached our camp at around 2.15 pm. The camp at Tahungste is on the banks of Nimaling Chu river which is covered by green pastures. The river was flowing at high speeds and the water was muddy and ice cold. Still there are some springs around with crystal clear water. I washed my body with the cold water from the spring. Though cold it was really refreshing experience. Now the whole day left for relaxing which is really good. Tomorrow we climb to the highest camp of the trek at approximately 4700 m.