Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WORTH A TRIP
WARM-UP HIKES AROUND MT KAILASH
If you've got extra time at Darchen, or you want to spend a day acclimatising before set-
ting out on the Mt Kailash kora, you can find some interesting short walks in the area. The
ridge to the north of the village obscures Mt Kailash, but an hour's walk to the top offers
fine views of the mountain. To the south you will be able to see the twin lakes of Manas-
arovar and Rakshas Tal.
A switchbacking dirt road just to the east of Darchen branches right after 1km to the
Gyangdrak Monastery
, largest of the Mt Kailash monasteries and 6km from Darchen.
Like other monasteries, it was rebuilt (in 1986) after the depredations of the Cultural Re-
volution. The left branch of the road follows a stream west to
Selung Monastery
, where a
short walk leads to a viewpoint popular with Indian pilgrims for its views of Kailash and
Nandi peaks. The secret 'inner kora' of Kailash starts from here but is only open to pil-
grims who have completed 13 main koras of the mountain.
For an excellent warm-up and acclimatisation hike, get dropped off at Gyangdrak and
then follow the obvious path over the ridge and down to Selung (45 minutes). At the pass
on the ridge a side path leads up the hillside straight towards Mt Kailash for epic views of
the south face and back towards Manasarovar, Rakshas Tal and tent-shaped Gurla Man-
data. From Selung you can drive back or continue over the ridges to the south to eventu-
ally drop down steeply to Darchen. Views of the Barkha plain from the ridge above
Darchen are awesome but it gets very windy in the afternoons.
History
Throughout Asia, stories exist of a great mountain, the navel of the world, from which
flow four great rivers that give life to the areas they pass through. The myth originates in
the Hindu epics, which speak of Mt Meru - home of the gods - as a vast column 84,000
leagues high, its summit kissing the heavens and its flanks composed of gold, crystal, ruby
and lapis lazuli. These Hindu accounts placed Mt Meru somewhere in the towering Him-
alaya but, with time, Meru increasingly came to be associated specifically with Mt
Kailash. The confluence of the myth and the mountain is no coincidence. No-one has been
to the summit to confirm whether the gods reside there (although some have come close),
but Mt Kailash does indeed lie at the centre of an area that is the key to the drainage sys-
tem of the Tibetan plateau. Four of the great rivers of the Indian subcontinent originate
