Yatra : Day 13 - Rest at Taklakot (Tibet)

Day 13 - Rest at Taklakot(in Tibet)- 10 July 2008
Took rest for whole day at Taklakot. It had Chinese Military Camp., small town with one bank branch, market in half a km stretch including Chinese/Tibetian and Nepalese Market. Poor population, very few Original Tibetian, many Nepalese (As shopkeepers or labor). Rumors/Story is that Chinese gives incentives for outsiders (Chinese) people to come and settle here to increase their influence and population in Tibetan territory. There are couple of restaurants, night clubs as well (influence of military camp potentially). Again Rumors were that Chinese have purposefully set up night clubs to destroy Tibetan culture. Even though clocks follow Chinese timings (2.5 hours ahead of Indian timings), Sun follows Indian timings. So Sunset typically used to take place 9 to 9:30 p.m. local Chinese time in summers. Our latrines consisted of open drains with dividers (dividers Similar to urinal dividers though little bigger) with no individual doors. There was no tap or flush system. There was big drum having water (very cold) and a big pan kind of thing with handle and few mugs. Hotel rooms had modern toilets built but they were non functional when we were going. (While coming back we stayed in same hotel and that time all modern bathrooms and western toilets in hotel were functional). For bathing, there was a locked bathroom having hot water which used to open for one hour. All these measures were to conserve water as there was shortage of potable water. (While coming back in the same hotel, attached bathrooms with Geyser was functional - though water availability was limited still much better experience).
Food was served in dining hall attached to kitchen in Chinese style.
Breakfast menu consisted of fried peanuts, fried चावल के पापड़, fried as well as non fried bread made of मैदा (Idly style), Tea/Coffee and Jam.
Lunch/Dinner menu consisted of soup having cabbage pieces, sticky plain white rice, Pulav kind of sticky rice, Tinned fruits(Lichi, peach, आलूबुखारा etc.) or Salads (Cucumber, मूली etc.) and one or two vegetables (Green leafy vegetables, cauliflower, potato etc.). During whole of stay, Menu remained the same.
There were some people in the group who did not eat this food at all and managed on their own (eatables they had brought from home). Going outside and eating outside was not an option at all as they would have served non vegetarian chinese food which would have been worse than what we were getting.
Purpose of stay was to make arrangements for further trip. We were to hire cooks who traveled with us for next days. During the Kailash parikrama and Mansarovar trip for next ten days, we were supposed to carry our own cook, food, utensils for both the groups.Since two groups were formed, we distributed all food items, utensils etc. were divided into two. Two sets of cooks were hired. Most of the food item we had brought from Delhi, but vegetables needed to be bought at Taklakot. Also we had not carried lot of utensils with us. There is a room in Taklakot hotel where utensils are stored for Kailash Mansarovar Yatri group. We pick it up from there and leave it back while going back. If any utensil is not available there, we needed to purchase that. Apart from that finance committee folks had to go to bank and local traders to convert US dollars to Yuan (Local currency). There was only one bank and they were very fussy about accepting Dollars. Few dollars note they rejected saying  that it is not genuine. There is nothing we could do about that. We managed somehow by redistributing rest of the money so that everyone would have sufficient money for the trip (People needed money for porters, ponies etc.).
In the city, Govt. and military officials command lot of respect and they are rich. Someone told that bank employee would get 5-6K yuan per month while a military or custom officials would get 30-40K yuans per month. Customs officials were drinking beer and smoking when they were checking our stuff. (Seems smoking and drinking was allowed for them even while they were on duty).
Everyone went last minute essential stuff shopping. Top item in the list was 5/10 ltr water can to carry Mansarovar water (Available for up to 10 Yuans). There was a supermarket nearby where one could buy chocolates, peanuts, cashew etc. Since everything was written in Chinese and which item contained beef vs potato was not very clear, we did not take the risk of buying eatables from there. There were STD/ISD phone booth available to make calls to India. We made calls to inform near and dear ones. After Taklakot, there was no next opportunity to do the same will be 5 days later at the base camp of Kailash Parikrama. Mobile phones with international roaming were also not working at that place as it seemed that for activation there some special request needs to be made. After 5 trips to market and everyone gone through everyshop, people did come back and spent time at hotel.
After this I could claim that I have been to China among other countries.