Ngari is reputed as “the Roof of the Roof of the World” because of its high altitude. What you can see in Ngari are mostly boundless grasslands and vast rivers and lakes. You may think this place desolate because of the bare earth. Yet this place is believed to be the holiest in the world, because the sacred Mount Kailash is located at this place. Therefore, the Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar travel route is the most popular among tourists.
Mount Kailash is located at Purang County in Tibet, close to the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway. When you go to Ngari from Lhasa via the 219 National Road, you can see the symmetrical summit of the mountain from afar.
You will see a different Mount Kailash when you see it from different places such as the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway, the Taqin Town at the foot of the mountain, or on the way when you trek around the mountain.
There are two ways that you can get to Mount Kailash from Lhasa. One is to get to Taqin Town via the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway, which will take you about 2 days. The other is to get to Shiquan River Town by flights at first, and then transfer a car or a bus to Mount Kailash. The second way will take you only 1 day.
We suggest you take the first way to get to Mount Kailash, because you can not only save money, but can also enjoy more scenery such as the YamdrokTso Lake, the Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatese, and EBC along the way. Our Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar travel route is usually a 10-day journey. 10 days is enough for you to fully enjoy the plateau landscape and scenery in Ngari, and you can gradually adapted to the altitude, so that you won’t suffer from altitude sickness when you visit Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar.
The trekking route around Mount Kailash covers a length of about 52km, with Taqin Town being the starting point as well as the terminal point. A trekking route is usually as follow: Taqin Town - 6KM - Two-legged Stupa (Prayer Flag Square) - 3KM - Qugu Monastery - 12KM - Zhire Monastery 8KM - Zhuomala Mountain Pass - 16KM - Dzutrul Phuk (Zhongzhepu Temple) - 6KM - Zongdui - 4KM - Taqin Town
A pilgrim or a Buddhist who usually does kora around the mountain can complete the journey within one day. While for normal tourists, it can be 2 to 3 days. The place for accommodation during a 2-day journey is the 5,213-meter Zhire Monastery. And for a 3-day journey, you can stay overnight at Zhire Monastery and Dzutrul Phuk (4,750 meters).
Compared with trekking in low-altitude areas, it is rather difficult to trek in high-altitude areas. Therefore, we usually arrange for tourists 3 days to complete the trekking or kora journey, so you can slow down your pace and enjoy the scenery of the mountain casually. For more information about the kora journey about Mount Kailash, please read article on our website.
Average altitude of the trekking route is about 4,800 meters, with the 5,660-meter Zhuomala Mountain Pass being the highest point and the 4,675-meter Taqin Town being the lowest point. Altitude of the route doesn't fluctuate greatly, so there won’t be huge difficulties along the way. The only problem should be the high altitude, which can worsen altitude sickness. Therefore, tourists are suggested to slow down their pace to adapt to the altitude gradually.
If you don’t have obvious symptoms of altitude sickness or cold before the journey, you wouldn’t get severe altitude sickness during the trekking journey. Vehicles can be driven on the starting section and terminal section of the route, so when you feel terribly uncomfortable, please contact the tour guide and he/she will arrange a car for you to leave as soon as possible.
According to the tradition, the Year of Horse of Tibetan lunar calendar is the best year to trek or do kora around Mount Kailash. It is said that the Tibetan Year of Horse is the year of Sakyamuni's birth, so the merits of doing kora around the mountain in the Year of Horse will be multiplied. For example, if you do kora around Mount Kailash for one circle in the Year of Horse, the merits you can get will be 13 times greater than in other years. According to the calendar, the last Year of Horse was 2014 and the next Year of Horse will be 2026.
From the perspectives of month, the best month to trek or do kora around the mountain is from May to October, when the temperature is neither too low nor too high and oxygen content in the air during this time also begins to increase. The weather will be so pleasant that you can do outdoor activities around the area of Mount Kailash.
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