Part 2 Padum-Kargyak by Petra a Radim

19 January In padum, we are there meeting two men from Kargyak, Dawa and Namgyel. Knowing that January is the puja month during which lamas are coming to houses where are read sacred books, it seems like a small miracle that Dawa and Namgyel come to find us here, loosing by that at least 10 days of their puja. We really highly appreciate this respectable step. Today, we are passing Barden monastery, majestically rising on the top of a quite big rock. This day is hard. Even though the terrain is going up slowly, we are getting out of breath very fast. Dawa advises to take a bit of chang, local barley beer, from time to time, but we have a felling that we would have to drink litres of it to get the same salutary effect as torpedo-Dawa :). At night, we are getting off to sleep in Raru, in the house of Namgyel´s relatives. It must be a really agreeable feeling to know that in every single village of the valley, you can find your relatives who are always ready to give you something small to eat and a place to stay. 20 January We are leaving Dawa in Raru for he is making sledge that he hopes to use during chadar II which should start from Ichar. The sledge is a big relief for the back and furthermore, it gives you an unprecedented speed. Namgyel is also hankering after his own sledge, that´s why he is successfully trying to find one by his Ichar´s relatives. If we could, till now, hold heroically the local speed, the sledge shown us blatantly who was setting the pace here...We are passing the night again in the house of Namgyel´s relatives, this time in Tsetang. 21 January Second day of chadar II. Today, we dare to say to have the same feelings like Alice in the Wonderland or like heroes from the Andersen´s Winter tale. We are passing through very narrow river passes grooved by water. It is very smooth and rounded and it shows human´s minuteness in comparaison with Nature´s elements. Yet, the fairy tale doesn´t finish by this narrow. A moment later, we are admiring gigantesque icefalls. We are passing this night in Kuru where we are playing on flute and we are trying to teach children how to play some card games. 22 January By midday, We are dropping by in the family of our pupil Desal B in Tangze. We are enjoying local hospitality and Namgyel with Dawa are plucking up courage by several cups of chang for the last stage of our journey :). About 4 o´clock, we are arriving to Kargyak. Well at last! The villagers are welcoming us very warmly with a hot sweet milk tea and fried bars (called "kura" as I learnt later during my "cooking lessons" with girls from doksa). At the same time, they are screaming their incredibly long names in exchange for our names that are apparently shorter, but even though seem making as many problems as the long ones. Refreshed, we are taking off for our last metres. Jirka and Ondra are waving at us from the school doorsill. And when we come up, we see that they have a pretty unexpected welcome for us : a Czech home-made bread with salt...

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