Part 38 - 3rd May – Chensi Rongang to Tongnanying via Latsi La

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SUMMARY:
On the diarist’s birthday at Chensi Rongang, Tasho—the girls’ brother—arrived from herding, and local girls sought medicine, including for gonorrhoea; the diarist departed after declining to host them. Reports accuse the headman of Kuoma of extracting rice and supplies despite H.H.’s contrary order, prompting the need for action. The route climbed over Latsi La and continued to Tongnanying before a steep, muddy descent into dense forest after overnight rain.

CONTENT:
rather silly that we are so close and so far away.
3rd May - Chensi Rongang. 8 miles Ht approx. 6500'

My birthday. Yesterday did not finish when I thought it had. A very filthy man arrived and greeted me in Hindi. He was Tasho, the brother of the girls. They all have the same father and mother except the lad who has a different mother. He had come in from herding the cows. He was a cheerful soul whom I liked best of all. The younger girl came again with a bunch of hangers-on: she wanted medicine for gonorrhoea. She is not an attractive girl in any way, and her sister, suffering as she is, is much nicer, cleaner and easier to talk to. The hangers-on all wanted medicine and were not very grateful for it. I was very glad indeed to escape this morning, though that meant saying goodbye to the sisters. I refused to have them in my tent, so little time was wasted. All the hangers-on were, I thought, unpleasant; now we also hear that the headman of Kuoma has been doing the locals down by saying that he is to collect rice and other things for me, although he knows H.H.'s order to the contrary. The men had to give quite a lot, none of which I saw incidentally. So we must take some action on that.

The road leads up steeply to the Latsi La at m 1, then more or less flat over steep grass hillside for 2 m. to Tongnanying and so on to m 4 where it suddenly enters dense forest and drops very steeply indeed for some 1500 feet I should think. The path was very muddy and slippery. It had rained all night, but luckily was not raining this morning till after