Part 19 - Camp below Chora and journey to Tsetang

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SUMMARY:
Accounts of a sandy riverbank camp below Chora with severe winds and a night-long dust storm, alongside observations of large numbers of geese and cranes. The following day they travelled by kowa to Tsetang amid gale conditions, waited at a ferry while Puibo sought transport, saw many geese near the ferry, and found poor lodgings in town with loads from Tamalung still missing.

CONTENT:
2:00 pm, putting up tents for a change. It is a good camp, but very sandy.

22nd March. Camp on R. bank. 9 hours in kowa below Chora. Yesterday evening was most interesting. We sat outside our tents and watched geese, duck, crane and Brahminy flighting in low over our tents. After dark there must have been hundreds of geese, in the morning we counted over 170 crane. During the flight, crane came in by 30-40 at a time: we have never seen so many together before. Altogether this was a very nice camp and we were comfortable in tents again but a bit cold. Today was fine again, but more windy. By the evening there was a terrific dust storm blowing. We landed at the only place where there were no sand dunes and pitched tents. By 6:00 pm the wind died down and we thought all was well. Up till then the wind had been very strong down the valley. By 10:00 pm the wind got up and blew very strongly indeed dead up the valley, and it continued to do so for the whole night, with the result that we had not a wink of sleep and were covered thick in sand by the morning.

23rd March. To Tsetang. 5 hours in kowa. There was still a gale blowing up stream this morning and the river was very rough in consequence. But the boatmen seemed quite happy and we were off at 7:20. The wind did not drop till 11:00 when it suddenly stopped. We stopped at the ferry while poor Puibo went off to look for transport to take us up to Tsetang or Netong. This only arrived at 4:45 by which time the wind was again blowing a gale down stream. On the flat by the ferry there are many trees and some grass just coming up. Among these all round about were hundreds of geese. We could walk up to within 30 yards of them before they would waddle off. These ferries are comic looking things, absolutely square, made of huge timbers. To look at from the side they are something like this: they are steered by two huge oars, and have three long poles behind to steer them by. About a dozen ponies with men and loads can be carried in one, and they all make a hell of a noise coming across the river. We have pretty beastly rooms in the town, very dusty and filthy. Our 11 loads, last seen at Tamalung have not yet turned up, and so we have