Part 87 - Pangotang diary: wildlife sightings, weather, and mail; party bound for Tsurphu monastery (28 June)

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SUMMARY:
The writer notes forgetting camera film, observes leopard pug marks and young monal, and describes brief sun before returning rain and cold, with plans to leave and spend a week at Pangotang. A procession including Tasho Penlo Wangdi’s small son heads toward Tsurphu monastery near Lhasa, and on 28 June at Pangotang, Betty’s letter of 11 June arrives reporting some plant collections despite poor conditions as mist and rain persist.

CONTENT:
nice telephoto cine pictures, but found I had left out the film for the camera! Then we saw fresh pug marks of leopard, probably after the burrhel. And also we saw young monal, just able to fly. Today for a change we saw the sun. It was quite nice and dry from about 7.0 till 1.0 pm. Since then the rain and mist are down again, and it's very cold. We leave tomorrow, will have about a week at Pangotang as a centre again. Tasho Penlo Wangdi's small son passed on his way to Tsurphu monastery near Lhasa today, with a terrific string of animals. I didn't see the brother, but there were two other small children very gaily dressed and mounted. They are going to a miserably cold place, which I should not think they would like after Bhutan.

28th June Pangotang. Betty's mail of 11th June came in late last night about 6.0 pm. She also complains that there is not much to collect there, but I am pretty sure she will find a good deal later on. In any case they have got P. xanthopa, jonarduni, soldanelloides, and I think have done very well indeed. It dawned fine today and I thought we'd have a lovely day, but mist came up at once and turned to rain. We did have a couple of hours sun though before rain set in hard about 11.0, and it has continued since. Packed up a mail