Part 159 - Yar Shika to Loro Tö, 5–7 November

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SUMMARY:
Diary entries describe travel from Yar Shika to Loro Tö, including a visit with the Dzongpen (gifted silk and saffron) and discussion of missing photographs from Sanga Chöling, scenic views, and lost/damaged film rolls previously entrusted to Bhutanese couriers. Subsequent days note severe transport disruptions with drunk porters fighting, the Dzongpen demanding a passport, Kusho struggling to arrange transport, strong valley winds, and observations of hares and the absence of partridges.

CONTENT:
this morning, & quite a number still in flower. Clouded at night & early morning, fine & bright all day.

5th November. Yar Shika. Lovely day, with not nearly so much wind. The valley looks very pretty all day, in spite of being bare of vegetation. I went to the Dzong this morning before leaving & had half an hour with the Dzongpen, & gave him some silk & some saffron. He's a nice little man & very friendly to the British. He tells me he expects to go to Gyantse in two years time. I asked what he had done with the photographs of the 'peach' of Sanga Chöling. He said he had sent them to S.C. But they never got there, so he will enquire. This place is very pretty in the evening, with bare rocky hills all round, & away to the ESE some fine peaks of the Main Range, & a retreating very white glacier near the crest. I took a few Kodachrome of it. Some of these, taken in Pachakshiri appear to have come out pretty well. Kodak ruined the first one. The second roll, together with two rolls of ordinary Pan film have never been delivered. I gave them to some Bhutanese in Chura, above Tsetang. They took the line letters & parcels to Gyantse, but seem to have thrown away the films. A great pity, as they were all, or nearly so, of birds on the Yamdrok Tso, & a very close up of a crane.

6th November. Jora Shika. Lovely day, but ruined by transport changes. We had to change at Tro Shika, Trashi Trongme, Timp Shika & another village only 500 yards further on. Here most of the men were pretty well soaked in chang, & started fighting amongst themselves, blood eventually flowing quite freely, while in the meantime we cursed our fate. Got in at four p.m. The Dzongpen rather difficult; he asks for our passport which I can't show him, & very grudgingly ordered transport for the morning. Kusho is in rather a flat spin. He thought he knew how to arrange transport, but he most certainly does not. A great advantage of going in this valley is that the sun rises early & sets only about 4.30, as it runs almost due E & West.

7th November. Loro Tö. Perfect weather, with cold very strong wind down the valley all day. Some delay over coolies again, but they eventually came up here without change, though they expected to have two changes on the way. We saw no partridges all the way up the Loro chu, but there were many here in Ap. 1936. Jill seems to have scented something every now & then, but I think that was only hares, which are pretty common.