Accommodation at Adun Guest house

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Adun Guest House in Nyalam

We drove through some very stark scenery. Snow seemed close at hand. We saw lots of water falls. We were all impressed with Punti’s driving. He is very careful. We arrived in Nyalam at 5:30 p.m.

Nyalam is a very tiny town (really it is a village and not a town) with the main road running through it. The temperature was so much colder than in Zangmu. We were shown upstairs to our room. It was freezing in there. There were three single beds with sheets, a blanket and a quilt on them.  There was a little cupboard in between the beds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were then led down a couple of passageways to the toilets. There was one lady’s and one men’s toilet and both were squat toilets. There was the usual large container of water and a pan to ladle the water into the toilet to flush it. There was no toilet paper. There was no sign of any showers but there were two long troughs with taps above them. Nothing was coming out of the taps.  There was no soap to wash your hands even if you had water. Errrgh this was it! We had been warned that accommodation in these parts was basic and it certainly is.

An icy breeze was blowing through the room. The corridors to the toilet/wash area seemed a bit like a rabbit warren. I hoped we’d be able to find these toilets in the night. Worse still would be if you couldn't find your way back to your own room afterwards!

 

Looking around Nyalam

Our watches had been adjusted forward by two hours. It was still daylight so we thought we would go down to the street and take a look around. First job though was to change our clothing. On went the thermal underwear, a stack of clothes followed by beanies, scarves, our jackets and gloves. We all wondered what on earth the temperature was inside the guest house.

 

 

We walked down both ends of the short street. Down the lower end there is a river with a bridge across it. There were ladies on the bridge with rubbish in carts and they were busily shoveling their rubbish straight into the river! We saw some yaks wandering around too.

 

 

 

Almost opposite the guest house we spotted an internet café. Jeremy tried it out later on but found it a wasted visit as the internet was impossibly slow.

 

 

 

 

Back to a freezing cold guest house

We ate at the guest house café. It was a reasonable meal but we couldn’t manage to eat all of it.

Upstairs we found a room with heating in it. It had a fire that was fueled by yak dung in the centre of the room. Around the edges of the room were padded benches that must have turned into beds for night time use. There was a huge pile of blankets in one corner of the room. I don’t know if the hotel staff sleep there or perhaps guides and drivers do. We sat there for a while fully dressed in our winter coats trying to warm up a little. Jeremy found a spot near the fire and tried to warm his feet. Ian actually found a power point there so he began his daily job or re-charging batteries.

 

Bed time

After a last minute trip to the loo we prepared ourselves for bed. Ian and I thought we would sleep in the guest house bedding whilst Jeremy thought he would try out his sleeping bag.  We had no showers and not even a wash. It was so cold we didn’t even use our Wet Ones. The staff at the guest house had brought us a thermos of hot water so we could make some tea so we had a cuppa and turned in for the night.

 

Next page - Travelling to Old Tingri

 

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