China, Tibet, 2017
The 52km long kora around Mt. Kailash is intense, deeply religious and follows a snowy trail up 5648m. Its unbelievable, that most Tibetans walk the kora in only 1 day, while I struggled in all my 3 days. But so often native people just passed by in their fast pace, sit down on one of the stones for a moment to make a small talk with their fellow Pilger and continue in the tempo from before. This walk – stop – walk is something nearly every one of them practiced.
Our first camp was on 5057m and the last hour walking on this day was a true battle. I felt relatively normal compared to somebody, who needed to return to our starting point on 4675m in Darchen. The second day was marked by the Sky-burial Point on 5370m, the first pass. Here you could find stones covered in cloth and other worldly things. You can leave something of your former live behind and imagine dying, so you can carry on in the in-between world – the part between both passes. There are a lot of prayer flags on the way and I already gave up believing I made it, when I saw the next beautiful tremendous prayer flags marking the way up. Anyways, it felt more like in a trance to move here. Everything was very overwhelming. By now, everybody was hiking together, and no common language is needed to communicate. The body of wanderer hiked on and helped each other up the snowy windy pass, stopping and walking. Dolma-La on 5648m is the place where everybody of us can get spiritual reborn. @sonyalpha @germanroamers @wilderness_culture @sonyalpha6000 @artofvisuals
