Day 57 Baga Township - Pulan County: Lake Manasarovar.

Open Amap, enter "Lake Manasarovar," and zoom out a bit. You'll see how close Lake Manasarovar, Lake Rakshastal, Mount Kailash, and Mount Naimona'nyi are to each other. This is an unmissable route in Ngari. Tibet has three sacred lakes: Lake Manasarovar, Lake Namtso, and Lake Yamdrok. Lake Manasarovar is the most sacred of the three, and is worshipped by Buddhists, Bonists, Hindus, and Jains. We left the Mount Kailash base camp and drove along National Highway 219 for a while before turning onto National Highway 564, which took us to Pulan County. On the way, we passed Lake Manasarovar, Lake Rakshastal, and Mount Naimona'nyi. Near Xiongba Village, we passed a Kagyu temple called Jiwu Temple. The temple is built on a hill and is not very large, but it overlooks Lake Manasarovar (see Figure 2). Ken parked the car in the parking lot, and we walked up slowly. When we looked up, a girl in a group of three Tibetans waved at us, and it seemed like she wanted to be in the picture (see Figure 3). We saw a road leading to the shore of Lake Manasarovar from the mountain, and when we got closer, we found that it was a scenic area gate (see Figure 4). If you want to drive around the lake, you need to pay a CNY 150 entrance fee. We decided not to go in and drove around the lake instead. There is actually a viewing platform at the foot of the hill where Jiwu Temple is located. When we got there, a strong wind blew up a lot of dust, so I quickly put on my mask. There are prayer flags fluttering in the wind, and colorful mani stones under the flags (see Figure 5). Some tourists were taking photos in front of the prayer flags on the viewing platform, so I walked around the flags. From this angle, I could still see Mount Kailash in the distance. I continued walking around the prayer flags until I was alone, and suddenly found a small hill made of yak skulls taller than me. The horns were engraved with Tibetan characters (I don't know what they mean). I found an angle where the yak skulls were in the foreground and Mount Kailash was in the background (see Figure 6). We finally chose a wild hillside by Lake Manasarovar, parked the car by the road, and walked over (see Figure 7). To collect entrance fees, Lake Manasarovar has installed countless road piles along the national highway to prevent private cars from getting close to the lake. The scenery of Lake Manasarovar is quite ordinary, but when I faced the lake and turned left, I could see Mount Kailash (see Figure 8), and when I turned right, I could see Mount Naimona'nyi (see Figure 9). This is indeed a rare spot.