UN Special N° 645 Novembre · November 2005 

A single circumambulation (khora) around Mount Kailas is a symbolic re-enactment of the wheel of life and washes away the sins for life, 13 circumambulations purify all past and future karma (only after having made 13 circumambulations can one approach the heart of Kailas and make the inner khora – read at the end of this article); after 108 khoras one can attain enlightment. For centuries the khora around Mt. Kailas has been considered as the most sacred pilgrimage. At the same time this circumambulation around one of the holiest, but at the same time, one of the most secret and mysterious mountains in the world, attracts the attention of people from other religions, and recently of many Europeans. The trek is considered to be very difficult and only specially trained people can do it. The length of the trek is 53 km along which the traveller passes symbolically through different stages of life, including death (this is the most difficult part of the trek). With due respect to the sacred nature of this pilgrimage I still decided to contact people who did this khora not as a religious pilgrimage, but as a trek. I read numerous diaries and confidential reports and it became clear that each of the trekkers had experienced something unusual in this place. As I recounted earlier (UNS No640/May 2005) the Russians had introduced speculations which provoked a very large number of visits over the last three years. I therefore decided to contact only those few people who had done the trek earlier and thus to have the most objective, the most true and the most neutral story. Mrs. Sally-Ann Rudd, British-born, living in the United States of America, kindly agreed to respond to my questions and shared with me her photos and diaries.

Why did you, European/American, persons of a non-Buddhist religion, decide to do Khora?

I’d been to Tibet the previous year and travelled extensively around Central Tibet: Lhasa, the Yarlung Valley, as far east as Chongye and as far west as Sakya. I was curious about the west of Tibet partly because I was told it was beautiful and uninhabited, partly because I was told there was less Chinese influence there and partly because I wanted to do a long trek in Tibet. Mount Kailas was the obvious destination. I hadn’t really thought about it in spiritual terms when I decided to go, although I was aware that in Buddhist lore it is the site of Mount Meru, the centre of the universe according to the ancient Abhidharma literature of India.

Kailas is situated in an area with very difficult access. How did you get there?

We travelled by Toyota Land Cruiser from Lhasa. Originally there were two Land Cruisers and a truck for our gear. One of our party (there were four of us at the beginning) had a bad back and found he could not tolerate the bumpy roads, so we sent him back to Lhasa with one Land Cruiser, leaving us with one Land Cruiser and a truck.

What is your first impression of the Mountain. What is the first image you keep in your memory?

It was very dramatic because the approach to the mountain is through a flat plain. Suddenly, a range of mountains becomes visible, and Kailas is bigger than the others and so strangely shaped.
From the diary: “Our guide pointed to a range of hills, far in the distance to our right.
One of these was a very high mountain, far higher than the others, its top almost a perfect pyramid, the only one in the range high enough to be completely covered in snow, gleaming pure white in the sun, a perfect jewel mountain, precious snow mountain, mounted in the middle of the hills like a diamond among emeralds.”

Please describe your khora, day by day.

From the diary: The following day, we (me, Linda and Mike) set off on our first circumambulation of the mountain. It was a beautiful bright, sunny day. It was cold, but warm in the sun.
The early part of the trail was unspectacular, heading a short distance into the Barga plain before hanging a right to skirt the Darchen monastery. The plain is basically sandy, with short, stubby, desert-like plants. A little beyond the first prostration point, the trail entered a beautiful valley. Tall rocky cliffs with the occasional waterfall were on either side. Down the middle, lush soggy grass. The sun was shining, there were groups of pilgrims behind us and in front of us; it was great hiking. We passed the Tarboche – the great pole of Mount Kailas, the symbolic power-center of the mountain, and also a walk-through stupa. It was idyllically picturesque and scenic.
Sometime late in the afternoon, we finally left the lush, green valley and began to climb steadily into more barren, rocky terrain. As the shadows from the cliffs began to get longer, we were still walking, higher and higher towards the heart of the mountain. I was extremely tired. We stopped for frequent breaks, leaning against rocks or sitting on the ground for a few minutes. We could only have walked about 10 miles, but it felt like much more.
After a cold, restless night during which I was barely able to breathe and swallow, we set off the next morning in the crisp clear air for the Drolma-La pass, the most important piece of the Kailas khora.
As the day heated up, we started to climb into, and then out of, the first of numerous ravines that we crossed that day. By midmorning, we’d reached the cemetery, a place where one leaves a piece of clothing or hair as a representation of the moment of your death when you have to leave behind your body and all your worldly possessions. Linda left her hat, but I didn’t have anything I thought I could leave, so I pulled a few hairs out and left them. Near this place, there’s a place where Tibetans dig small holes in the ground looking for images that manifest in the earth. There are also small pits full of a gray-colored earth – this is the flesh of dakinis, and is eagerly collected.
It must have been just before lunchtime that we reached the foot of the Drolma-La pass. Above us, we could see the pass stretching upwards as far as we could see, a wall of rock and scree. Tiny black ant-like figures were arranged along the trail at intervals, heaving their way upwards. It was a very impressive sight, and I had a little doubt that I actually had the strength to get up it. By now, we were higher than I had ever hiked before, since the top of the pass is 18,500 feet. Black spots rolled around in
front of my eyes, and I felt nauseous. But I had no choice except to keep going, stopping every couple of yards to gulp air into my lungs in a vain effort to supply my fading brain with oxygen. At every resting place, Tibetans surged past us, carrying babies, bedding, sacks of flour … only their sweaty faces showing how great an effort it was even for them. On our way we saw a mixed European and American group. I thought I was close to death until I heard and saw this group, and realized that actually Linda and I were doing ok. We actually made it up the pass in about 50 minutes, 10 minutes quicker than the guidebook.
So you can imagine, that reaching the top felt really good. I didn’t have any breath to say anything, but the Tibetans greeted their arrival at the top, and that of others, with wild cries of delight, «Kiki, Laso, Lha Gyalo!», «The gods are victorious!». I sat down on a convenient rock, and watched as Loya, Samten and Tenzin struggled with the huge string of prayer flags we’d carried up with us. We then all stood in a circle and threw tsampa (barley flour) in the air, before anointing each other on the shoulder with a smear of the same tsampa. We tried to burn incense and tsampa, but the wind was so fierce it was impossible, although we did manage some good smoke briefly. I tried to read the prayer to Manjushri that I’d brought with me, but my brain was so starved of oxygen I couldn’t read – or rather couldn’t make sense of – the Tibetan characters; so I read it in English instead. Arrival at the top of the
Drolma-La is the symbolic rebirth after the symbolic death in the cemetery below.
After about an hour, it was time to leave. The trail down was steep and rocky, through an endless boulder field.
We visited the tiny monastery of Zutrul Phuk, a cave monastery associated with Milarepa. By the end of the third day we were back in Darchen.

As I understood, after having done one khora you decided to do it again and to accept the challenge of doing it in one day (which is extremely difficult, I admire your courage!) Why did you decide to do it again?

I had thought of it when we were planning the trip, it was actually Linda’s idea when we were at Chiu Gompa. I had my reservations, because the first khora had been very difficult. I think both Linda and I had an anti-climactic feeling having accomplished in three days what it had taken us a year to plan. We just felt that we hadn’t finished with the mountain. Tibetans routinely make oneday khoras of Mount Kailas. They even have a special word for it, which translated means «running like a dog». Only westerners need three days. They think we are soft. They think we are incapable of circumambulating the mountain in one day. They think the luxurious western lifestyle makes us too weak for such feats. They may be right. But me and Linda though we could do it too. We were both extremely fit and well-acclimatized to altitude. Why not?

Please describe how you did it in one day.

We actually woke up about 1am, and hurriedly stuffed the few things we were taking into our packs – in my case, some Balance bars, water and a flashlight, waterproof and very little else. We set off through the compound gate and turned right towards the first prostration point. We followed the compound wall for a short distance and then turned towards the monastery. As soon as we passed the monastery, we thought we would easily see the trail heading into towards the first prostration point and the valley. Instead, we completely lost the trail and ended up stumbling out into the Barga plain. It was a close call. Finally, we reached the first prostration point and had some water. It was a cloudy night, and so it was pitch black everywhere. We could just identify the trail in what light there was, since it glowed slightly lighter in color than the surrounding bush. Still, there were plenty of rocks and ravines which made night-time hiking treacherous. We headed on towards the valley entrance, the tarboche and the two-legged stupa that we remembered from day one of our previous circuit. I was expecting bright moonlight to erupt from behind the clouds at any minute. Instead of that, heavy clouds scudded past, completely obscuring the moon except for brief flashes when bright white light lit the landscape.
The next close call was when we entered the deep valley where Chuku monastery is perched on the side of the cliff. Suddenly, instead of trail beneath our feet, there was soggy marsh. Unable to see, we had wandered away from the trail and managed to walk into the stream that went down the center of the valley. Both my feet were wet, which was not the way you want to start a 35 mile hike, but there was nothing to be done.
It was while hiking this valley that we began to experience what a spooky place this could be. At no point did I feel frightened, but we were seeing increasingly bizarre things along the way. Linda thinks we were hallucinating due to lack of sleep, altitude and fatigue. Continuously, I thought I saw groups of people or yaks in front of us or beside us; but there was never anything there. I saw rocks that appeared to glow white (a refraction of the moonlight?) and one that I thought was adorned with electric fairy lights. At one point there was a light, which I thought was being carried by a person, which disappeared as soon as we got close. It was all very weird, and seemed very real at the time. I prefer to think that we had wandered into the playground of the pleasure beings, and they were toying with us.
[Linda’s version: I don’t think the moon came up for hours. The mountain did seem to shine when we could see it. The first hour or two on the trail we saw genuine pilgrims carrying lights. It was only later that we had the hallucinations.]

As far as I learned from those who were in this area they all had similar visions – shining mountain, lights, many people feel the presence of something or somebody, etc. Now, our years later, turning back, what do you think about all these weird things?

I still have no logical explanation. I don’t believe in ghosts, spirits, telepathy etc. To my knowledge, I’ve never hallucinated. Apart from seeing the lights, most of the time we were walking in almost pitch darkness. We had very strong impressions that other people and animals were behind us, in front of us, or sometimes stationary beside the trail. When we approached the spot where we thought there was (for example) a group of some living creatures, there was nothing there. It was similar to the feeling you have when you walk into a dark room, you may sense there’s another person there before you can see them. Or when someone’s looking at you, it makes you look up. It was that kind of sense impression, but very strong, very powerful. I was really surprised the first few times it happened that there was nothing there. I have no explanation for what we experienced. I think it was weird, but I don’t think anything else about it because I have no way to explain it or extract meaning from it. I was conscious at the time that we were having a strange experience, but it was not frightening or alarming. Looking back, we probably should have been frightened, but we were not. Sorry, I know that does not make a lot of sense.

Did you try to do the inner khora circuit?

We didn’t go on the inner khora because we had not done enough outer khora circuits (only after completing 13 outer khora one can go on the inner khora). I’ve also heard that it’s dangerous. The landscape on the western side is very different to the other sides – rocky, dramatic, deep ravines, barren and for most of the time you are climbing higher which is very hard work. The other sides have more open vistas, have more vegetation and are less steep. Perhaps the unique features of the landscape affect the way people feel.

How long did it take you to do the second khora?

The complete Kailas khora has never been accurately measured, but it’s usually thought of as 35 miles. Linda and I walked about 33 miles of it. It took us 18 hours. The elevation at the start is about 15,000 feet, and the high point at the top of the Drolma la pass is about 18,500 feet. Although I’m sure some westerners have done it, I’ve never heard of any other westerners who have completed a khora in one day. So if you know of someone, let me know. [Linda’s last words: We have to do this again.]

I would be interested to know your opinion on one of the hypotheses of the Russians as to the artificially built pyramidal structure of the Mountain, and complexes around it (I sent to Sally-Ann all documents and schemas, published in UNS No.640/May 2005). Having been there, having done this khora twice even, do you think the hypothesis is possible or totally impossible?

It is curious but I believe the mountain is a natural phenomenon. When you are there, it does not appear as regular as the schema suggests. I think you would have to take some liberties with the geography to make it fit the schema.

What do you feel today, four years later, after having gone through all that? Did it change anything for you or in you physically or spiritually?

Physically, there was no change except a feeling of accomplishment. Spiritually, in the short term I began to actively and enthusiastically study Buddhism and Tibetan language (I’d actually started to study Tibetan the previous year).
I have tremendous love for Tibet, and her people. I went to find a mountain, but I really connected with the people we met along the way. I didn’t write too much about that. I think that is the lasting legacy. I’m still in touch with Samten, the guide for that trip to Mount Kailas (who was also my guide for my 2002 trip to Tibet).
The other change is that I’ve really come to realize that you don’t have to go all the way to Tibet for a lasting spiritual practice. A real spiritual practice should come from what you do every day. The real power places are in your heart and mind. How ironic that I had to travel half way around the world to understand that!

Thanks a lot! I really admire your courage and your will!