Silk Road class 11 chapter 8 English Hornbill summary
Silk road class 11 summary
The narrator was leaving Ravu and heading towards Mount Kailash to complete the Kora. it was in the early hours of the morning that they were set to leave. Lhamo gave the narrator a long-sleeved sheepskin coat. which all the men worse, as a farewell present. Tsetan assessed him as they got into his car. they took a shortcut to get off the Changtang. Tsetan knew a route that would take them southwest, almost directly towards Mount Kailash. it involved crossing several fairly high mountain passes, he said Going that way would not be a problem if there was no snow but that one could never know till one reached there.
From the gently rising and failing hills of Ravu, the short cut took them across vast open plains. dry grazing land, with nothing in them except a few small antelopes. moving ahead they noticed that the plains became more stony than grassy. here racing around and of which Tsetan had told them even before they appeared.
The drive again became steep. they crossed drokbas tending their flocks. thickly clad men and women stared at their the sheep would turn away from the vehicle. they passed nomads’ dark tents pitched in the isolated places usually with a huge black dog. a Tibetan big, smooth-haired dog guarding them. these dogs would observe them from a distance and as they drew closer. they would rush towards them, and chase them for about a hundred meters. these hairy dogs were pitch black and usually wore bright red collars and barked with enormous jaws. they were fearless of their vehicle and would run straight onto their way. Tsetan had to brake and turn sharply to avoid them. it was because of their ferocity that these Tibetan mastiffs were brought from Tibet to China’s imperial courts as hunting dogs.
As they entered a valley. they could see snow-capped mountains and the wide river but mostly blocked with ice that was sparkling in the sunshine. As they moved ahead. on their upward track the turns became sharper and the ride bumpier. the patches of bright orange lichen. under the rocks seemed unending shade. the narrator felt the pressure building up in his ears so he held his nose. snorted and cleared them. just then Tsetan stopped and the three of them Tsetan Daniel and the narrator walked out of the car
it continued so snow. the snow that had collected was too steep for their vehicle to scale. so there was no way of going around the snow patch. the narrator looked at his wristwatch and realized that they were at 5, 210 metres above sea level.
The snow didn’t look too deep. but the danger was that if the car slipped it could turn over. Tsetan grabbed handfuls of soil and threw them across the frozen surface of the ice. Daniel and the narrator stayed out of the vehicle to lessen Tsetan’s load. he backed and drove towards’ the dirty snow. and with no difficulty, the car moved. on but after ten minutes of driving there was another obstruction. Tsetan assessed the scene and this time he decided to drive around the snow. it was a steep slope scattered with big rocks. but Tsetan got past them. the narrator checked his watch again. they were 5,400 meters above sea level and his head began to ache terribly. he gulped a little water for relief.