Pre-trip: Inspiration

After my Japan trip in 2012, I hadn't really been to anywhere outside Hangzhou (apart from flying back home for two weeks in December 2012 and renewing my work permit in Shanghai for 3 days in July 2013. I got plenty of vacation leave in my account, but didn't know where to spend it. The stress from going nowhere started creeping on me. I became more and more moody and grumpy each day. Nothing seemed to make me happy (except playing around with my dog - Giant, a male chow-chow which I rescued from the street in November 2012). I missed the roads. I missed the mountains. I missed getting lost and getting found. Though there were many trees in Hangzhou, I felt so far away from nature somehow. I needed to travel again. I MUST travel again.

Hitting 30 this year, I wanted to make this trip EPIC! I was still in a blank mode after coming back from Japan. I already went to the place where I always and most wanted to go. "Then, what's next?", I asked myself. I really had no idea. There was one place stood out among all - Mount Kailash. Mount Kailash is known as the most sacred mountain for many religions. I wasn't even close to being somewhat religious. Calling myself a Buddhist, but throughout my life, I purposefully went to the temple less than 10 times. I was more like an atheist actually. Still, I wanted to go there for some unknown reasons. Actually, there was a reason behind it.

The reason was in fact from one piece of cardboard paper. I was out shopping for my new trekking pants for my one-day canoe trip on Iriomote Island in Okinawa back in October 2012. I bought a pair of trekking pants, a pair of gloves and a pair of trekking socks from the clothing brand - Kailas. I came back home untagging my pants and found a paper tag with the brand name and a white drawing of a mountain on it. I recalled that there was a mountain with this similar name. The mountain is called "ไกรลาศ" in Thai, but it was mentioned in Ramayana (Hindu mythology). Actually, I heard Mount Kailash name a few years ago while I was researching for my Tiger Leaping Gorge trip back in 2010 and remembered vaguely that it got 100/100 from Walkopedia. Later, I googled all about it. Mount Kailash had become my deep dream destination which I wanted to once visit there, but wasn't sure whether it would be possible moneywise and other-things-wise.

Since I didn't really make up my mind about the place to go this year yet, I was browsing on random places - Australia, New Zealand, India, and many more. Whenever my friend asked me where I would go this year, I answered "Probably Tibet. I wanted to do Kailash Kora". Still, I had no concrete information about the trip, and didn't prepare anything at all.