Nako

Reaching 3660m or so, we would our way up to the village of Nako.
Blown away.
The stone and mud dwellings, their flat roofs stacked high with bundles of valuable twigs and sticks. These are mainly harvested from the many coppiced willows around the sacred lake, central to the village (although looking at a bit of a low ebb, I thought - a murky lifeline from the gods). The animals, horses, donkeys, cows, goats all in stone pens - each with their own individual 'houses' too..
An astounding warren of these 'pre-historic' houses, linked with a labyrinth of paths, twisting around dozens of stone carving prayer mounds, Gompas, under platforms between closely spaced (2 donkey width?) neighbouring walls, the undersides still vividly painted with buddhist ornamentation and portraits of the big yella fella (well the statue we saw this morning was very big and very yellow - and the enigmatic face very nearly made the blip). The area was swamped with standards and interwoven chains of prayer-flags and everywhere, big & small, oily smooth prayer wheels (kosher palm oil - not a utan or oran harmed) - carved vessels of metal, wood, even leather - containing the ancient prayers, revolving their long path towards nirvana. I guess after thousands of years on this, the main Tibetan pilgrimage trail they must be nearly there by now.