Nam-Tso is one of four 'holy' lakes in Tibet (still don't understand quite what that means, except 'holy shit, it's beautiful!'), and, at 4,700 meters above sea level, holds the obscure superlative of world's highest saltwater lake. 'Lake', however, seemed to me an off-putting description of a body of water beginning under a startlingly near snow-capped range and extending to distant horizons, where the light and its reflection on the emerald waters became altogether indistinguishable.
Prayer flags in Tibet are everywhere. At Nam-Tso, they formed rippling, rainbow hypotenuses from high, craggy rock cliffs down to the water's foaming edge. I read that the colors symbolize the ancient elements, which was a particularly fitting correlation here, where white light cast by a crimson sun illuminated the skies, the seas and the earth.
After sundown, we watched the stars - of the entire, shimmering Milky Way and beyond. From this (numerically insignificant but visually soul-changing) vantage point, we counted about a hundred shooting stars, before bundling up and falling asleep to the persistent howl of mastiff mongrels.
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