I'm back in Leh and will try to get this posted. Internet here is very slow and unreliable, because the land lines are still down following the August floods and they have to rely on satellite transmission.
On the 10th Phil and I had planned to begin a 3 day trip to the Nubra Valley, but between 2 and 4 in the morning I was quite sick, with vomitting and diarrhea. I felt okay after that, but I was extremely tired and spent the day in bed until the early evening. I ate some cookies about 10.
I felt fine the next morning. The streets were wet after rain during the night and the brown mountains above Leh were dusted with newly-fallen snow. After breakfast, Phil and I left with an English couple, Mark and Kirsty, about 8:30 on a jeep bound for the Nubra Valley. The morning was sunny and the views spectacular as we climbed above Leh towards the Khandung La, first passing the green barley and vegetable fields of upper Leh and a village, Ganglas, a little higher and then the stark, brown mountains above. The road was paved and very good till we came near the pass where it was much more rocky. We zigzagged up the steep mountains and reached Khandung La about 10. Snow was on the ground and it was very cold. The snow was not deep at all, but was slippery in places. The signs at the pass say it is the world's highest motorable pass and give its elevation as 5602 meters, about 18,380 feet. My map and other sources say about 5360 meters, or about 17,500 feet, and my altimeter was much closer to the latter.
From the pass we continued down through more spectacular stark scenery, passing a lone marmot (a mammal that looks like a prarrie dog, but several times larger) and reaching the village of Khandung for a tea break. We passed army camps on both sides of the pass, one with soldiers with white suits and goggles, probably bound for the Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani troops confront each other at 6000 meters, about 20,000 feet. Khandung had few homes but extensive barley fields. We continued down and finally sighted the Shyok River far below and a small green village on its banks, backed by steep brown mountains. We reached the valley floor near where the Nubra flows into the Shyok and followed the Shyok downriver to the village of Diskit, with a whitewashed monatery on a ridge far above the town. We had lunch there and continued down the valley about 6 miles to Hunder, another small village where we spent the night. The valley floor is at about 10,500 feet elevation and is quite rocky and sandy. The rivers themselves are gray, with several channels.
On the way to Hunder from Diskit we stopped at sand dunes where there were about 15 Bactrian camels (the ones with two humps). It had clouded up by then and I rode one for about 15 minutes over the sand dunes. They seem a tiny bit more polite than the one hump variety. Bactrian camel caravans used to travel between China and India through the Nubra Valley, and we were told that these are the descendants of lame camels left behind. We reached Hunder about 6 and walked about until dark, about 7. It is a spread out village, with whitewahed houses among stone walls and barley and vegetable patches. We had home-grown tomatoes for dinner, along with rice and dhal and vegetables, and they were delicious.
It was cloudy with a few drops of rain the next morning, and after another walk around the village, visiting the gompa above the village, with a ruined fort above that, we headed to Diskit and spent an hour or more in the monastery above the village. They were great views of the valleys and the confluence of the Nubra and Shyok. The monastery itself was interesting, with wall paintings in the prayer halls. A steep and rocky chasm is on one side. Nearby is a statue of the Maitreya Buddha (the Budbha of the future) that was completed only 2 months ago and is something like 60 feet high, situated on a hill below the monastery. We visited that, with great views of the monastery.
From Diskit we drove upriver and crossed the Shyok and then proceeded up the Nubra Valley until we reached the village of Sumur, where we had lunch and found a hotel for the night. After lunch we drove another 15 miles or so up the Nubra Valley, with more stark, steep, brown mountains above us on either side, to a hot springs at Panamik. The hot springs were none too scenic, but they were very hot. I wouldn't want to bathe in them without cold water added. Back in Sumur, we visited the monastery above the village, where some monklets were playing cricket in the late afternoon, and then walked down to our hotel.
We made the beautiful trip back to Leh the next day, and I think I enjoyed the spectacular scenery even more on the return trip. The pass was no longer snow covered. We arrived on the outskirts of Leh about 1, hitting a traffic jam as the Dalai Lama was arriving that day. A crowd of (I would guess) 15,000-25,000 had gathered in dusty rectangular area on the grounds of Lamdon School and were waiting for him. Cars were parked on the side of the road above the crowd and people were streaming down to join it. We were stopped for maybe 45 minutes on the road above the big crowd, and were told it was because traffic was stopped in town to allow the Dalai Lama to get from the airport to the gathering. We finally got to town about 2.
Phil and I had lunch and then walked up to the gathering, arriving about 3:15 and joining the huge crowd. There were many people in traditional dress, mainly older people, but they were much outnumbered by those in modern dress. It was quite an interesting crowd, with people coming and going while that low, guttural Tibetan chanting emanated from the covered stage. We spotted the Dalai Lama under a golden parasol in the center of the stage leading the chanting. Eventually, we made our way to the right hand side of the stage and had very good views of him. There were many red robed monks on the stage and the Dalai Lama wore a red robe with a yellow sash. After the chanting ended, he said a few words to the crowd and we positioned ourselves near the exit from the stage to catch his departure. Red hated monks lined his route and I joined the scrum trying to see and photograph him as he left. He spoke to a television reporter on the way out and then waved to the crowd as he got in his car. There wasn't much security around, although I did see one Indian soldier with a rifle. His motorcade left in a cloud of dust and it was interesting to see the crowd depart. Eventually we joined them on the road back into town full of walkers and cars.
It was sunny the next morning and Phil and I left on a jeep tour of some of the sites around Leh about 9:30. First, we went to Stok across the Indus from Leh, where the former royal family of Ladakh still has a palace that it uses part time. The king of Ladakh was deposed in 1846 when the Dogras of Jammu invaded, but his descendants still style themselves kings, and there were some interesting photos of them in the palace museum. The palace in Stok was similar to the one in Leh, but renovated. There were some beautiful rooms, including a prayer hall and a small museum with some beautiful things, like royal regalia, and there were great views from the palace roof. We could see Leh across the valley. After the palace we visited a dilapidated 350 year old stone building that was the royal physician's home and a monastery at the upper edge of town.
From Stok we recrossed the Indus and headed upriver (the way we had come from Manali), eventually crossing it again and heading up into a very rocky hidden gorge to Hemis, where there is a big monastery, the most important in Ladakh. It has a huge courtyard, something like 130 feet by 65 feet, and some beautiful prayer halls, one with wooden pillars maybe 30-40 feet high. Hemis also has an excellent museum (including musical instruments, religious articles and even a tiger and a snow leopard skin) and great views from the roof of the rocky gorge in which the monastery is situated. On the way to and from the monastery we passed very long manis, or prayer walls, with prayers carved on stones on the top of the 3-4 foot high walls. They must have been half a mile or more in length.
On the way back to Leh we stopped at Thikse Monastery on a hill above the valley. It has many buildings and the prayer halls where quite interesting. One had a Buddha several stories high that you gazed upon from the top story, maybe from the shoulders up. In another, several monks were making a mandala on the floor of crushed stone dyed several colors. The colored crushed stone was in several little bowls and the monks would take some and put it in a metal tube and them carefully tap the tube, making the powder drop out carefully onto the mandala. One monk told me it would take two days to complete, and after seven days it would be swept up. While we were there the ten or so monks working on the mandala took a break to eat momos, which are Tibetan dumplings. They offerred me one and it was very good. We had some great views of the Indus Valley from the roof of Thikse Monastery.
From there we proceeded to Shey, where there is a ruined, but partially renovated palace that was apparently once the major palace of the Ladakhi kings. It had a 2 or 3 story Buddha in a dark hall, with gold on the wall paintings around it, which a monk showed us by the light of his cell phone (and our flashlights). The Buddha dates from the 17th century, is made of copper, and is gilded. From the palace we climbed up the rocky ridge to two ruined forts higher up, with prayer flags fluttering in the wind, for great views back toward Thikse and of the Indus Valley as a whole. We got back to Leh just before dark.
It was sunny the next morning and about 9:30 Phil, Mark, Kirsty and I left on a jeep bound for Pangong Tso ("Tso" means "Lake"). We traveled up the Indus to Karu, where we took a road that headed towards the lake via Chang La. We passed Chemrey Monastery on a rocky hill and above a dilapidated fort and above a wide valley with barley fields as we climbed the steep road to the pass. The road was paved until near the pass, as the roads in this area are important to the military, worried as they are about China and Pakistan. I was told half of the Indian army is in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, of which Ladakh is a part. It was sunny but very cold at the pass, about 5360 meters or 17,500 feet. Work crews of men and women were rebuilding a wall. We talked to some Indian soldiers, one from West Bengal and one from Maharashtra. The army offers free tea at the pass and has a medical facility if you need oxygen.
From the pass we made the descent through more stark landscape, finally reaching the village of Tangste where we had lunch. From Tangste we travered a beautiful canyon to the lake. We passed some yaks in a green area near the river and reached another green area where we found about a dozen marmots emerging from their dens. Our driver had brought some cabbage leaves, which he used to entice the marmots to come out. They were somewhat wary, but I suspect used to tourists feeding. They were great fun, and we could feed them and even pet some of the braver ones. One was much larger than the others. Apparently she was the mother of the others.
We reached the increadibly blue lake about 5, and drove along it for about 6 miles to the village of Spangmik, with nine families, where we spent the night in a home with three rooms for tourists. I walked through the village and down to the lake after the sun had set behind the steep mountains and it was cold when the wind blew. The lake is at about 4200 meters, or 13,800 feet. I passed stone walls, cattle grazing, goats being brought home, and barley fields. The lake is very clear, but is said to be brackish, as there is no outlet. It is about 80 miles long and only a few miles (2-3) wide. Its eastern end is in the part of Kashmir claimed by China and occupied by the Chinese since the 1962 war.
The home we stayed in was quite comfortable. We had rice and dhal an chapattis in the kitchen for dinner and slept warmly on mattresses on the floor under heavy covers. The man of the house told us they have two children, eleven and twelve years old, both in school in Shey, where they have gone to school since age 7. That must be hard on both parents and children. He said his children want to return to Spangmik once they finish school.
I got up about 5 the next morning to pee and could spot Orion, Taurus and the Pleaides in the starry sky. The half moon had set, a planet was setting over the high mountains to the west, and the sky to the east above the mountains and lake was brightening. I got up for good about 6:45 and walked down to the lake in the morning sunshine. There was ice on the edges of some of the streams and water channels in the village. (It amazes me how much water flows down through these villages from the dry mountains above them. It comes from glaciers even higher up, and we could see them from Spangmik.) There were maybe 6-8 yaks at the lake shore, and as usual they were pretty skittish. We had breakfast in the sun and then sat there until about 11 enjoying the sunshine and the views of the lake. We could have happily spent another day there. On the way back to Leh we stopped to see the marmots again, this time with cookies and chapattis. I again enjoyed the beautiful trip and we arrived back in Leh about 5. It had been sunny all day, a beautiful day.
It was sunny all the next day, too. I walked up to the base of the palace for the views. The snow and ice capped mountains, including Stok Kangri at over 6000 meters (around 20,000 feet) across the Indus to the south were cloudless, and in fact there was hardly a cloud in the sky all day. The views were fantastic. I discovered an old man (probably about my age!) in a traditional long red jacket, and with a walking stick and a ball cap with a Dalai Lama button, sitting in the sun in a somewhat secluded area. He didn't seem unhappy to have me disturb his solitude. Down in the old city I watched bakers making chapattis. The take balls of dough, flatten them by hand, streak them with liquid (water and butter, I guess), and then place them on the inside of a big jar shaped oven, where they stick. The fire is below, I imagine. After a minute or so, they remove them with a metal rod.
Later in the afternoon, I climbed the Nezer Latho gompa near my hotel for more views of the area under the cloudless sky. Several days ago I met a Swiss guy named Bardo and his half-Bhutanese son of about 10 in the late afternoon at Nezer Latho. Bardo told me he had arrived in Leh in 1971 on a truck after a three day trip from Srinigar. He spent two and a half months in Ladakh and was fined and stripped of his souvenirs when he left. He said there were only two other foreigners here then, both working here. This is his first trip back since then and it was interesting to hear his descriptions of 1971 Ladakh.
The next day (today) is also sunny. After breakfast I walked up again to Nezer Latho for the views and have spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing errands and typing in this internet cafe. Time for lunch.
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