I went out for about a 2 hour walk, leaving about 7:30 on the 8th and walking out of Dalhousie on a road through the pines and rhodendrun, with good views down the steep slopes to the valley of the Ravi. I walked to the palace of a former maharaja maybe a mile and a half from town. Entry to it was barred by a gate, but it was a beautiful walk in the early morning cool. I met a retired man from the Punjab and his wife along the way and they were quite friendly.
After a late breakfast, Phil and I left on a bus for Dharamsala just before noon. It traveled on back roads through hilly country, at altitudes of about 2000 to 4000 feet after we descended from Dallhousie at 6500 feet. It was a scenic journey, but slow going with lots of stops and quite crammed with people toward the end of the trip, with the interior of the bus somewhat reminiscent of the stateroom scene in "Night at the Opera." If anyone else had wanted to board, I think they would have had to stack them horizontally on the heads of the other passengers. The road was narrow, but fortunately there were few trucks on this back route. Indian trucks, by the way, are multi-colored but invariably predominantly orange. They are relatively small (but big in comparison to other vehicles on the roads) and all have embazoned on the back "Blow Horn" in big letters (to advise vehicles behind them to blow their horns if trying to pass) and below that in smaller letters "Use Dipper at Night" (to ask them to use low beams on their headlights).
We arrived at the road junction of Gaggar near Dharamsala about 5 and had to board another bus there up to Dharamsala, arriving about 5:45. It began to rain on the way, with thunder and lightning. Dharamsala is at about 4000 feet, but we were actually bound further up the mountain, to McLeod Ganj (sometimes called Upper Dharamsala), at about 5500 feet. This is where the Dalai Lama resides, settling here in 1960 after fleeing Tibet following an uprising against the Chinese in 1959. It is only about 2 1/2 miles up the mountainside, but 6 miles by the route the bus takes. It began to rain like crazy just as I got out of the bus from Gaggar to board the bus to McLeod Ganj. We waited on that bus about 45 minutes before it left as the sky grew dark and it rained hard, with more thunder and lightning. Eventually, it hailed, quite noisily on the bus' roof. We drove up to McLeod Ganj in the dark, arriving about 7, and found a hotel and had dinner.
It was sunny and clear the next morning and I walked around the small town, though now a much bigger town than I remember from 1979. I walked out of town to the Church of St. John-in-the-Wilderness, which I remember walking to in 1979 on a quiet dirt road with monkeys in the trees. The road is now paved, with cars whizzing past, and there were no monkeys. The colonial church is in a lovely location, surrounded by pines, but it is now tin-roofed, with metal grates and shutters on its entrances, and had a guard dog barking inside. The Earl of Elgin, a viceroy who died in 1863 at age 52, is buried in the churchyard and there is a big memorial to him. It states he also served as Governor of Jamaica, Governor General of Canada and Ambassador to China. There are other graves in the big churchyard. One couple lost two infant children within three months in the 1860's.
After breakfast, I walked to the Tibetan temple complex at the southern (downhill) side of McLeod Ganj. (McLeod was a Deputy Governor of the Punjab when the town was founded in the 1850's as a military encampment and hill station.) It is quite an ugly concrete complex, somewhat reminiscent of a parking structure, and has been built since I was here in 1979. It is filled with red-robbed monks, many debating in the Tibetan style, with much gesturing and clapping of hands. They seem to be having a good time and it is fun to watch. I visited the two temple halls, with some treasures brought from Tibet. The Dalai Lama lives in a fairly nondescript three story concrete building across from the temple, with not much security, at least to my observation. However, I saw his schedule and he is scheduled to be in the U.S. starting October 12 in San Jose, and thereafter Palo Alto, Atlanta and two places in Ohio, so maybe he hasn't been here. I remember seeing him, or at least his car with him in it, as he went to his residence one late afternoon in 1979. I did see him last month in Leh, though I have to admit that a good portion of the time I was in his presence I was trying to remember what was the advice Bill Murray gave him in "Caddyshack," earning him the Dalai Lama's blessing.
There are quite a few tourists here, but I think the Indian tourists may outnumber the western ones, as apparently many Indians from Delhi have a holiday while the Commonwealth Games are going on in Delhi. (They started October 3 and go on for two weeks. I saw the opening ceremonies on tv and have watched some of the events on tv at night.) Somewhat surprisingly, most of the western tourists here are of the older, rather than the younger, sort. There are lots of red-robed Tibetan monks and nuns in town, and other Tibetans, with many women in traditional dress.
The monks ceased their debating just before noon, apparently to go off to lunch. I had lunch myself in a little cafe just outside the temple and nine of them (four at one table and five at another) were also in there. It had clouded up about noon and began to rain about 2, so I headed back into the temple complex to escape the rain. It rained for over an hour an a half, quite hard, with thunder and lighning, and again it hailed. I saw one marble-size hailstone. Afterwards, I walked around town, watching all the people and activity, and then walked down 200+ steps to another temple built since I was here in 1979. (There really wasn't much to see here in 1979 other than the Tibetans themselves.) It had some interesting butter sculptures and the grounds were full of friendly monks. They were being fed just as I left to walk up the stairs to town. All had bowls of rice and beans, though a few of the young ones also had bags of potato chips and I saw one with an orange soda.
It was sunny and clear again the next morning, and about 8:30, after breakfast, I left on a two hour walk, going along the ridge to the little town of Bhagsu and then up the hillside to another small town, Dharmakot, and then back down to McLeod Ganj through the pine trees. Then I walked down to St John-in-the-Wilderness, arriving just at the end of the 10 a.m. Sunday service. A young blond guy was playing a guitar and singing a song apparently of his own composition. He finished and the Indian pastor closed the service. There were about 35 people in attendance, about 90% westerners. Afterwards, they served tea and cookies. The church was fairly bare inside, but had two stained glass windows in the apse and some interesting wall plaques from colonial times. I kept wondering where the guard dog was.
After lunch, I went to the museum in the temple complex and it was very good, focusing on the Chinese subjugation of Tibet with photographs, text and film, the latter of the demonstrations in 1987 and 1988. I spent some more time in the temple. It rained, but only for maybe an hour, that afternoon.
The next morning (today) I walked down the mountainside (about a 700 foot drop in elevation) on a steep road to the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, a complex of several buildings, including a monastery and a library with an interesting museum. It was very interesting to read the literature about the Tibetans' democratically elected goverment in exile and the Dalai Lama's statements on China. A little further downhill is a museum of Tibetan medicine and that was quite interesting. On display were many natural remedies for ailments and they included not only vegetable but also mineral remedies, including lapis lazuli, copper and even gold. I remember reading that at one time the excrement of the Dalai Lama was considered an effective medicine, but I did not see that on display. The sky had clouded up, with some thunder but no rain, and I took a taxi with three others back up the steep road to McLeod Ganj. It hasn't rained yet and it is still a sunny afternoon here at 4.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
September 26 - October 7, 2010: Kashmir and Chamba
On September 26 in Kargil we checked out the travel situation to Srinigar in Kashmir. We had been uncertain whether we would be able to travel safely to Kashmir, as there has been violence in the valley all summer. Over 100 Kashmiris have been killed by the Indian security forces in Kashmir since June. The Kashmiris, mostly boys and young men, throw rocks and the security forces shoot back. Curfews are often imposed. But everyone we talked to in Kargil, including people from Srinigar, encouraged us to go. We left Kargil for Srinigar in a jeep with three others at 2, in order to travel the final leg through the valley at night, when the rock throwers are confined to their homes by the curfew. Actually, we really got going about 2:30 as there was a big traffic jam just out of town, including perhaps 50 army trucks, and many other trucks and other vehicles. Just north of town is the junction of the Drass and Suru Rivers, and a bridge that leads to Pakistani Kashmir only a mile or so away. We followed the Drass upriver through a narrow valley, with lots of military encampments and memorials along the road to fallen soldiers. Signs warned us that "You are under enemy observation." The Pakistani lines are just north of the Drass and about 10 years ago the Pakistanis made an incursion and were repulsed by the Indians, with the loss of thousands of lives, I've been told.
We followed the Drass up past the camps and memorials and a village or two till the valley widened, with trees and agriculture before we arrived at the town of Drass about 4:30. We had a tea stop there till 5, with views of pyramidal, snow-capped Tiger Hill, where fighting took place in 1999. After Drass the valley scenery became much more dramatic, with rocky, snow-capped mountains on either side that seemed to rise almost vertically. We crossed the Zoji La (Pass) at 11,600 feet at about 6:30. The view on the other side was quite dramatic, with three long switchbacks leading down into another valley, which was almost 2000 feet below. Unfortunately, the light was fading, so we made the three long switchbacks down for the most part in the dark. It was quite a narrow road, too, with lots of trucks. I'm surprised the jeep drivers don't leave a littler earlier so they can do that road down the pass in the daylight. Hundreds of trucks were parked along the side of the road, in several different places. That, and the oncoming trucks, made getting down difficult. But we reached the town of Sonamarg, at about 9000 feet about 8, and had a 40 minute dinner stop, for some greasy mutton and rice. The last two hour drive to Srinigar was pretty strange, with almost no traffic but a few trucks and our group of three or four jeeps. In the towns we passed all the shops were shut, with shutters down, and I don't think I saw more than 10 people on the streets, and most of those were at police checks on the way. Entering Srinigar, we passed Dal Lake on its eastern shore and our jeep took us to a hotel just southwest of the lake. We had to wake the proprietor to get in, as everything on the street was shut. I took a shower and got to bed just after midnight.
The next morning there was some, but not a lot of activity on the street near our hotel. We got out about 8 to look for a houseboat. When the British first came to Srinigar they were not allowed to buy land, so begin to stay on houseboats on the lake, which has become a tradition. There are more than 1400 of them now, I've read. The streets nearby had quite a few troops with batons and rifles, and checkpoints with concertina wire. There were Kashmiris on the street, though. We walked to the Houseboat Association office and there met Mohammed Taba, who took us in a jeep to his houseboat, a trip that again took us along the east side of Dal Lake and then to Nagin Lake, just northwest of Dal Lake. There we met his brother Habib and looked over their sumptuous boat, the Palace Heights. It is 105 feet long, 15-20 feet wide, and filled with beautiful furniture, of walnut for the most part, Kashmiri rugs and cedar carved wood interiors. There were easy chairs, tables and a desk and even a television and a refrigerator. It had three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a dining room, a sitting room and a balcony off the back. It was definitely a deluxe class houseboat, and we got it for about $15/day each, which included breakfast and dinner. Tourism has been hit hard by the disturbances in the valley, and it definitely is a buyer's market. In fact, I saw only one other western tourist the entire time I was in Srinigar.
We had breakfast in the boat's dining room and then rather than go back to our hotel by jeep to pick up our things, we took a shikara, a gondala-type boat with a canopy. We were paddled across Nagin Lake and through the waterways connecting it to the southwest extention of Dal Lake, passing houses and farms and other shikaras on the way. It was quite an interesting trip as we lounged on the boat. At the southwestern part of Dal Lake are hundreds of houseboats, and this was where I had stayed in 1979. Habib and Mohammed said they moved their houseboats (they have six) to Nagin from Dal to avoid the congestion, and it is much less congested on Nagin than on Dal Lake. It was quite different in 1979. The build up of hotels along the lake since 1979 is quite disappointing. We docked and got our stuff and then were paddled back to our houseboat, another beautiful trip, each way taking an hour and twenty minutes or so. There don't seem to be any motor boats on the lakes and waterways, which is nice.
Back on the boat, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, mostly on the balcony on the rear. It was beautiful on the lake, and very peaceful. Sunset was just after 6 and it was great to watch the lake grow dark. The mosques' calls to prayer began soon after sunset and echoed across the lake, with some of the romance that I remember when I first heard them in Istanbul 30 years or more ago. Now I have to admit I mostly find them irritating, especially early in the morning. Unfortunately, they amplify them, usually on pretty poor sound systems and they amplify not only the call to prayer but the continued wailing of the guy leading the prayers, which can go on for a long while. Venus set in the west about an hour after the sun, and another planet (Jupiter? Saturn?) rose brightly over the high mountains to the east. We had an okay dinner on the boat.
I got out about 7 on the balcony to watch the lake in the early morning. The sun rose over the high mountains just east of Dal Lake a little after 7. There were kingfishers, with irridescent blue backs, herons, hawks, small red-faced ducks, some other type of duck, and other birds on the lake. Fishermen on canoes sat patiently fishing, catching fish about a foot long. There is a lot of green duck weed on the lake, appearing only over the past 7 or 8 years, I was told. It is bright green and said to help cleanse the lakes, which are fed by springs. The water is quite clear.
Kirsty left after breakfast, to fly to Jammu, as she had to leave India in less than a week, and Phil and I left about 10:30 on a shikara ride that took us, after more than two hours, across Nagin and Dal Lakes to the eastern shore near Shalimar Bagh (Gardens), built by the Mogul Emperor Jehangir in the early 17th century for his wife, Nur Jahan. The gardens had beautiful flowers, fountains and a somewhat derelict pavilion with the remants of a fine painted ceiling. We spent about half an hour looking around and then walked a short distance to have tea with the boatman's brother's father-in-law, a very friendly gentleman. We then took the shikara south along the eastern shore to another Mogul garden, Nishat Bagh. It is right on the lake, but not as nice as Shalimar Bagh, I think. The long trip back took an hour and a half, into the setting sun. We got back to the houseboat just after sunset, at 6:15.
The next morning Phil and I walked into the old town, southwest of Nagin Lake. We left about 11 and it took us an hour or so to get there. There weren't many shops open, though there were pedestrians and cars on the streets. There were quite a few police with rifles and batons, and roadblocks with concertina wire. Nobody stopped us and the people were friendly. There were posters of Khomeini, Khameini, Achmadinejad and Nasrulllah (the Lebanese Hezbollah leader) along the way, in what was obviously a Shia part of town. Most Kashmiris, I've read, are Sufis, a gentler form of Islam. We also saw "Go Back India" and "Go Back Indian Dogs" graffitti.
We passed through an old city gate built by Akbar, who conquered the valley for the Moguls in the 16th century, and up to a ruined 17th century mosque and a Sufi shrine just below the massive fort (closed to the public as the army still uses it) that sits on a hill above the town. The Sufi shrine, with graves of two Sufi holy men, was very nice, with friendly people. One man had a goat, which peed and then pooped on the carpet. I saw a woman scoop up the poop, but didn't stick around to see what happened to the goat pee.
The giant Jama Masjid was closed but we did visit a couple of other Sufi shrines and mosques, one of which, the Shah-i-Hamadan, was quite beautiful, with papier mache decoration inside and out. We stopped by the Rozabal Tomb, claimed by some to be that of Jesus, with a sign quoting the Koran about how Jesus was not crucified. The streets became quite full and most shops were open as the afternoon progressed and we wandered the narrow streets of the old town. At the last mosque we visited two friendly little girls showed us their dyed hands. We got back to the houseboat just after sunset and on the way back the roadblocks and soldiers were gone. We did see a bunch of them boarding buses at one location.
We spent the next day relaxing on the boat, planning to leave the next day. But the next day was a Friday (when demonstrations often occur after Friday prayer service) and the day after the High Court in Uttar Pradesh State had issued a decision about the future use of the site of the Ayodhya Mosque, which was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu activists claiming it was built on the site of a former Hindu temple where Rama was born. Habib said the authorities were expecting trouble, had imposed a curfew and no jeeps were going to Jammu, our next destination. So we spent the day on the houseboat. We did leave about 1 to walk to the nearby Hazratbal Mosque, a gleaming white 20th century construction on the shore of Dal Lake, to see the Friday prayers. There was a security check, with police frisking people. I was told there would have been many more worshippers there but for the curfew. We infidels weren't allowed into the mosque, so contented ourselves with watching all the activity outside. Afterwards, we watched a man making big paranthas, about two feet wide. He flattened out the dough on a wide disk and then tossed it into a vat of oil for about a minute. I had about half of one with some delicious pumpkin filling. It was all delicious, but greasy. Nearby, I had some potatoes (French fries) and peas and onions fried in batter. Perhaps not the most healthy meal.
We spent the next day, too, on the houseboat, Habib told us the curfew was still on and no jeeps were going to Jammu. We were beginning to wonder if that were true or if he just wanted to keep us paying customers on his houseboat. Still, it was very pleasant on the houseboat, watching the morning and late afternoon activity. It is chilly in the mornings, with temperatures in the 50's. Srinigar is at about 5700 feet. I watched three fishermen just beyond our boat that last morning. One guy caught eight fish in a little less than an hour, while the others caught none. One guy gave up and moved to another part of the lake.
We did leave the next morning. Habib took us in his jeep through town past several check points where he had to show his pass and I had to explain we were going to catch a jeep to Jammu. The police were not uniformly friendly. We boarded the jeep (already with several other passengers) about 7:15 and set off for Jammu. We saw hundreds of police as we traveled south through the Vale of Kashmir, mostly concentrated in the towns but also along the road in the rural areas. Also, about ten buses were carrying troops south. It took us a couple of hours to reach the mountains at the southern end of the valley, passing lots of wheat fields being harvested. We had a breakfast stop at a little town and then went into the mountains and through the Jawaharlal Nehru Tunnel, at about 7500 feet. We passed through mountainous scenery thereafter for several hours, going along the Chenab River for a time. We passed very large flocks of sheep and goats, herded by fierce-looking mountain people in shaggy beards and clothes, wearing turbans and with very dark, sun-burnt faces. They move their flocks from high mountains pastures to lower regions this time of year, and it takes some time to pass the flocks on the narrow mountain roads. There were still troops along the road, but fewer than in the Vale of Kashmir. We climbed another mountain pass, with pines along the route, and finally reached predominantly Hindu rather than Moslem villages on the other side. We continued through hilly country until we reached Jammu about 4:45, nine and a half hours after our departure from Srinigar. We found a hotel and then went to the main Hindu temple in town, the Rajunath Mandir, with thousands of ammonites (one guy told us 33,000,000, but I don't think there were quite that many) encased in cement in rooms around the main temple. It was nice in there, but with a little too much bell ringing. Jammu is mostly Hindu, Kashmir mostly Moslem and Ladakh mostly Buddhist, so there are some that want to split the state along these lines (especially the Ladakhis).
We left the next morning a little before 8 on a bus bound for Chamba. First, we crossed the flatlands between Jammu and Pathankot and then headed back into the hills on a very curvy road lined with wildflowers. Jammu and Pathankot are both only a little more than a thousand feet in elevation, and we climbed to more than 5000 feet before descending and traveling along the Ravi River, now dammed, with a big reservoir beneath steep brown mountains. We got passed the reservoir, crossed the now whitewater river and climbed the cliff above it to reach the town of Chamba, on a bluff several hundred feet above the river, at about 3200 feet elevation. We arrived about 5, after another nine hour trip. Chamba is one of India's oldest kingdoms, dating from the 10th century. In the center of the town is a large grassy area called the Chowgan, where townspeople gather to meet and talk, or to exercise, or to play soccer or field hockey. I didn't see anybody playing cricket, though, which is the sport you see most often in India. Above the Chowgan is the white former palace, dating from the 18th century, of the former maharajah. It's now a college. Also above the Chowgan is an even earlier red palace, smaller and stouter.
The next morning we looked around town. Early on, the Chowgan was filled with soccer players and people doing morning callisthenics. After breakfast, we walked up the narrow medieval lanes above the Chowgan to a series of six temples, called "hut-style temples" that rise to maybe 3 or 4 stories. The oldest dates from the 11th century and they had some good stone carvings on them. We went into the now quite dilapidated former palaces and up to three other temples on the mountainside above the town, with great views below of the town, the river, and the surrounding mountains. After lunch, we visited quite a good museum, with some wall paintings from the old palace and many of the miniature paintings that India is famous for, especially during the Mogul period. The ones in the museum were mostly from the Chamba school, which was particularly active during this time. There were also some great photographs of Chamba a hundred years ago and more.
About 2:30 we left on a crowded bus heading further up the valley, to Bharmour, about 40 miles away. The road was narrow and dusty, and the scenery became quite dramatic as we got further up the valley, although marred by recent hydroelectric building. At one point we had to wait about 20 minutes while a bulldozer cleared away a landslide. You could see where an entire hillside had given way, leaving a long slide of rock ready to slip further down at any time. The rock slide went all the way to the river's edge. In the river below the slide was an orange truck, a victim of the slide. After the bulldozer cleared the way, we hurried past the slide area.
We reached the junction of the Budhil and Ravi Rivers about 8 miles before Bharmour and made our way on a road cut into the rock above the high, narrow gorge of the Budhil. The road was cut into the rock in such a way that the rock hung over the road in places. The valley widened a bit and there were remarkably steep agricultural terraces built into the very steep mountainsides. I don't think I've ever seen such steep terraces, even in the Andes. Bharmour, which we reached just after 6 and just before dark, is in a beautiful location. We checked into a surprisingly good hotel and walked up to the temple area at the top of the town. There are several temples, most of the same style as in Chamba, and some dating from the 7th century. Bharmour was the capital of the Chamba principality before the town of Chamba became the capital. We watched the local people praying at the temples and talked to the inquisitive children. The temples are set in the midst of a wide plaza, and off to one side was a huge flock (I would say 300-400) sheep and goats, tended by mountains folk. They culled the littlest lambs and took them off, perhaps to a warmer place to spend the night. I was surprised to see such a large group of animals near the temples, but I've read that these temples are the main place of worship for these herdsmen. About 8, after most of the shops had closed on the lane from the temples down past our hotel to the road out of town, I heard and saw the goats and sheep being driven down that lane.
Bharmour is at about 7000 feet and it was chilly the next morning when I walked up to the temples at 7:30. There were a few worshippers in the early morning and I watched a priest open one of the temples with a smoky censor and prayers. The sun came up over the steep mountain to the east before 8 and I took a walk to the eastern end of town, with great views up the narrow valley. An old man was smoking a water pipe in front of his wooden home. Another man was shelling peas and invited me into his nice home to have a cup of tea, with milk he told me he had milked from his cow half an hour before.
I came back to the temple area, now filled with school kids ready for school. Some were very inquisitive and friendly. There were no other foreigners around. There were several varieties of school uniforms on display. The schools started at 10, and we watched two groups of schoolkids line up in the temple plaza for their opening ceremonies. There were chants and speeches and singing. At one point they raised their arms straight out in a sort of fascist-style salute and recited patriotic slogans. Then they marched off to school.
We had a late breakfast and then caught the noon bus back to Chamba, though now I wish I had spent the day in Bharmour,a very nice town. After another crowded but scenic journey, we got back to Chamba about 3:15 and boarded the 3:30 bus to Banikhet, retracing our journey in part from Pathankot. We got to Banikhet about 5:45 and boarded the bus to Dalhousie, only about 4 miles away, arriving about 6. Dalhousie is a former hill station, established in the 1850's to escape the summer heat of the plains, like Shimla and other places. It is named after the Governor General of the time. It is at about 6500 feet, with steep hillsides covered in pine, oak and rhododendrun. We made a steep hike to a pretty good hotel and then looked around a bit in the dark. There are lots of Indian tourists here, but few foriegners. It was the major hill station for Lahore, but since partition and Lahore's placement in Pakistan it has been less visited and so is a relatively quiet place. Still, it is said to have over a hundred hotels, some of them from the colonial days.
I spent the next day walking around, with some great views over the thickly forrested steep mountainsides. I visited several old hotels and took a walk out of town a mile and a half or so to a memorial to freedom fighters. It was a lovely walk. It was very sunny in the morning, although with haze, but clouded up in the afternoon, with clouds drifting up the mountainsides. It is quite a pleasant place.
We followed the Drass up past the camps and memorials and a village or two till the valley widened, with trees and agriculture before we arrived at the town of Drass about 4:30. We had a tea stop there till 5, with views of pyramidal, snow-capped Tiger Hill, where fighting took place in 1999. After Drass the valley scenery became much more dramatic, with rocky, snow-capped mountains on either side that seemed to rise almost vertically. We crossed the Zoji La (Pass) at 11,600 feet at about 6:30. The view on the other side was quite dramatic, with three long switchbacks leading down into another valley, which was almost 2000 feet below. Unfortunately, the light was fading, so we made the three long switchbacks down for the most part in the dark. It was quite a narrow road, too, with lots of trucks. I'm surprised the jeep drivers don't leave a littler earlier so they can do that road down the pass in the daylight. Hundreds of trucks were parked along the side of the road, in several different places. That, and the oncoming trucks, made getting down difficult. But we reached the town of Sonamarg, at about 9000 feet about 8, and had a 40 minute dinner stop, for some greasy mutton and rice. The last two hour drive to Srinigar was pretty strange, with almost no traffic but a few trucks and our group of three or four jeeps. In the towns we passed all the shops were shut, with shutters down, and I don't think I saw more than 10 people on the streets, and most of those were at police checks on the way. Entering Srinigar, we passed Dal Lake on its eastern shore and our jeep took us to a hotel just southwest of the lake. We had to wake the proprietor to get in, as everything on the street was shut. I took a shower and got to bed just after midnight.
The next morning there was some, but not a lot of activity on the street near our hotel. We got out about 8 to look for a houseboat. When the British first came to Srinigar they were not allowed to buy land, so begin to stay on houseboats on the lake, which has become a tradition. There are more than 1400 of them now, I've read. The streets nearby had quite a few troops with batons and rifles, and checkpoints with concertina wire. There were Kashmiris on the street, though. We walked to the Houseboat Association office and there met Mohammed Taba, who took us in a jeep to his houseboat, a trip that again took us along the east side of Dal Lake and then to Nagin Lake, just northwest of Dal Lake. There we met his brother Habib and looked over their sumptuous boat, the Palace Heights. It is 105 feet long, 15-20 feet wide, and filled with beautiful furniture, of walnut for the most part, Kashmiri rugs and cedar carved wood interiors. There were easy chairs, tables and a desk and even a television and a refrigerator. It had three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a dining room, a sitting room and a balcony off the back. It was definitely a deluxe class houseboat, and we got it for about $15/day each, which included breakfast and dinner. Tourism has been hit hard by the disturbances in the valley, and it definitely is a buyer's market. In fact, I saw only one other western tourist the entire time I was in Srinigar.
We had breakfast in the boat's dining room and then rather than go back to our hotel by jeep to pick up our things, we took a shikara, a gondala-type boat with a canopy. We were paddled across Nagin Lake and through the waterways connecting it to the southwest extention of Dal Lake, passing houses and farms and other shikaras on the way. It was quite an interesting trip as we lounged on the boat. At the southwestern part of Dal Lake are hundreds of houseboats, and this was where I had stayed in 1979. Habib and Mohammed said they moved their houseboats (they have six) to Nagin from Dal to avoid the congestion, and it is much less congested on Nagin than on Dal Lake. It was quite different in 1979. The build up of hotels along the lake since 1979 is quite disappointing. We docked and got our stuff and then were paddled back to our houseboat, another beautiful trip, each way taking an hour and twenty minutes or so. There don't seem to be any motor boats on the lakes and waterways, which is nice.
Back on the boat, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, mostly on the balcony on the rear. It was beautiful on the lake, and very peaceful. Sunset was just after 6 and it was great to watch the lake grow dark. The mosques' calls to prayer began soon after sunset and echoed across the lake, with some of the romance that I remember when I first heard them in Istanbul 30 years or more ago. Now I have to admit I mostly find them irritating, especially early in the morning. Unfortunately, they amplify them, usually on pretty poor sound systems and they amplify not only the call to prayer but the continued wailing of the guy leading the prayers, which can go on for a long while. Venus set in the west about an hour after the sun, and another planet (Jupiter? Saturn?) rose brightly over the high mountains to the east. We had an okay dinner on the boat.
I got out about 7 on the balcony to watch the lake in the early morning. The sun rose over the high mountains just east of Dal Lake a little after 7. There were kingfishers, with irridescent blue backs, herons, hawks, small red-faced ducks, some other type of duck, and other birds on the lake. Fishermen on canoes sat patiently fishing, catching fish about a foot long. There is a lot of green duck weed on the lake, appearing only over the past 7 or 8 years, I was told. It is bright green and said to help cleanse the lakes, which are fed by springs. The water is quite clear.
Kirsty left after breakfast, to fly to Jammu, as she had to leave India in less than a week, and Phil and I left about 10:30 on a shikara ride that took us, after more than two hours, across Nagin and Dal Lakes to the eastern shore near Shalimar Bagh (Gardens), built by the Mogul Emperor Jehangir in the early 17th century for his wife, Nur Jahan. The gardens had beautiful flowers, fountains and a somewhat derelict pavilion with the remants of a fine painted ceiling. We spent about half an hour looking around and then walked a short distance to have tea with the boatman's brother's father-in-law, a very friendly gentleman. We then took the shikara south along the eastern shore to another Mogul garden, Nishat Bagh. It is right on the lake, but not as nice as Shalimar Bagh, I think. The long trip back took an hour and a half, into the setting sun. We got back to the houseboat just after sunset, at 6:15.
The next morning Phil and I walked into the old town, southwest of Nagin Lake. We left about 11 and it took us an hour or so to get there. There weren't many shops open, though there were pedestrians and cars on the streets. There were quite a few police with rifles and batons, and roadblocks with concertina wire. Nobody stopped us and the people were friendly. There were posters of Khomeini, Khameini, Achmadinejad and Nasrulllah (the Lebanese Hezbollah leader) along the way, in what was obviously a Shia part of town. Most Kashmiris, I've read, are Sufis, a gentler form of Islam. We also saw "Go Back India" and "Go Back Indian Dogs" graffitti.
We passed through an old city gate built by Akbar, who conquered the valley for the Moguls in the 16th century, and up to a ruined 17th century mosque and a Sufi shrine just below the massive fort (closed to the public as the army still uses it) that sits on a hill above the town. The Sufi shrine, with graves of two Sufi holy men, was very nice, with friendly people. One man had a goat, which peed and then pooped on the carpet. I saw a woman scoop up the poop, but didn't stick around to see what happened to the goat pee.
The giant Jama Masjid was closed but we did visit a couple of other Sufi shrines and mosques, one of which, the Shah-i-Hamadan, was quite beautiful, with papier mache decoration inside and out. We stopped by the Rozabal Tomb, claimed by some to be that of Jesus, with a sign quoting the Koran about how Jesus was not crucified. The streets became quite full and most shops were open as the afternoon progressed and we wandered the narrow streets of the old town. At the last mosque we visited two friendly little girls showed us their dyed hands. We got back to the houseboat just after sunset and on the way back the roadblocks and soldiers were gone. We did see a bunch of them boarding buses at one location.
We spent the next day relaxing on the boat, planning to leave the next day. But the next day was a Friday (when demonstrations often occur after Friday prayer service) and the day after the High Court in Uttar Pradesh State had issued a decision about the future use of the site of the Ayodhya Mosque, which was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu activists claiming it was built on the site of a former Hindu temple where Rama was born. Habib said the authorities were expecting trouble, had imposed a curfew and no jeeps were going to Jammu, our next destination. So we spent the day on the houseboat. We did leave about 1 to walk to the nearby Hazratbal Mosque, a gleaming white 20th century construction on the shore of Dal Lake, to see the Friday prayers. There was a security check, with police frisking people. I was told there would have been many more worshippers there but for the curfew. We infidels weren't allowed into the mosque, so contented ourselves with watching all the activity outside. Afterwards, we watched a man making big paranthas, about two feet wide. He flattened out the dough on a wide disk and then tossed it into a vat of oil for about a minute. I had about half of one with some delicious pumpkin filling. It was all delicious, but greasy. Nearby, I had some potatoes (French fries) and peas and onions fried in batter. Perhaps not the most healthy meal.
We spent the next day, too, on the houseboat, Habib told us the curfew was still on and no jeeps were going to Jammu. We were beginning to wonder if that were true or if he just wanted to keep us paying customers on his houseboat. Still, it was very pleasant on the houseboat, watching the morning and late afternoon activity. It is chilly in the mornings, with temperatures in the 50's. Srinigar is at about 5700 feet. I watched three fishermen just beyond our boat that last morning. One guy caught eight fish in a little less than an hour, while the others caught none. One guy gave up and moved to another part of the lake.
We did leave the next morning. Habib took us in his jeep through town past several check points where he had to show his pass and I had to explain we were going to catch a jeep to Jammu. The police were not uniformly friendly. We boarded the jeep (already with several other passengers) about 7:15 and set off for Jammu. We saw hundreds of police as we traveled south through the Vale of Kashmir, mostly concentrated in the towns but also along the road in the rural areas. Also, about ten buses were carrying troops south. It took us a couple of hours to reach the mountains at the southern end of the valley, passing lots of wheat fields being harvested. We had a breakfast stop at a little town and then went into the mountains and through the Jawaharlal Nehru Tunnel, at about 7500 feet. We passed through mountainous scenery thereafter for several hours, going along the Chenab River for a time. We passed very large flocks of sheep and goats, herded by fierce-looking mountain people in shaggy beards and clothes, wearing turbans and with very dark, sun-burnt faces. They move their flocks from high mountains pastures to lower regions this time of year, and it takes some time to pass the flocks on the narrow mountain roads. There were still troops along the road, but fewer than in the Vale of Kashmir. We climbed another mountain pass, with pines along the route, and finally reached predominantly Hindu rather than Moslem villages on the other side. We continued through hilly country until we reached Jammu about 4:45, nine and a half hours after our departure from Srinigar. We found a hotel and then went to the main Hindu temple in town, the Rajunath Mandir, with thousands of ammonites (one guy told us 33,000,000, but I don't think there were quite that many) encased in cement in rooms around the main temple. It was nice in there, but with a little too much bell ringing. Jammu is mostly Hindu, Kashmir mostly Moslem and Ladakh mostly Buddhist, so there are some that want to split the state along these lines (especially the Ladakhis).
We left the next morning a little before 8 on a bus bound for Chamba. First, we crossed the flatlands between Jammu and Pathankot and then headed back into the hills on a very curvy road lined with wildflowers. Jammu and Pathankot are both only a little more than a thousand feet in elevation, and we climbed to more than 5000 feet before descending and traveling along the Ravi River, now dammed, with a big reservoir beneath steep brown mountains. We got passed the reservoir, crossed the now whitewater river and climbed the cliff above it to reach the town of Chamba, on a bluff several hundred feet above the river, at about 3200 feet elevation. We arrived about 5, after another nine hour trip. Chamba is one of India's oldest kingdoms, dating from the 10th century. In the center of the town is a large grassy area called the Chowgan, where townspeople gather to meet and talk, or to exercise, or to play soccer or field hockey. I didn't see anybody playing cricket, though, which is the sport you see most often in India. Above the Chowgan is the white former palace, dating from the 18th century, of the former maharajah. It's now a college. Also above the Chowgan is an even earlier red palace, smaller and stouter.
The next morning we looked around town. Early on, the Chowgan was filled with soccer players and people doing morning callisthenics. After breakfast, we walked up the narrow medieval lanes above the Chowgan to a series of six temples, called "hut-style temples" that rise to maybe 3 or 4 stories. The oldest dates from the 11th century and they had some good stone carvings on them. We went into the now quite dilapidated former palaces and up to three other temples on the mountainside above the town, with great views below of the town, the river, and the surrounding mountains. After lunch, we visited quite a good museum, with some wall paintings from the old palace and many of the miniature paintings that India is famous for, especially during the Mogul period. The ones in the museum were mostly from the Chamba school, which was particularly active during this time. There were also some great photographs of Chamba a hundred years ago and more.
About 2:30 we left on a crowded bus heading further up the valley, to Bharmour, about 40 miles away. The road was narrow and dusty, and the scenery became quite dramatic as we got further up the valley, although marred by recent hydroelectric building. At one point we had to wait about 20 minutes while a bulldozer cleared away a landslide. You could see where an entire hillside had given way, leaving a long slide of rock ready to slip further down at any time. The rock slide went all the way to the river's edge. In the river below the slide was an orange truck, a victim of the slide. After the bulldozer cleared the way, we hurried past the slide area.
We reached the junction of the Budhil and Ravi Rivers about 8 miles before Bharmour and made our way on a road cut into the rock above the high, narrow gorge of the Budhil. The road was cut into the rock in such a way that the rock hung over the road in places. The valley widened a bit and there were remarkably steep agricultural terraces built into the very steep mountainsides. I don't think I've ever seen such steep terraces, even in the Andes. Bharmour, which we reached just after 6 and just before dark, is in a beautiful location. We checked into a surprisingly good hotel and walked up to the temple area at the top of the town. There are several temples, most of the same style as in Chamba, and some dating from the 7th century. Bharmour was the capital of the Chamba principality before the town of Chamba became the capital. We watched the local people praying at the temples and talked to the inquisitive children. The temples are set in the midst of a wide plaza, and off to one side was a huge flock (I would say 300-400) sheep and goats, tended by mountains folk. They culled the littlest lambs and took them off, perhaps to a warmer place to spend the night. I was surprised to see such a large group of animals near the temples, but I've read that these temples are the main place of worship for these herdsmen. About 8, after most of the shops had closed on the lane from the temples down past our hotel to the road out of town, I heard and saw the goats and sheep being driven down that lane.
Bharmour is at about 7000 feet and it was chilly the next morning when I walked up to the temples at 7:30. There were a few worshippers in the early morning and I watched a priest open one of the temples with a smoky censor and prayers. The sun came up over the steep mountain to the east before 8 and I took a walk to the eastern end of town, with great views up the narrow valley. An old man was smoking a water pipe in front of his wooden home. Another man was shelling peas and invited me into his nice home to have a cup of tea, with milk he told me he had milked from his cow half an hour before.
I came back to the temple area, now filled with school kids ready for school. Some were very inquisitive and friendly. There were no other foreigners around. There were several varieties of school uniforms on display. The schools started at 10, and we watched two groups of schoolkids line up in the temple plaza for their opening ceremonies. There were chants and speeches and singing. At one point they raised their arms straight out in a sort of fascist-style salute and recited patriotic slogans. Then they marched off to school.
We had a late breakfast and then caught the noon bus back to Chamba, though now I wish I had spent the day in Bharmour,a very nice town. After another crowded but scenic journey, we got back to Chamba about 3:15 and boarded the 3:30 bus to Banikhet, retracing our journey in part from Pathankot. We got to Banikhet about 5:45 and boarded the bus to Dalhousie, only about 4 miles away, arriving about 6. Dalhousie is a former hill station, established in the 1850's to escape the summer heat of the plains, like Shimla and other places. It is named after the Governor General of the time. It is at about 6500 feet, with steep hillsides covered in pine, oak and rhododendrun. We made a steep hike to a pretty good hotel and then looked around a bit in the dark. There are lots of Indian tourists here, but few foriegners. It was the major hill station for Lahore, but since partition and Lahore's placement in Pakistan it has been less visited and so is a relatively quiet place. Still, it is said to have over a hundred hotels, some of them from the colonial days.
I spent the next day walking around, with some great views over the thickly forrested steep mountainsides. I visited several old hotels and took a walk out of town a mile and a half or so to a memorial to freedom fighters. It was a lovely walk. It was very sunny in the morning, although with haze, but clouded up in the afternoon, with clouds drifting up the mountainsides. It is quite a pleasant place.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
September 23 -25, 2010: Zanskar
About 8 a.m. on the 23rd we left for Zanskar, to the southeast of Kargil, an area that was reached by road only in 1981. The jeep for the trip cost us 10,000 rupees (over $200), while a public jeep might have cost something like 1500 a piece, but we wanted to make photo stops. We first headed south up the Suru Valley, along the Suru River, a Moslem area that was converted from Buddhism in the 16th century. About 15 miles up the valley we passed a huge Indian Army base, the biggest I've seen since the one east of Leh in the Indus Valley. In the lower part of the valley there are quite a few villages and towns, with barley fields (or maybe they are wheat at this lower elevation) and quite a few trees, poplars and willows and others. It is a fertile valley. We stopped to see a big mosque described as Tibeto-Saracenic in design. The road was paved for only the first 10 miles or so.
About 40 miles up the valley, just before the town of Panikhar, we caught our first views of Nun and Kun, wreathed in clouds and both over 7000 meters (over 23,000 feet). From Panikhar we made a big loop along the river through an increasingly deeper and more scenic canyon to the village of Parkachik, the last Moslem village, and then headed east along the river higher and higher into much more remote and uninhabited area. We passed a black glacier just beyond Parkachik. The views were spectacular despite the now cloudy sky. As we got higher the grass was almost all yellow, with lots of orange bushes interspersed on the lower areas near the blue-gray river.
About 12:30 we reached the very small village of Rangdum in a wide, gravelly valley where another river joins the Suru. Rangdum Monastery is 3 miles away on a small hill before the barren brown mountains behind it. From the village, the views of the wide, gravelly valley with barren brown mountains, some snow and ice topped, all around were spectacular, and the sun was now shining. We had planned to spend the night in Rangdum, to break up the long journey to Zanskar, but despite the sun, the wind was blowing and it was very cold in the wind. We checked out the "Tourist Bungalow" and it was very unappealing, with broken windows letting in the cold. Plus, the altitude given in the guidebooks was about 3760 meters, about 12,000 feet, but in reality, according to my altimeter, it was more like 13,000. Rather than spend a very cold night there, we decided to head to Padum, the main town of Zanskar.
We had a rice and dhal lunch and left about 2:40, passing the monastery and heading up the Penzi La, 4400 meters, or about 14,400 feet. The clouds partially blocked the views of the snow covered mountains, but still the scenery was great. It was cold and windy on Penzi La, and right after the pass we could see the very large white glacier called Drang Drung, quite close to the rocky road. We descended into the barren valley below and followed the Stot River, with mountaintops above mostly hidden by clouds. After an hour or more, villages began to appears, with Tibetan style homes and barley fields. We reached the village of Phey about 6:30 and it became dark a little before 7. Soon a full moon arose over the massive mountains to the east, with a very bright planet to the right and a little lower. In the dark we crossed the Stot and arrived in Padum, 11,500 feet in elevation, about 7:30. It had taken us eleven and a half hours to travel the 145 or so miles from Kargil. It was very cold and windy in Padum. We found a cold hotel and a fairly good restaurant, and after dinner I went to bed under two heavy coverlets.
I got up and out about 7 the next morning. It was 52 degrees in my room and colder outside. The sun had not yet risen over the high mountain to the east. The sky, however, was clear. I walked to the old town, about half a mile from the new town, in the cold and climbed up the rocky hill there to the small monastery on top. The sun made its way over the mountain about 7:45 and there were great views of the town and wide valley. The Stot River comes in from the northwest and joins the Tserup River coming in from the south or southeast (we had traveled along the upper Tserup on the way to Leh from Manali, just before the Gata Loops).to form the Zanskar River which flows generally north to the Indus. They say that in the winter, when the passes are blocked with snow, the only way in or out of this valley is along the frozen Zanskar, but that in recent years the ie is hard enough during only one month, in comparison to several months in the recent past. From the hill in old Padum I could see across the valley to Karsha Monastery wedged onto a mountainside, and to small Pipiting Monastery on a small hill on the plane, and up and down the three river valleys leading into and out of the wide valley.
After breakfast, we left about 10:30 on a jeep tour with a very interesting driver from Karsha. First, he took us down the Zanskar River about 20 or 25 miles, past marvellously twisted strata of rock on the mountains, to the small but picturesque village of Zangla, with a ruined fort on a pinnacle above and a nunnery above the other side of the village. They are continuing to build the road from here to the Indus along the Zanskar River and the driver said they have completed about a third of the 150 kilometers, and that he thought they would take 20 more years to finish, though I have read more optimistic estimates.
We spent almost two hours at the nunnery, with 13 nuns, plus an American male teacher staying there for six weeks. They showed us around and then shared their lunch of new potatoes (that they had grown) and rice, plus butter tea, with us. They were very nice and great fun. We saw one old nun darning her red socks.
It had clouded up by the time we left between 1 and 1:30. We drove back the way we had come, stopping at the Songde Monastery about 700 feet above the valley floor. It was cold and windy up there, with great views of the valley, mountains and the village below. All the barley fields in Zanskar had already been harvested before the approaching winter. In fact, the driver told us it had become noticiably colder just in the past two days. We looked around the monastery and then had sweet tea and biscuits with a monk who was our driver's wife's uncle. We gave him a ride down to the village below with his bag of a fragrant juniper-smelling plant that they burn for its agreeable odor.
We then headed back towards Padum, but before reaching it crossed the Stot River to get to Karsha, also about 700 feet above the valley floor. It is a much larger monastery than Songde, with 70 versus 35 monks and many more buildings wedged against the steep mountainside. We made the steep climb to the prayer halls near the top, with great views over the valley. About 5:30 we got back to Padum, where it was very windy and cold. We spent another cold night there, without electricity as the power was out all over town. Padum is the Zanskar's biggest town, with 1500 people. I saw only three other western tourists there.
I would have preferred to spend another day there, but Phil and Kirsty were cold, as was I, and wanted to leave. We left the next morning, a bright and sunny morning with great views of the snow capped mountains above the town, about 7. It was a spectaclar ride back, with great views all the way under sunny skies. The Stot Valley was magnifient under the ice and snow capped mountaintops now visible. It was cold all morning, though. It was interesting to see the activity in the villages.
We reached the Drang Drung Glacier about 10:30 to see it gleaming white in the sunshine, with magnificent snowy mountains above it. Fresh snow speckled the lower mountainsides and the Penzi La had quite a bit of snow. There had been none when we first came over it. It is getting late in the season in Ladakh. Usually, the passes stay open until October, but sometimes they can be blocked by snow as early as late September.
We came down along the Suru on the other side of the pass through more magnificent scenery, with the snow topped mountains towering over the Suru and the rocky areas or orange-yellow grasslands along it, and stopped at the Rangdum Monastery for a short look in the cold wind. About 12:30 we reached Rangdum for another rice and dhal lunch. It was sunny and not very windy, much more pleasant than on our first stay, and we had our lunch out in the sun. We continued down the scenic Suru Valley, and had pretty good views of Nun and Kun, with only a few clouds, from a little lower than Panikhar about 4. As we came down through the lower Suru Valley villages there were boys playing cricket in the now barren fields. We got back to Kargil about 6:30 (another eleven and a half hour trip) and it was considerably colder here now than on our first stay. Autumn has arrived and winter is on the way.
About 40 miles up the valley, just before the town of Panikhar, we caught our first views of Nun and Kun, wreathed in clouds and both over 7000 meters (over 23,000 feet). From Panikhar we made a big loop along the river through an increasingly deeper and more scenic canyon to the village of Parkachik, the last Moslem village, and then headed east along the river higher and higher into much more remote and uninhabited area. We passed a black glacier just beyond Parkachik. The views were spectacular despite the now cloudy sky. As we got higher the grass was almost all yellow, with lots of orange bushes interspersed on the lower areas near the blue-gray river.
About 12:30 we reached the very small village of Rangdum in a wide, gravelly valley where another river joins the Suru. Rangdum Monastery is 3 miles away on a small hill before the barren brown mountains behind it. From the village, the views of the wide, gravelly valley with barren brown mountains, some snow and ice topped, all around were spectacular, and the sun was now shining. We had planned to spend the night in Rangdum, to break up the long journey to Zanskar, but despite the sun, the wind was blowing and it was very cold in the wind. We checked out the "Tourist Bungalow" and it was very unappealing, with broken windows letting in the cold. Plus, the altitude given in the guidebooks was about 3760 meters, about 12,000 feet, but in reality, according to my altimeter, it was more like 13,000. Rather than spend a very cold night there, we decided to head to Padum, the main town of Zanskar.
We had a rice and dhal lunch and left about 2:40, passing the monastery and heading up the Penzi La, 4400 meters, or about 14,400 feet. The clouds partially blocked the views of the snow covered mountains, but still the scenery was great. It was cold and windy on Penzi La, and right after the pass we could see the very large white glacier called Drang Drung, quite close to the rocky road. We descended into the barren valley below and followed the Stot River, with mountaintops above mostly hidden by clouds. After an hour or more, villages began to appears, with Tibetan style homes and barley fields. We reached the village of Phey about 6:30 and it became dark a little before 7. Soon a full moon arose over the massive mountains to the east, with a very bright planet to the right and a little lower. In the dark we crossed the Stot and arrived in Padum, 11,500 feet in elevation, about 7:30. It had taken us eleven and a half hours to travel the 145 or so miles from Kargil. It was very cold and windy in Padum. We found a cold hotel and a fairly good restaurant, and after dinner I went to bed under two heavy coverlets.
I got up and out about 7 the next morning. It was 52 degrees in my room and colder outside. The sun had not yet risen over the high mountain to the east. The sky, however, was clear. I walked to the old town, about half a mile from the new town, in the cold and climbed up the rocky hill there to the small monastery on top. The sun made its way over the mountain about 7:45 and there were great views of the town and wide valley. The Stot River comes in from the northwest and joins the Tserup River coming in from the south or southeast (we had traveled along the upper Tserup on the way to Leh from Manali, just before the Gata Loops).to form the Zanskar River which flows generally north to the Indus. They say that in the winter, when the passes are blocked with snow, the only way in or out of this valley is along the frozen Zanskar, but that in recent years the ie is hard enough during only one month, in comparison to several months in the recent past. From the hill in old Padum I could see across the valley to Karsha Monastery wedged onto a mountainside, and to small Pipiting Monastery on a small hill on the plane, and up and down the three river valleys leading into and out of the wide valley.
After breakfast, we left about 10:30 on a jeep tour with a very interesting driver from Karsha. First, he took us down the Zanskar River about 20 or 25 miles, past marvellously twisted strata of rock on the mountains, to the small but picturesque village of Zangla, with a ruined fort on a pinnacle above and a nunnery above the other side of the village. They are continuing to build the road from here to the Indus along the Zanskar River and the driver said they have completed about a third of the 150 kilometers, and that he thought they would take 20 more years to finish, though I have read more optimistic estimates.
We spent almost two hours at the nunnery, with 13 nuns, plus an American male teacher staying there for six weeks. They showed us around and then shared their lunch of new potatoes (that they had grown) and rice, plus butter tea, with us. They were very nice and great fun. We saw one old nun darning her red socks.
It had clouded up by the time we left between 1 and 1:30. We drove back the way we had come, stopping at the Songde Monastery about 700 feet above the valley floor. It was cold and windy up there, with great views of the valley, mountains and the village below. All the barley fields in Zanskar had already been harvested before the approaching winter. In fact, the driver told us it had become noticiably colder just in the past two days. We looked around the monastery and then had sweet tea and biscuits with a monk who was our driver's wife's uncle. We gave him a ride down to the village below with his bag of a fragrant juniper-smelling plant that they burn for its agreeable odor.
We then headed back towards Padum, but before reaching it crossed the Stot River to get to Karsha, also about 700 feet above the valley floor. It is a much larger monastery than Songde, with 70 versus 35 monks and many more buildings wedged against the steep mountainside. We made the steep climb to the prayer halls near the top, with great views over the valley. About 5:30 we got back to Padum, where it was very windy and cold. We spent another cold night there, without electricity as the power was out all over town. Padum is the Zanskar's biggest town, with 1500 people. I saw only three other western tourists there.
I would have preferred to spend another day there, but Phil and Kirsty were cold, as was I, and wanted to leave. We left the next morning, a bright and sunny morning with great views of the snow capped mountains above the town, about 7. It was a spectaclar ride back, with great views all the way under sunny skies. The Stot Valley was magnifient under the ice and snow capped mountaintops now visible. It was cold all morning, though. It was interesting to see the activity in the villages.
We reached the Drang Drung Glacier about 10:30 to see it gleaming white in the sunshine, with magnificent snowy mountains above it. Fresh snow speckled the lower mountainsides and the Penzi La had quite a bit of snow. There had been none when we first came over it. It is getting late in the season in Ladakh. Usually, the passes stay open until October, but sometimes they can be blocked by snow as early as late September.
We came down along the Suru on the other side of the pass through more magnificent scenery, with the snow topped mountains towering over the Suru and the rocky areas or orange-yellow grasslands along it, and stopped at the Rangdum Monastery for a short look in the cold wind. About 12:30 we reached Rangdum for another rice and dhal lunch. It was sunny and not very windy, much more pleasant than on our first stay, and we had our lunch out in the sun. We continued down the scenic Suru Valley, and had pretty good views of Nun and Kun, with only a few clouds, from a little lower than Panikhar about 4. As we came down through the lower Suru Valley villages there were boys playing cricket in the now barren fields. We got back to Kargil about 6:30 (another eleven and a half hour trip) and it was considerably colder here now than on our first stay. Autumn has arrived and winter is on the way.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
September 19 - 22, 2010: Leh to Kargil
On September19, Phil, Kirsty (Mark was going on a trek with his father) and I headed west from Leh, down the Indus, by jeep. The Indus Valley narrowed considerably into a rocky gorge, with a few villages along the way. We soon passed the confluence of the blue-gray Zanskar River, coming from the south, and the muddy Indus. It took a while for the two rivers' waters to mix.
Our first stop was Basgo, in a pretty little side valley with a ruined fortress and two monasteries accessed by a steep, but relatively short, climb. The monastery prayer halls were locked, but there were great views from the rooftops. We could see the villagers harvesting barley below. From Basgo we headed west, then north into a side valley to the monastery at Likir, on a rocky hilltop. It had some beautiful prayer halls and more great views of the valley and surrounding stark, brown mountains from the rooftops. The barley fields here were already harvested. From Likir we headed to Alchi across the Indus, where we had lunch and then visited the small, old monastery right next to the Indus, a little unusual because usually they are on mountaintops, or at least up above the nearly village.
From Alchi we recrossed the Indus and continued downriver. We turned off the main road at Khalsi, where the main road crosses the Indus to head to Kargil, and instead continued along the Indus on a narrow road through spectacular canyon scenery, with a few villages of barley fields and many more trees than upriver, some with leaves turning yellow. After about 40 miles on the narrow road along the river, we stopped, gathered our backpacks, and hiked about 10 minutes on a rocky path to the village of Dha. We passed women carrying crates of tomatoes on their backs to a waiting truck and we passed tomato fields on our way to our guesthouse, arriving just before dark. Dha is at only about 9500 feet, a few hundred feet above the Indus, so we felt relatively warm, and even had dinner outside the guesthouse under a grape arbor. We had delicious fresh tomatoes and even had grapes and peaches for desert.
Dha is a small village, with only paths (the road is below, along the Indus), and with 38 families and 250 people, 100 or so of which, we were told, are away working. The people are called Dards or Brokpa, and are very European-looking. One woman we saw had startling blue eyes. One theory is that they are descendants of the soldiers of Alexander the Great. Another is that they are descendants of the Aryans who migrated into India and Europe thousands of years ago and have never intermixed. They are Buddhists, but with animist traditions.
I took a walk for about an hour an a half before breakfast the next morning, walking through the village and along the fields to the upper end of the village and then along an irrigation channel to a bridge over a tributary of the Indus. Dha is a very beautiful village, with an abundance of agriculture after the harsher conditions upriver. I passed trees of apples, apricots, pears, peaches, mulberries and walnuts. There were patches of tomatoes, beans, cabbages, barley, millet and alfalfa, and some other stuff I didn't recognize. And lots of flower patches. The older women in traditional dress wear their hair in three long braids with bright flowers on the tops of their head. I also passed lots of rock huts with wooden doors that house goats and sheep at night. Many were being let out to graze.
After breakfast our guesthouse host gave us a great tour of the village, passing the houses and fields, with great views down to the Indus and up and down the valley. He knocked some walnuts off the trees and we cracked them and they were delicious. We headed up to the new fields, created in the last 20 years by a second irrigation canal coming from the Indus tributary, and to a rocky pinnacle with prayer flags, with great views of the village, fields, and beyond. Afterward, I walked around on my own and came across two very European-looking old men sitting in the sun. They motioned for me to sit on a rock next to them and we had a sort of conversation. One man had a handlebar mustache and the other had three coin shaped objects on the edge of one of his ears. Nearby an old woman in traditional dress was shelling apricot pits to get to the nuts inside. Apricots were also drying on nearby rooftops.
It had clouded up in the late morning and we left about 1, after lunch under the grape arbor. Before lunch a man was boiling barley nearby to be used for beer, using very little wood, but a lot of straw and some dung to keep the fire going. We came back the way we had come the day before, crossed the Indus at Khalsi, went into a side valley and then zigzagged up switchbacks on a steep brown mountain, rising about 1800 feet, with great views as we ascended. About 4 we reached Lamayuru, at about 11,500 feet, with a monastery towering above the town on a rocky pinnacle. We checked into a guesthouse and then I watched barley being threshed by a team of two yaks and three dzos (half yak, half cow) led by a guy who guided them in a circle by a rope (they were all tied together by their horns) and sang while he did so. Two or three women kept adding bundles of barley to the threshing circle. Nearby a man and two women were winnowing the barley with wooden pitchforks. It was all quite dusty, but I watched for more than half an hour. At one point they added another dzo to the team. The two yaks were on the outside, and all the animals kept trying to eat the straw when they got the chance.
I then walked up to the monastery, passing through the little village as goats and sheep were herded into their evening quarters. One old woman was particularly energetic with them, scampering up the inclines rapidly and throwing rocks at them. It was a steep but short climb to the monastery. It was past 5 and the prayer halls were locked, but I could walk around the main building, with prayers wheels on the sides, and the two chortens next to it, with stupendous views of the valley and town below and the mountains beyond on all sides. One section to the east was a sort of South Dakota-syle badlands. An older monk with a hand-held prayer wheel was making a circuit of the monastery and chortens, and I talked to two eleven year old monks and one fifteen year old monk, the latter with a Yankee wool hat with "NY" on it. They spoke some English and were quite friendly. Later I went through the courtyard of the monks quarters and about 15 young ones, including the three I had talked to, were loudly reciting prayers, trying to memorize them, here and there around the courtyard. An older monk was also there, apparently to make sure they stuck to their lessons. He was carrying a switch.
From there I walked up to the hill above the monastery, with a little temple and prayer flags, for even more spectacular views of the monastery below and the countryside beyond. I made it down to the guesthouse just before dark. At dinner there were two Brazilian woman besides the three of us. I spoke some Portuguese with them, as one didn't speak much English, and it slowly came back to me, though often Spanish or Italian words came out instead. They had spent 3 days at a lecture by the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala.
It was sunny the next morning and I got out about 7 and walked along the road down past stacks of barley, men and women transporting barley to town by donkeys, and denuded barley fields with yaks, dzos and donkeys grazing on the stubble. There were great views in the early morning sunshine back towards the monastery high above the town. After breakfast the three of us walked up to the monastery, visited the prayer halls, and walked all around, including up to the prayer flags above the monastery for those fantastic views. We descended the monastery and left Lamayuru at noon, heading up to a pass at about 13,800 feet, with rocky, serrated ridges near the top. We descended into a high valley and then crossed another pass at about 12,500 feet and then descended into the scenic Wakha Valley. Stopping at the town of Mulbekh, we saw a thousand year old, 25 foot high Maitreya Buddha carved into a solitary, steep rock right next to the road and then took a narrow road above the town to a ruined fortress and two restored, but apparently empty, small monasteries. The site was fantastic, with a narrow, rocky access path to the monasteries and great views of the valley and the Zanskar Range beyond.
From Mulbekh we proceeded to nearly Shargol to see another monastery, this one seemingly wedged into a hillside. Shargol is the dividing line between predominately Buddhist and predominately Muslim areas, and we had begun seeing mosques and women and girls in headscarves. It is only 20 miles from Shargol to Kargil, but it took us an hour and a half, not so much because the road was bad (though it wasn't good), but because it was narrow and there were a lot of trucks coming the other way, including a convoy of maybe 100 army trucks. They are the kings of the road here. We got to Kargil a little after 5. It's at 9200 feet, so feels warm. The main street was busy with stollers,. All the women and girls are in headscarves, and there are at least two posters of the perpetually scowling Ayatollah Komeini (the Muslims here are Shia), though among the currency on display in the restaurant we ate in last night is an Israeli note. The people are very friendly.
It was overcast and even rained a bit today, though it has cleared up in the afternoon, and I took a walk around town, in part along the fast-moving Suru River, which flows to the Indus. Lots of people were on the main street and school kids were just getting out of class. The "Line of Control," the de facto border between India and Pakistan, is only a few miles away, less than 5 I think. We seem to be the only foreign tourists in town and have spent part of the day arranging the next leg of our trip to the Zanskar Valley. We leave tomorrow morning.
Our first stop was Basgo, in a pretty little side valley with a ruined fortress and two monasteries accessed by a steep, but relatively short, climb. The monastery prayer halls were locked, but there were great views from the rooftops. We could see the villagers harvesting barley below. From Basgo we headed west, then north into a side valley to the monastery at Likir, on a rocky hilltop. It had some beautiful prayer halls and more great views of the valley and surrounding stark, brown mountains from the rooftops. The barley fields here were already harvested. From Likir we headed to Alchi across the Indus, where we had lunch and then visited the small, old monastery right next to the Indus, a little unusual because usually they are on mountaintops, or at least up above the nearly village.
From Alchi we recrossed the Indus and continued downriver. We turned off the main road at Khalsi, where the main road crosses the Indus to head to Kargil, and instead continued along the Indus on a narrow road through spectacular canyon scenery, with a few villages of barley fields and many more trees than upriver, some with leaves turning yellow. After about 40 miles on the narrow road along the river, we stopped, gathered our backpacks, and hiked about 10 minutes on a rocky path to the village of Dha. We passed women carrying crates of tomatoes on their backs to a waiting truck and we passed tomato fields on our way to our guesthouse, arriving just before dark. Dha is at only about 9500 feet, a few hundred feet above the Indus, so we felt relatively warm, and even had dinner outside the guesthouse under a grape arbor. We had delicious fresh tomatoes and even had grapes and peaches for desert.
Dha is a small village, with only paths (the road is below, along the Indus), and with 38 families and 250 people, 100 or so of which, we were told, are away working. The people are called Dards or Brokpa, and are very European-looking. One woman we saw had startling blue eyes. One theory is that they are descendants of the soldiers of Alexander the Great. Another is that they are descendants of the Aryans who migrated into India and Europe thousands of years ago and have never intermixed. They are Buddhists, but with animist traditions.
I took a walk for about an hour an a half before breakfast the next morning, walking through the village and along the fields to the upper end of the village and then along an irrigation channel to a bridge over a tributary of the Indus. Dha is a very beautiful village, with an abundance of agriculture after the harsher conditions upriver. I passed trees of apples, apricots, pears, peaches, mulberries and walnuts. There were patches of tomatoes, beans, cabbages, barley, millet and alfalfa, and some other stuff I didn't recognize. And lots of flower patches. The older women in traditional dress wear their hair in three long braids with bright flowers on the tops of their head. I also passed lots of rock huts with wooden doors that house goats and sheep at night. Many were being let out to graze.
After breakfast our guesthouse host gave us a great tour of the village, passing the houses and fields, with great views down to the Indus and up and down the valley. He knocked some walnuts off the trees and we cracked them and they were delicious. We headed up to the new fields, created in the last 20 years by a second irrigation canal coming from the Indus tributary, and to a rocky pinnacle with prayer flags, with great views of the village, fields, and beyond. Afterward, I walked around on my own and came across two very European-looking old men sitting in the sun. They motioned for me to sit on a rock next to them and we had a sort of conversation. One man had a handlebar mustache and the other had three coin shaped objects on the edge of one of his ears. Nearby an old woman in traditional dress was shelling apricot pits to get to the nuts inside. Apricots were also drying on nearby rooftops.
It had clouded up in the late morning and we left about 1, after lunch under the grape arbor. Before lunch a man was boiling barley nearby to be used for beer, using very little wood, but a lot of straw and some dung to keep the fire going. We came back the way we had come the day before, crossed the Indus at Khalsi, went into a side valley and then zigzagged up switchbacks on a steep brown mountain, rising about 1800 feet, with great views as we ascended. About 4 we reached Lamayuru, at about 11,500 feet, with a monastery towering above the town on a rocky pinnacle. We checked into a guesthouse and then I watched barley being threshed by a team of two yaks and three dzos (half yak, half cow) led by a guy who guided them in a circle by a rope (they were all tied together by their horns) and sang while he did so. Two or three women kept adding bundles of barley to the threshing circle. Nearby a man and two women were winnowing the barley with wooden pitchforks. It was all quite dusty, but I watched for more than half an hour. At one point they added another dzo to the team. The two yaks were on the outside, and all the animals kept trying to eat the straw when they got the chance.
I then walked up to the monastery, passing through the little village as goats and sheep were herded into their evening quarters. One old woman was particularly energetic with them, scampering up the inclines rapidly and throwing rocks at them. It was a steep but short climb to the monastery. It was past 5 and the prayer halls were locked, but I could walk around the main building, with prayers wheels on the sides, and the two chortens next to it, with stupendous views of the valley and town below and the mountains beyond on all sides. One section to the east was a sort of South Dakota-syle badlands. An older monk with a hand-held prayer wheel was making a circuit of the monastery and chortens, and I talked to two eleven year old monks and one fifteen year old monk, the latter with a Yankee wool hat with "NY" on it. They spoke some English and were quite friendly. Later I went through the courtyard of the monks quarters and about 15 young ones, including the three I had talked to, were loudly reciting prayers, trying to memorize them, here and there around the courtyard. An older monk was also there, apparently to make sure they stuck to their lessons. He was carrying a switch.
From there I walked up to the hill above the monastery, with a little temple and prayer flags, for even more spectacular views of the monastery below and the countryside beyond. I made it down to the guesthouse just before dark. At dinner there were two Brazilian woman besides the three of us. I spoke some Portuguese with them, as one didn't speak much English, and it slowly came back to me, though often Spanish or Italian words came out instead. They had spent 3 days at a lecture by the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala.
It was sunny the next morning and I got out about 7 and walked along the road down past stacks of barley, men and women transporting barley to town by donkeys, and denuded barley fields with yaks, dzos and donkeys grazing on the stubble. There were great views in the early morning sunshine back towards the monastery high above the town. After breakfast the three of us walked up to the monastery, visited the prayer halls, and walked all around, including up to the prayer flags above the monastery for those fantastic views. We descended the monastery and left Lamayuru at noon, heading up to a pass at about 13,800 feet, with rocky, serrated ridges near the top. We descended into a high valley and then crossed another pass at about 12,500 feet and then descended into the scenic Wakha Valley. Stopping at the town of Mulbekh, we saw a thousand year old, 25 foot high Maitreya Buddha carved into a solitary, steep rock right next to the road and then took a narrow road above the town to a ruined fortress and two restored, but apparently empty, small monasteries. The site was fantastic, with a narrow, rocky access path to the monasteries and great views of the valley and the Zanskar Range beyond.
From Mulbekh we proceeded to nearly Shargol to see another monastery, this one seemingly wedged into a hillside. Shargol is the dividing line between predominately Buddhist and predominately Muslim areas, and we had begun seeing mosques and women and girls in headscarves. It is only 20 miles from Shargol to Kargil, but it took us an hour and a half, not so much because the road was bad (though it wasn't good), but because it was narrow and there were a lot of trucks coming the other way, including a convoy of maybe 100 army trucks. They are the kings of the road here. We got to Kargil a little after 5. It's at 9200 feet, so feels warm. The main street was busy with stollers,. All the women and girls are in headscarves, and there are at least two posters of the perpetually scowling Ayatollah Komeini (the Muslims here are Shia), though among the currency on display in the restaurant we ate in last night is an Israeli note. The people are very friendly.
It was overcast and even rained a bit today, though it has cleared up in the afternoon, and I took a walk around town, in part along the fast-moving Suru River, which flows to the Indus. Lots of people were on the main street and school kids were just getting out of class. The "Line of Control," the de facto border between India and Pakistan, is only a few miles away, less than 5 I think. We seem to be the only foreign tourists in town and have spent part of the day arranging the next leg of our trip to the Zanskar Valley. We leave tomorrow morning.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
September 10 -18, 2010: Nubra Valley, Dalai Lama in Leh, Pangong Tso
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.
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.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
September 2 - 9, 2010: Manali to Leh
I spent my last day in Manali (Sept. 2) doing errands and arranging for up-coming travel. There are several options for traveling from Manali to Leh. There is the public bus, which takes two days, but is said to be quite uncomfortable. (But not as uncomfortable as a friend of mine must have had it when she traveled from Manali to Leh in the 70's on the top of a truck.) There are minibuses and jeeps that leave at 2 am and are said to arrive in Leh the same day at 8 or 9 at night, but they have only one driver, and one driver for that much time seems a bad idea. There are also minibuses and jeeps that leave Manali at 6 am, spend the night at Sarchu on the way, and arrive at Leh the next day. I decided on that option, but to have the minibus or jeep pick me up at Keylong on the way. Philip decided to do the same.
It was raining the next day at 7 when I awoke, but it had stopped by 8 and we left on a Keylong-bound bus about 10. Fortunately, it wasn't completely full as it was a rough ride over the Rohtang La. We had a lunch stop at Marhi about noon, at about 11,000 feet. The clouds/fog closed in soon after as we ascended and at about the same spot where I turned back on August 12 there was an hour delay for a bulldozer to clear the rocks blocking the narrow road. When we finally passed, I looked up at then many rocks, big and small, seemingly poised to tumble down. As we got by, a big herd of goats and sheep was coming down the narrow road to join the fray at the impasse. The road was terrible to the top, one of the worst I've been on. We were rocked almost as if we were on a boat on a stormy sea. We reached the pass after 2 pm, more than two hours after we had left Marhi, 10 miles away. The fog lifted at the pass, though we had cloudy skies as we descended the 40 or 50 switchbacks to the Chandra River. We followed it downriver, past soaring mountains with quite a bit of greenery on them, and one spectacular waterfall near a little town called Sissu, to the confluence of the Chandra and Bhaga Rivers, which join to form the Chenab, one of the major tributaries of the Indus. We followed the Bhaga upriver four miles to Keylong, arriving about 6. We had covered the 70 miles from Manali in 8 hours.
It was sunny the next morning at Keylong, at about 3300 meters or 11,800 feet. Across the Bhaga River on the mountainside is Khardong Gompa (Monastery), and we hiked to it. We first had to go about 500 feet down to the river and cross it on a footbridge over the narrow chasm, and then ascend more than a thousand feet through fields and a little village to get there, which took about 2 hours. There was a very large (mayble 10 foot high) prayer wheel there, and of course great views over the town and valley. We hiked down and had a late lunch and then after a rest attempted to hike up to the Shashur Gompa above Keylong, but we started too late to reach it and get back before dark. We had great views above the town, though.
We pretty much spent the next morning at the hotel. Our jeep arrived just before noon and we left about noon. There were four other passengers: a young monk in a red robe (and red high-topped sneakers) and a woman in the front and two out-of-uniform soldiers in the back. Philip and I got the middle seats and had plenty of room. We traveled up the Bhaga to Darcha where we had a police check and lunch, and then crossed the Bhaga River about 1:30 and followed a tributary on a pretty good road through spectacular scenery. However, the jeep was overheating as we were ascending the Barachala La (4980 meters, or about 16,300 feet). We had a twenty minute stop at a little stream and then an hour stop at a tent where we could drink tea and the driver took a nap. There was a little blue lake near the pass. From the pass we followed a river, under snow and ice capped peaks, to a wider valley and the tent camps at Sarchu, where we expected to spend the night, arriving a little after 6. But the driver wanted to continue to Pang, three hours away. I tried to persuade him to stay in Sarchu for the night as I didn't want to miss the scenery in the dark, but to no avail. We continued down the river and before 7 reached the Gata Loops, 22 switchbacks that climb above the river. We had some pretty good views of the valley and soaring mountains in the fading light, but by the time we reached the 22nd Loop, it was dark and you couldn't see much. I did see Venus rising over the jagged line of peaks to the west. In the dark we drove on a terrible road, with trucks still on the road, over two high passes, the Nachi La (4900 meters or 16,000 feet) and the Lachaling La (5065 meters or 16,600 feet). We arrived at the latter about 8:30 and had a quick look outside the jeep in the very cold air. The sky was full of stars and I could spot the Big and Little Dipper. The Milky Way was clearly visible. It took us about an hour to descend the 22 kilometers (about 13 miles) from the last pass on a particularly bad road through what appeared (in the dark) to be a narrow canyon to Pang, arriving about 9:30. It was quite cold at Pang, at about 14,800 feet (about 1000 feet higher than Sarchu). We were shown to a large tent where a Ladahki woman fixed us dhal and rice for dinner and then went to bed about 10:15 in an adjoining tent on mats with very thick coverlets to cover us. I had difficulty getting to sleep because of the altitude. I was breathing quite heavily, though had no headache. When I would start to fall asleep, my breathing would slow down as it normally does when you sleep and with not enough oxygen I would wake with a start. I didn't really fall asleep until after 2, I think.
And then I woke up a little before 5, though I stayed under covers until almost 6. I checked my thermometer after I got up and it was 41 in the tent, and in the 30's outside. We had an omelet and chapatti for breakfast and it warmed up once the sun came up. We left about 7 or 7:30, past the big army camp at Pang, and then ascended about 850 feet to the More Plateau, without a cloud in the sky. The flat plateau was not particularly scenic. About 40 kilometers (25 miles), out of Pang we turned off the road on what I thought might be a detour around road work. (There were road crews on the plateau.) I wasn't paying attention to the direction we were going until I noticed a lake, Tso Kar, that I didn't think the road would get close enough to for us to see. Soon I noticed we were on the wrong side of the lake, going south on its eastern shore instead of north on its western shore. Then we were heading away from the lake to the east and southeast. The driver didn't speak much English, but finally explained to us that the main road to Leh over Taglang La and Rumtse was closed for about 30 kilometers and we were taking a major detour of around 100 kilometers. 100 kilometers is only 62 miles, but on these roads that is a major detour, so I understood now why the driver wanted to stay at Pang rather than Sarchu. And the road was terrible. We were jolted all over the place. Finally, we reached some wet grasslands with nomads in tents herding goats and sheep. These were the first inhabitants of the area we had seen since Darcha, other than the army and the seasonal tent dwellers who tend the travelers between Leh and Manali in the summer. We reached the small town of Sumdho and followed a small stream down a narrow canyon until we reached the Indus about 11 or so and crossed it at a place called Mahe, 159 kilometers from Leh, about the distance we had been from Leh on the main road from Pang. We had lunch (rice and dhal) a few miles down the river at a small town with a hot springs called Chumathang. Then we followed the Indus down its narrow and rocky canyon. In a few places the valley was wide enough for some agricultural plots and villages, but mostly it was wide enough just for the river and the narrow road. Sometimes we traveled just beside the Indus and sometimes far above it. It was a beautiful trip through the stark brown mountains. The Indus was quite wide here, too, so far from the sea, though I'm not sure how wide. It was brown-gray, with lots of whitewater. I had seen it in 1994 in Tibet near its source and it was just a very small stream. After we reached the town of Upshi and again were on the main Manali-Leh road, the valley widened considerably and we usually couldn't see the Indus. The valley was still pretty brown and barren, but there were many more towns. We passed the big gompa at Thikse and the tree-lined road near Shey and reached Choglamsar, only 5 miles from Leh. Choglamsar was badly hit by the flash flooding and landslides of early August and there were still many mounds of dirt maybe 6-8 feet high, with stones and trees embedded in them, on the main road through the center of town. Men were attacking them with shovels and women were taking away big rocks strapped to their backs. Leh is up a valley from the Indus. (The Indus had dropped something like 3000 feet (from 13,800 to 10,800 by my altimeter) in the 100 miles from Mahe to Choglamsar.) We reached Leh, at about 3500 meters (11,500 feet) a little after 4 and found a good hotel where we could wash off the dust of the last two days. After the poor night's sleep in Pang, I went to bed about 8:30 and slept 10 hours.
It was cloudy the next morning and we had a look around the city. The Ladakhi people are Buddhists and closely related to Tibetans, though with a different language. There was a Buddhist kingdom centered here from the 16th century until the 1840's, and this area has been Buddhist for over a thousand years. It was only opened to tourists in 1974. Because of the August rain, tourism is very much reduced this year. We walked through the narrow lanes of the old town up to the former royal palace on a rocky ridge above the town. It was started in the 16th century and is ten levels high, though because of the slope of the ridge no portion is 10 stories high. It is under renovation and dun-colored, made of stone, timber and mud. It was fascinating to walk through its many rooms. Only 3 or 4 still have wall paintings. One is a beautiful prayer hall and another, one floor from the top, the king's audience chamber. There were great views from the top. It is about 300 feet above the town and another 400 feet (a steep climb) up the ridge from the palace are two gompas and a partially ruined fort, with even better views of the town, the green fields to the north and northwest, and across the Indus to the snow covered peaks to the south. From there we walked down on a different path to the town. Later in the afternoon we walked to chorten (stupa) on a hill, Nezer Latho, with more great views of the area.
At the ruined fort I talked with a Bengali doctor working for the government in New Delhi and here in Leh because of the August disaster. He told me the official death toll is 193, 163 of which were in Choglamsar and 21 in a town in Nubra Valley. He said 6 foreigners were among them. He said there is no official toll of missing, but that he thinks many bodies floated down the Indus.
The next day it was cloudy all morning and we took a leisurely walk up through the green area above Leh. We passed little channels of water, barley and vegetable fields, stone walls, and some beautiful traditional houses. We stopped at the Sankar and Tisuru gompas, the latter dating from the 11th century and in ruins, but with great views down the valley. From there we walked to the new Japanese built Shanti Stupa, with great views, and then to the suburb of Changspa for a late lunch. The sun had come out.
We were supposed to leave today for a 3 day tour of the Nubra Valley, but one of the four of us is sick, so it is postponed. I wandered around the narrow lanes of the old town this morning. Leh isn't a very big place, only 28.,000 people according to one of my guidebooks. Not a lot of people are in traditional dress, at least in comparison to the cities of Tibet. The people are very nice here, and there is a substantial Moslem population, who apparently began to arrive after a Ladakhi king invaded Moslem Skardu centuries ago and was defeated. The Moslem call to prayer at 3 am, for the pre-dawn Ramadan meals, has woken me up a couple of nights. I talked to a guy this morning who said he has never seen so much rain here. He also said the winters are much milder now. The Indus used to freeze, and no longer does. He is worried about the glaciers disappearing, and along with them the drinking water. I saw a film here about the impact of the modern world over the past three and a half decades upon the traditional lifestyles of the Ladakhis and their efforts to preserve the old ways.
And then I woke up a little before 5, though I stayed under covers until almost 6. I checked my thermometer after I got up and it was 41 in the tent, and in the 30's outside. We had an omelet and chapatti for breakfast and it warmed up once the sun came up. We left about 7 or 7:30, past the big army camp at Pang, and then ascended about 850 feet to the More Plateau, without a cloud in the sky. The flat plateau was not particularly scenic. About 40 kilometers (25 miles), out of Pang we turned off the road on what I thought might be a detour around road work. (There were road crews on the plateau.) I wasn't paying attention to the direction we were going until I noticed a lake, Tso Kar, that I didn't think the road would get close enough to for us to see. Soon I noticed we were on the wrong side of the lake, going south on its eastern shore instead of north on its western shore. Then we were heading away from the lake to the east and southeast. The driver didn't speak much English, but finally explained to us that the main road to Leh over Taglang La and Rumtse was closed for about 30 kilometers and we were taking a major detour of around 100 kilometers. 100 kilometers is only 62 miles, but on these roads that is a major detour, so I understood now why the driver wanted to stay at Pang rather than Sarchu. And the road was terrible. We were jolted all over the place. Finally, we reached some wet grasslands with nomads in tents herding goats and sheep. These were the first inhabitants of the area we had seen since Darcha, other than the army and the seasonal tent dwellers who tend the travelers between Leh and Manali in the summer. We reached the small town of Sumdho and followed a small stream down a narrow canyon until we reached the Indus about 11 or so and crossed it at a place called Mahe, 159 kilometers from Leh, about the distance we had been from Leh on the main road from Pang. We had lunch (rice and dhal) a few miles down the river at a small town with a hot springs called Chumathang. Then we followed the Indus down its narrow and rocky canyon. In a few places the valley was wide enough for some agricultural plots and villages, but mostly it was wide enough just for the river and the narrow road. Sometimes we traveled just beside the Indus and sometimes far above it. It was a beautiful trip through the stark brown mountains. The Indus was quite wide here, too, so far from the sea, though I'm not sure how wide. It was brown-gray, with lots of whitewater. I had seen it in 1994 in Tibet near its source and it was just a very small stream. After we reached the town of Upshi and again were on the main Manali-Leh road, the valley widened considerably and we usually couldn't see the Indus. The valley was still pretty brown and barren, but there were many more towns. We passed the big gompa at Thikse and the tree-lined road near Shey and reached Choglamsar, only 5 miles from Leh. Choglamsar was badly hit by the flash flooding and landslides of early August and there were still many mounds of dirt maybe 6-8 feet high, with stones and trees embedded in them, on the main road through the center of town. Men were attacking them with shovels and women were taking away big rocks strapped to their backs. Leh is up a valley from the Indus. (The Indus had dropped something like 3000 feet (from 13,800 to 10,800 by my altimeter) in the 100 miles from Mahe to Choglamsar.) We reached Leh, at about 3500 meters (11,500 feet) a little after 4 and found a good hotel where we could wash off the dust of the last two days. After the poor night's sleep in Pang, I went to bed about 8:30 and slept 10 hours.
It was cloudy the next morning and we had a look around the city. The Ladakhi people are Buddhists and closely related to Tibetans, though with a different language. There was a Buddhist kingdom centered here from the 16th century until the 1840's, and this area has been Buddhist for over a thousand years. It was only opened to tourists in 1974. Because of the August rain, tourism is very much reduced this year. We walked through the narrow lanes of the old town up to the former royal palace on a rocky ridge above the town. It was started in the 16th century and is ten levels high, though because of the slope of the ridge no portion is 10 stories high. It is under renovation and dun-colored, made of stone, timber and mud. It was fascinating to walk through its many rooms. Only 3 or 4 still have wall paintings. One is a beautiful prayer hall and another, one floor from the top, the king's audience chamber. There were great views from the top. It is about 300 feet above the town and another 400 feet (a steep climb) up the ridge from the palace are two gompas and a partially ruined fort, with even better views of the town, the green fields to the north and northwest, and across the Indus to the snow covered peaks to the south. From there we walked down on a different path to the town. Later in the afternoon we walked to chorten (stupa) on a hill, Nezer Latho, with more great views of the area.
At the ruined fort I talked with a Bengali doctor working for the government in New Delhi and here in Leh because of the August disaster. He told me the official death toll is 193, 163 of which were in Choglamsar and 21 in a town in Nubra Valley. He said 6 foreigners were among them. He said there is no official toll of missing, but that he thinks many bodies floated down the Indus.
The next day it was cloudy all morning and we took a leisurely walk up through the green area above Leh. We passed little channels of water, barley and vegetable fields, stone walls, and some beautiful traditional houses. We stopped at the Sankar and Tisuru gompas, the latter dating from the 11th century and in ruins, but with great views down the valley. From there we walked to the new Japanese built Shanti Stupa, with great views, and then to the suburb of Changspa for a late lunch. The sun had come out.
We were supposed to leave today for a 3 day tour of the Nubra Valley, but one of the four of us is sick, so it is postponed. I wandered around the narrow lanes of the old town this morning. Leh isn't a very big place, only 28.,000 people according to one of my guidebooks. Not a lot of people are in traditional dress, at least in comparison to the cities of Tibet. The people are very nice here, and there is a substantial Moslem population, who apparently began to arrive after a Ladakhi king invaded Moslem Skardu centuries ago and was defeated. The Moslem call to prayer at 3 am, for the pre-dawn Ramadan meals, has woken me up a couple of nights. I talked to a guy this morning who said he has never seen so much rain here. He also said the winters are much milder now. The Indus used to freeze, and no longer does. He is worried about the glaciers disappearing, and along with them the drinking water. I saw a film here about the impact of the modern world over the past three and a half decades upon the traditional lifestyles of the Ladakhis and their efforts to preserve the old ways.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
August 20 - September 1, 2010: Shimla to Manali via Kinnear and Spiti
I'm back in Manali after a beautiful but sometimes difficult trip through the Kinnear and Spiti valleys. My back and butt suffered on the buses along the way, and even the rides on jeeps were none too comfortable, though better than the buses.
It rained all morning the day I left Shimla (August 20) on another rickety bus from another chaotic bus station and it rained for the 2 to 2 1/2 hours it took for us to ascend to Narankot at about 9000 feet. All I could see was rain and fog and big brown puddles on the road. From Narankot we descended rapidly to the valley of the Sutlej River 6000 feet below. The rain stopped and the clouds parted and there were some great views down the terraced green slopes to the frothy, surging brown Sutlej below. The brown water almost looked thick. We followed the Sutlej, at times maybe 1000 feet above it, though at other times we were right alongside it. I got off after a six hour journey from Shimla at Jeori and jumped on the bus heading up the mountainside to Sarahan. The bus was full and I was bracing myself for standing on the journey when I noticed people were on the roof of the bus. I climbed up and traveled with 2 Israelis and about 20 Indians up there. We had to dodge branches and electrical wires, but the views were great. It took us a little over an hour to zigzag up the mountainside and we reached Sarahan, at 9000 feet, about 3500 feet above the river, a little after 6 and checked into the fairly comfortable monastery guesthouse. I went inside the monastery, after depositing my shoes, camera and leather products outside and donning the required orange hat. Inside were two 2-3 story towers of alternating timber beam and stone layers (supposedly resistant to earthquakes). Not much was going on. I had a terrible dinner of vegetable (cabbage) momos (a Tibetan dumpling) in a dark cafe and a bucket bath, but with hot water, in the guesthouse.
The next morning I walked around the village, with some great views of the monastery, including from a pheasant reserve (57 pheasants, 5 species, I was told) above the village. It begin to rain about the time we left on the bus to Jeori about 12:30, this time inside the bus. From Jeori I caught a bus, and had a good seat, up the Sutlej. It was another scenic trip on a rickety bus, and with a friendly English-speaking seatmate. There are a lot of hydroelectric projects along the river, though, so parts were like a construction site and very muddy. At the town of Tarpi I changed busses and soon after we turned away from the Sutlej, at about 6000 feet and made a steep ascent up the Baspa Valley to the southeast. We climbed about 3000 feet over about 10 miles, taking over an hour on a very narrow road on the edge of the cliffs above the Baspa River. There were great views, with the river eventually 1000 feet or more below us. The valley widened a bit just before we reached Sangla at about 6. I got a hotel and looked around the ugly center of town. It was cloudy and a little rainy, and I had another crummy dinner of vegetable momos.
It was sunny the next morning, though, and I enjoyed walking down from the road through town to the Baspa River maybe 300 feet below through the old town of stone and timber houses with several temples with fine wooden carving. Doors, lintels and balconies of homes also had fine carvings. The lanes were narrow, with no vehicles, and there were apple and apricot trees, and apricots drying here and there. Some men were repairing a temple. An old man invited me into the courtyard of his home and we talked a little.
It had clouded up and was starting to rain when I left about 12:30 on the bus further up the valley to Chitkul, another beautiful trips along the rocky slopes and through pines and firs and maybe cedars and junipers. (I'm not really sure about my trees.) The valley is wider here than on the ascent to Sangla, so the road was not so precarious, though it still took us an hour and a half to go 15 miles. In Chitkul, at about 11,200 feet, I found a not very good hotel and looked around in the rain. While there are trees on the opposite bank of the Baspa, which is well below the village, there are almost none on the Chitkul side. It is rocky and barren, though the village is pleasant with stone and timber houses and temples, narrow lanes and grassy spaces between the houses. Someone told me there are only 25 families there. About 5 there was ceremony at the temple. It was rainy a bit but very interesting, with a big crowd of the local people. They are called Kinnearis and both men and women wear a distinctive pillbox hat of gray or brown felt with a green flap, with red or orange embroidery, around about 2/3 of the hat. A bare chested old man led the ceremony holding a dull old sword against his chest. Men held two palanquins, each with a furry mound on top. I was told each was a god, one male and one female. The two gods bobbed up and down, and I was told it was the gods themselves making the movements, not the men holding the palanquins. The paraded around a bit, accompanied by drums and cymbals and brass clarinet-type instruments. It was fun to watch. Once one of the gods approached us and the Kinneari women next to me scattered. At the end of the ceremony the gods were locked into separate temple buildings. I was told they come out only once a year.
It was sunny the next morning and I walked through the village and then up the valley about an hour along and above the Baspa to an army camp, where I was not permitted to go farther. There were good views of snow and ice covered peaks along the way. Back at Chitkul, it had clouded up and was raining a bit as I left on the bus down the valley about 2. The bus filled up at Sangla and we were very crowded as we descended the narrow canyon below Sangla. I had a seat overlooking the edge of the narrow cliffside road and it seemed like I could look straight down a thousand feet to the river as we got within inches of the edge of the road. Maybe the scariest road I've been on, with the possible exception of the Carretera de la Muerte in Bolivia, especially when you have to pass a bus or truck coming the other way. We safely reached the Sutlej and continued up it, crossed it, and then zigzagged up the mountainside to the fairly large city of Reckong Peo at maybe 7700 feet a little before 6. From there I caught another bus at 7, just as it got dark, another 7 miles or so further up the mountainside to the little village of Kalpa at about 9000 feet. I found a good hotel and had a good dinner.
The next morning I could look out from the balcony of my hotel toward the snow and ice covered mountains to the east, on the other side of the Sutlej, one of which is Kinnear Kailash at over 6000 meters (about 20,000 feet). The uppermost peaks were obscured by clouds. I walked around the village and visited the Tibetan and Hindu temples. There were apple and apricot trees and a shed full of goats, and great views down to the hidden Sutlej and across to the mountains. About 11 I went down to Reckong Peo to get my Inner Line Permit, enabling me to travel further near the Tibet border. It took about 4 hours to get, and in the meanwhile I had a good lunch and looked around town a bit. From one spot I could see the muddy Sutlej far below. It was cloudy and a little rainy back at Kalpa, but just before dusk the clouds broke open and a rainbow appeared to the east rising from the golden Tibetan temple on a knoll across from my hotel to the peaks to the east. After dark the peaks cleared and you could see the jagged rim below a rising almost full moon.
I'd planned to leave the next day, but it rained almost all day, from about 9 to 5, so I decided not to attempt the treacherous road ahead in the heavy rain. It was a cold rain, too. Late in the afternoon, after the rain stopped, I walked to the Hindu temple and saw a ceremony somewhat like the one I had seen in Chitkul, although with only one furry god on a palanquin. It left on a procession on a narrow lane out of town and I followed it. At one point a woman came out of her house and offered those of us following what tasted like plum wine and milk. She poured both the wine and the milk (separately) directly into our cupped hands. It was getting dark so I let the procession go on and returned to town.
The peaks were clearing the next morning and I had some good views of them before heading down to Reckong Peo to catch the 12:30 bus to Nako, up the Spiti Valley. I got a good seat on the crowded bus, but after leaving we spent about 45 minutes in a bus repair area while they refueled and made repairs. We zigzagged down to the Sutlej and followed it further upriver as the canyon became increasingly drier. We crossed it where the gray Spiti flowed into the brown Sutlej, with the two rivers taking a while to mix. Only a few miles, maybe 5, from this junction the Sutlej enters India from Tibet. In 1994 I had been in a couple of towns on the Sutlej in Tibet, Toling and Tsaparang, with the ruins of ancient Buddhist civilizations, including wall paintings. We went up the narrow and very dry canyon of the Spiti, with great view of the barren mountains rising above the narrow canyon of the gray river. We must have been a thousand or more feet above the river at times, though we did make an hour detour from the road to Spiti to descend to and cross the river to get to the village of Leo. We arrived at Nako at 7 and found trucks getting ready to take burlap bags of newly harvested peas to market. The bags were everywhere. I met the two Israelis I had met in Sarahan, and later in Chitkul and Kalpa, and they led me in the dark to a nice hotel where I got a meal of peas, potatoes an chapattis.
It was dry and sunny the next morning, very welcome after all the rain of the past three weeks. My hotel fronted the town's small lake and had a field of flowers between it and the lake. I walked up above the lake to some prayer flags, a slow walk at 12,000 feet elevation. I had a great view of the town and the valley of the Spiti maybe 2500 feet below. I walked further along some irrigation channels to the mountain stream where they originated. Along the way I found stones carved with prayers in Tibetan. This is a Tibetan region and is considered the trans-Himalayas. It is certainly dry and barren like Tibet and unlike the Kinnear Valley. Tibet is only a few miles away, though I imagine a difficult hike through and over the mountains. I hiked back into town and had breakfast with Kfr and Danna, the two Israelis. Kfr and I walked through the town, full of typical Tibetan style buildings and narrow lanes. At noon we waited for the bus to Tabo, but the bus driver decided not to come into town (Nako is about half a mile off the main road), so we missed it. Frustrated, we decided to hire a jeep taxi (for 2500 rupees, over $50) to take us on the two hour trip to Tabo upriver. It was a scenic journey as we descended on the narrow road down to the Sutlej. Tabo, at about 10,500 feet, is right on the river. We got rooms in the monastery hostal and looked around a bit. The 1000 year old mud brick monastery was locked, but we did walk up to some caves above town, with some great views of the town and relatively flat, but narrow valley of the Spiti, with towering brown mountains on all sides.
I got up before 6 the next morning in order to attend the 6 am prayer service at the new monastery. About 20 monks participated, with the older ones in front and the younger ones in back. They chanted and occasionally beat drums, clashed cymbals, rang handbells and blew those Tibetan clarinets. It was all quite pleasant and about 10 of us foreigners watched from the sides. About 7 a stout young monk left and then returned with a big kettle of tea, which he poured for all the other monks and then for us tourists into little glasses placed before the pillows on which we sat cross-legged. The younger monks occasionally chatted and joked with each other during the service and about 7:30 it ended abruptly and they all left. I looked around a little in the bright morning sunshine and then had breakfast with Kfr, Danna and another tourist. I never could find a monk with keys to let me into the old monastery, which was a disappointment, but the night before Danna had met an Englishmen named Phillip who agreed to give us a ride in his rented jeep (with a driver, from Shimla), so we left with him about 9:30. We traveled along the river about an hour and then zigzagged above it for maybe 5 miles to the town of Dankar with a monastery on a rocky ridge. There were great views from the monastery out over the town and the Spiti and over the junction of the blue-gray Pin River and the gray Spiti far below. From the town we made a steep climb in the thin air of 12,000 feet to a little lake above the village, with a huge flock of sheep and goats grazing on one end. The lake wasn't much but the views as we descended from it were marvelous.
After lunch at Dankar, we descended to the Spiti, continued up it, crossed it, and then went down it on the other side to the Pin and then followed the Pin River into the spectacular Pin Valley, with crumpled brown mountains lining the gray gravel bed of the river. We stopped at the monastery an Kangri, saw the old monastery and listened to chanting, drums, cymbals, bells and long 10 foot horns in the new monastery, with about 20 monks participating. Continuing up the Pin, the road got worse and worse and we arrived at the little village of Mudh just before dark. Again, trucks were loading burlap bags of freshly picked peas. Surprisingly, There were 30-40 tourists (90% Israeli) in Mudh, a village of 235, according to a sign at the village entrance. Nonetheless we found a decent place to stay and had an okay dinner. Mudh is at about 12,000 feet.
I got up soon after 6 the next morning. The once a day bus out of town (to Kaza) left about 6:30 and I walked above the town an hour or so along a road that has been washed out in places, with good views of Mudh and the Pin Valley. People were already out in the pea plots picking peas. Cows were grazing on a very steep slope above the road. Back in Mudh, I had breakfast with Kfr, Danna and Phillip and then Phillip and I hiked down to the rocky course of the Pin, crossed it via a suspension bridge and then walked up the green table lands of the opposite bank an hour or so. We passed a very small village, maybe 5 houses, with people picking peas, a very small primary school, a cricket pitch with the limits delineated by whitish stones, a mani (I think they are called), which is a stone wall covered with flat stones with prayers carved onto them, until we reached a meadow with two very large, very hairy and very shy yaks. From there we turned back to Mudh. Kfr and Danna stayed behind, but Philip and I and two other Israelis left about 11:30, going back down the spectacular Pin Valley to the Spiti and then continuing along the Spiti to Kaza, the biggest city of the area, with maybe 5,000-6,000 people, I was told. From Spiti Phillip and I continued in his jeep up past the spectacularly situated monastery at Ki (on the top of a cone shaped mountain) through a canyon of a tributary of the Spiti to the village of Kibber, about 12 miles from Kaza. There, at 13,800 feet, we had lunch and then visited the town's monastery, with a very friendly young monk, who showed us the room and the bed where the Dalai Lama had slept in 1984, and then the town itself, full of wonderful Tibetan white buildings with large square outlined windows. Again, people were picking peas in the fields around the village. The village itself was very quiet as almost everyone was picking peas. From Kibber we drove back to Ki and visited the monastery there (at about 13,500 feet), with views over the Spiti and the pea and barley fields alongside the river. A sign said the new monastery hall was built with funds donated by Mrs. and Mr. Thomas Pritzker of Chicago. About 6 we met a 73 year old German man named Ernest, carrying a small backpack, a bag and an umbrella, who had just arrived on the bus from Kaza to spend the night at the monastery. We had quite a long talk with him. He had biked (on, he said, a bike with only one gear and carrying 88 pounds of stuff) with a friend from Germany to India in 1959, and then he had retraced his trip in 1984 on a moped that went at most 15 miles an hour. Quite an interesting, and very friendly, guy. Phillip and I spent the night at Kaza, though we didn't see much of the place as we arrived about dark and left early the next morning.
We left Kaza, at about 12,000 feet, the next morning at 8, driving up the narrowing Spiti. Some pea pickers along the road gave us hundreds of pea pods, and we spent the day munching those very sweet peas. By far, the best peas I've ever had. We reached the town of Losar, the last town of the Spiti Valley, at about 13,000 feet, about 10, and at about noon we reached the Kunzum La (Pass) at almost 15,000 feet. On the pass were three white painted chortens with hundreds of prayer flags fluttering all around them. Beyond were three or four snow and ice covered peaks, with glaciers, a great sight with the chortens and prayer flags in front. Five red robed monks were praying in front of one of the chortens and another man poured butter into little cups near the chortens. There were also offerings on plates of grains and seeds and spices and butter sculptures.
We zigzagged down the Kunzum La over a thousand feet, through maybe 20 switchbacks, and the took a very narrow side road off the main road up the Chandra River far below for maybe 8 or 9 miles to where the road ended near the Chandra Tal (which means "Moon Lake"). After a hearty meal of rice and dhal (lentils) we hiked an hour or so to the turquoise lake, set against very steep, barren brown mountains, with snow and ice covered peaks in the distance. You could clearly make out glaciers on the peaks. The lake, at almost 14,000 feet, is a little more than half a mile long, and we walked around it, taking maybe two hours. Parts of the lake bank are quite grassy and parts quite rocky. It was a beautiful day and we were in shirt sleaves. Birds flew by, the wind blew, and sun sparkled off the lake. We were there alone except for two local people. After a four hour hike, we returned to the jeep about 5:30, expecting to spend the night in one of the tents where we were parked. But instead we took off down the way we had come to the main road and then a little farther to where the road crossed the Chandra River and there we stopped a little after 6 at a desolate little spot named Battal, with about 6 buildings. There was a stonewalled little restaurant with a canvas or plastic roof where we had dinner (rice and dhal). Surprisingly, there were 14 tourists there that night. Soon after we arrived eight Israelis arrived on motorcycles and four other tourists were there when we arrived. Phillip and I slept on the floor in a sort of quonset-type hut made of white plastic. It was actually fairly comfortable. The others slept in other buildings made of stone. We were at about 13,000 feet and it took me till after midnight to fall asleep, despite going to bed soon after 9. The night sky there was full of stars, with the Milky Way among them.
We got up the next morning a little before 7, had a very good omelet and a potato parantha for breakfast, and set off about 7:30, following the Chandra, a tributary of the Chenab, one of the major tributaries of the Indus. (The rivers of Himachal Pradesh, the Chenab, the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej, all flow eventually into the Indus basin and so are, I imagine, partly responsible for the terrible flooding in Pakistan in August.) This valley is called the Lahaul Valley. We passed through a particularly rocky stretch, with many boulders the size of trucks, and larger. At one point there were three waterfalls cascading down the almost vertical cliffs hundreds of feet, probably more than a thousand feet. We stopped for tea at the little village of Chattru, where we crossed the Chandra, and about 11 or 11:30, I think, we reached the road leading to the Rohtang La and Manali. The road was very bad, but fairly wide, as we zigzagged up about 8 miles and 2000 feet to the top of the pass. At one spot we had to wait 20 minutes or so while two bulldozers worked on the road, moving dirt and big boulders. It was cloudy on the way to the pass, at about 13,000 feet, and on the Manali side it was fogged in. We zigzagged down on that very bumpy road and I couldn't identify just where I had been stopped by a landslide 19 days earlier. We passed through Marhi and somewhere below, maybe at about 10,000 feet, we got below the clouds and had good views of the green, rocky, tree covered mountain slopes. Soon it was quite sunny with great views of the mountain greenery, quite a change from the high altitude desert of Spiti. We reached Manali about 2 and checked into the same nice hotel I had stayed in before and had a good lunch in the sun in the restaurant in the apple orchard where I had had so many meals in the rain before. We went back there for dinner, too. At the hotel I was surprised to find Kfr and Danna. They had come all the way from Mudh, via Kaza, the day before. I went to bed about 10 and slept very well. It felt good to be back at 6500 feet.
The next morning (today) it was fogged in when I got up soon after 6. I washed my very dirty clothes (the water was almost as brown as the Sutlej) and enjoyed seeing the cedars again in the fog from my hotel balcony. Phillip and I had a long breakfast in the apple orchard and the sun dissipated the fog about 10. I had lunch there at about 1 and it's been sunny and warm this afternoon.
I plan to spend another day here and then head to Leh via Keylong. The road is open again and I'm looking forward to it.
It rained all morning the day I left Shimla (August 20) on another rickety bus from another chaotic bus station and it rained for the 2 to 2 1/2 hours it took for us to ascend to Narankot at about 9000 feet. All I could see was rain and fog and big brown puddles on the road. From Narankot we descended rapidly to the valley of the Sutlej River 6000 feet below. The rain stopped and the clouds parted and there were some great views down the terraced green slopes to the frothy, surging brown Sutlej below. The brown water almost looked thick. We followed the Sutlej, at times maybe 1000 feet above it, though at other times we were right alongside it. I got off after a six hour journey from Shimla at Jeori and jumped on the bus heading up the mountainside to Sarahan. The bus was full and I was bracing myself for standing on the journey when I noticed people were on the roof of the bus. I climbed up and traveled with 2 Israelis and about 20 Indians up there. We had to dodge branches and electrical wires, but the views were great. It took us a little over an hour to zigzag up the mountainside and we reached Sarahan, at 9000 feet, about 3500 feet above the river, a little after 6 and checked into the fairly comfortable monastery guesthouse. I went inside the monastery, after depositing my shoes, camera and leather products outside and donning the required orange hat. Inside were two 2-3 story towers of alternating timber beam and stone layers (supposedly resistant to earthquakes). Not much was going on. I had a terrible dinner of vegetable (cabbage) momos (a Tibetan dumpling) in a dark cafe and a bucket bath, but with hot water, in the guesthouse.
The next morning I walked around the village, with some great views of the monastery, including from a pheasant reserve (57 pheasants, 5 species, I was told) above the village. It begin to rain about the time we left on the bus to Jeori about 12:30, this time inside the bus. From Jeori I caught a bus, and had a good seat, up the Sutlej. It was another scenic trip on a rickety bus, and with a friendly English-speaking seatmate. There are a lot of hydroelectric projects along the river, though, so parts were like a construction site and very muddy. At the town of Tarpi I changed busses and soon after we turned away from the Sutlej, at about 6000 feet and made a steep ascent up the Baspa Valley to the southeast. We climbed about 3000 feet over about 10 miles, taking over an hour on a very narrow road on the edge of the cliffs above the Baspa River. There were great views, with the river eventually 1000 feet or more below us. The valley widened a bit just before we reached Sangla at about 6. I got a hotel and looked around the ugly center of town. It was cloudy and a little rainy, and I had another crummy dinner of vegetable momos.
It was sunny the next morning, though, and I enjoyed walking down from the road through town to the Baspa River maybe 300 feet below through the old town of stone and timber houses with several temples with fine wooden carving. Doors, lintels and balconies of homes also had fine carvings. The lanes were narrow, with no vehicles, and there were apple and apricot trees, and apricots drying here and there. Some men were repairing a temple. An old man invited me into the courtyard of his home and we talked a little.
It had clouded up and was starting to rain when I left about 12:30 on the bus further up the valley to Chitkul, another beautiful trips along the rocky slopes and through pines and firs and maybe cedars and junipers. (I'm not really sure about my trees.) The valley is wider here than on the ascent to Sangla, so the road was not so precarious, though it still took us an hour and a half to go 15 miles. In Chitkul, at about 11,200 feet, I found a not very good hotel and looked around in the rain. While there are trees on the opposite bank of the Baspa, which is well below the village, there are almost none on the Chitkul side. It is rocky and barren, though the village is pleasant with stone and timber houses and temples, narrow lanes and grassy spaces between the houses. Someone told me there are only 25 families there. About 5 there was ceremony at the temple. It was rainy a bit but very interesting, with a big crowd of the local people. They are called Kinnearis and both men and women wear a distinctive pillbox hat of gray or brown felt with a green flap, with red or orange embroidery, around about 2/3 of the hat. A bare chested old man led the ceremony holding a dull old sword against his chest. Men held two palanquins, each with a furry mound on top. I was told each was a god, one male and one female. The two gods bobbed up and down, and I was told it was the gods themselves making the movements, not the men holding the palanquins. The paraded around a bit, accompanied by drums and cymbals and brass clarinet-type instruments. It was fun to watch. Once one of the gods approached us and the Kinneari women next to me scattered. At the end of the ceremony the gods were locked into separate temple buildings. I was told they come out only once a year.
It was sunny the next morning and I walked through the village and then up the valley about an hour along and above the Baspa to an army camp, where I was not permitted to go farther. There were good views of snow and ice covered peaks along the way. Back at Chitkul, it had clouded up and was raining a bit as I left on the bus down the valley about 2. The bus filled up at Sangla and we were very crowded as we descended the narrow canyon below Sangla. I had a seat overlooking the edge of the narrow cliffside road and it seemed like I could look straight down a thousand feet to the river as we got within inches of the edge of the road. Maybe the scariest road I've been on, with the possible exception of the Carretera de la Muerte in Bolivia, especially when you have to pass a bus or truck coming the other way. We safely reached the Sutlej and continued up it, crossed it, and then zigzagged up the mountainside to the fairly large city of Reckong Peo at maybe 7700 feet a little before 6. From there I caught another bus at 7, just as it got dark, another 7 miles or so further up the mountainside to the little village of Kalpa at about 9000 feet. I found a good hotel and had a good dinner.
The next morning I could look out from the balcony of my hotel toward the snow and ice covered mountains to the east, on the other side of the Sutlej, one of which is Kinnear Kailash at over 6000 meters (about 20,000 feet). The uppermost peaks were obscured by clouds. I walked around the village and visited the Tibetan and Hindu temples. There were apple and apricot trees and a shed full of goats, and great views down to the hidden Sutlej and across to the mountains. About 11 I went down to Reckong Peo to get my Inner Line Permit, enabling me to travel further near the Tibet border. It took about 4 hours to get, and in the meanwhile I had a good lunch and looked around town a bit. From one spot I could see the muddy Sutlej far below. It was cloudy and a little rainy back at Kalpa, but just before dusk the clouds broke open and a rainbow appeared to the east rising from the golden Tibetan temple on a knoll across from my hotel to the peaks to the east. After dark the peaks cleared and you could see the jagged rim below a rising almost full moon.
I'd planned to leave the next day, but it rained almost all day, from about 9 to 5, so I decided not to attempt the treacherous road ahead in the heavy rain. It was a cold rain, too. Late in the afternoon, after the rain stopped, I walked to the Hindu temple and saw a ceremony somewhat like the one I had seen in Chitkul, although with only one furry god on a palanquin. It left on a procession on a narrow lane out of town and I followed it. At one point a woman came out of her house and offered those of us following what tasted like plum wine and milk. She poured both the wine and the milk (separately) directly into our cupped hands. It was getting dark so I let the procession go on and returned to town.
The peaks were clearing the next morning and I had some good views of them before heading down to Reckong Peo to catch the 12:30 bus to Nako, up the Spiti Valley. I got a good seat on the crowded bus, but after leaving we spent about 45 minutes in a bus repair area while they refueled and made repairs. We zigzagged down to the Sutlej and followed it further upriver as the canyon became increasingly drier. We crossed it where the gray Spiti flowed into the brown Sutlej, with the two rivers taking a while to mix. Only a few miles, maybe 5, from this junction the Sutlej enters India from Tibet. In 1994 I had been in a couple of towns on the Sutlej in Tibet, Toling and Tsaparang, with the ruins of ancient Buddhist civilizations, including wall paintings. We went up the narrow and very dry canyon of the Spiti, with great view of the barren mountains rising above the narrow canyon of the gray river. We must have been a thousand or more feet above the river at times, though we did make an hour detour from the road to Spiti to descend to and cross the river to get to the village of Leo. We arrived at Nako at 7 and found trucks getting ready to take burlap bags of newly harvested peas to market. The bags were everywhere. I met the two Israelis I had met in Sarahan, and later in Chitkul and Kalpa, and they led me in the dark to a nice hotel where I got a meal of peas, potatoes an chapattis.
It was dry and sunny the next morning, very welcome after all the rain of the past three weeks. My hotel fronted the town's small lake and had a field of flowers between it and the lake. I walked up above the lake to some prayer flags, a slow walk at 12,000 feet elevation. I had a great view of the town and the valley of the Spiti maybe 2500 feet below. I walked further along some irrigation channels to the mountain stream where they originated. Along the way I found stones carved with prayers in Tibetan. This is a Tibetan region and is considered the trans-Himalayas. It is certainly dry and barren like Tibet and unlike the Kinnear Valley. Tibet is only a few miles away, though I imagine a difficult hike through and over the mountains. I hiked back into town and had breakfast with Kfr and Danna, the two Israelis. Kfr and I walked through the town, full of typical Tibetan style buildings and narrow lanes. At noon we waited for the bus to Tabo, but the bus driver decided not to come into town (Nako is about half a mile off the main road), so we missed it. Frustrated, we decided to hire a jeep taxi (for 2500 rupees, over $50) to take us on the two hour trip to Tabo upriver. It was a scenic journey as we descended on the narrow road down to the Sutlej. Tabo, at about 10,500 feet, is right on the river. We got rooms in the monastery hostal and looked around a bit. The 1000 year old mud brick monastery was locked, but we did walk up to some caves above town, with some great views of the town and relatively flat, but narrow valley of the Spiti, with towering brown mountains on all sides.
I got up before 6 the next morning in order to attend the 6 am prayer service at the new monastery. About 20 monks participated, with the older ones in front and the younger ones in back. They chanted and occasionally beat drums, clashed cymbals, rang handbells and blew those Tibetan clarinets. It was all quite pleasant and about 10 of us foreigners watched from the sides. About 7 a stout young monk left and then returned with a big kettle of tea, which he poured for all the other monks and then for us tourists into little glasses placed before the pillows on which we sat cross-legged. The younger monks occasionally chatted and joked with each other during the service and about 7:30 it ended abruptly and they all left. I looked around a little in the bright morning sunshine and then had breakfast with Kfr, Danna and another tourist. I never could find a monk with keys to let me into the old monastery, which was a disappointment, but the night before Danna had met an Englishmen named Phillip who agreed to give us a ride in his rented jeep (with a driver, from Shimla), so we left with him about 9:30. We traveled along the river about an hour and then zigzagged above it for maybe 5 miles to the town of Dankar with a monastery on a rocky ridge. There were great views from the monastery out over the town and the Spiti and over the junction of the blue-gray Pin River and the gray Spiti far below. From the town we made a steep climb in the thin air of 12,000 feet to a little lake above the village, with a huge flock of sheep and goats grazing on one end. The lake wasn't much but the views as we descended from it were marvelous.
After lunch at Dankar, we descended to the Spiti, continued up it, crossed it, and then went down it on the other side to the Pin and then followed the Pin River into the spectacular Pin Valley, with crumpled brown mountains lining the gray gravel bed of the river. We stopped at the monastery an Kangri, saw the old monastery and listened to chanting, drums, cymbals, bells and long 10 foot horns in the new monastery, with about 20 monks participating. Continuing up the Pin, the road got worse and worse and we arrived at the little village of Mudh just before dark. Again, trucks were loading burlap bags of freshly picked peas. Surprisingly, There were 30-40 tourists (90% Israeli) in Mudh, a village of 235, according to a sign at the village entrance. Nonetheless we found a decent place to stay and had an okay dinner. Mudh is at about 12,000 feet.
I got up soon after 6 the next morning. The once a day bus out of town (to Kaza) left about 6:30 and I walked above the town an hour or so along a road that has been washed out in places, with good views of Mudh and the Pin Valley. People were already out in the pea plots picking peas. Cows were grazing on a very steep slope above the road. Back in Mudh, I had breakfast with Kfr, Danna and Phillip and then Phillip and I hiked down to the rocky course of the Pin, crossed it via a suspension bridge and then walked up the green table lands of the opposite bank an hour or so. We passed a very small village, maybe 5 houses, with people picking peas, a very small primary school, a cricket pitch with the limits delineated by whitish stones, a mani (I think they are called), which is a stone wall covered with flat stones with prayers carved onto them, until we reached a meadow with two very large, very hairy and very shy yaks. From there we turned back to Mudh. Kfr and Danna stayed behind, but Philip and I and two other Israelis left about 11:30, going back down the spectacular Pin Valley to the Spiti and then continuing along the Spiti to Kaza, the biggest city of the area, with maybe 5,000-6,000 people, I was told. From Spiti Phillip and I continued in his jeep up past the spectacularly situated monastery at Ki (on the top of a cone shaped mountain) through a canyon of a tributary of the Spiti to the village of Kibber, about 12 miles from Kaza. There, at 13,800 feet, we had lunch and then visited the town's monastery, with a very friendly young monk, who showed us the room and the bed where the Dalai Lama had slept in 1984, and then the town itself, full of wonderful Tibetan white buildings with large square outlined windows. Again, people were picking peas in the fields around the village. The village itself was very quiet as almost everyone was picking peas. From Kibber we drove back to Ki and visited the monastery there (at about 13,500 feet), with views over the Spiti and the pea and barley fields alongside the river. A sign said the new monastery hall was built with funds donated by Mrs. and Mr. Thomas Pritzker of Chicago. About 6 we met a 73 year old German man named Ernest, carrying a small backpack, a bag and an umbrella, who had just arrived on the bus from Kaza to spend the night at the monastery. We had quite a long talk with him. He had biked (on, he said, a bike with only one gear and carrying 88 pounds of stuff) with a friend from Germany to India in 1959, and then he had retraced his trip in 1984 on a moped that went at most 15 miles an hour. Quite an interesting, and very friendly, guy. Phillip and I spent the night at Kaza, though we didn't see much of the place as we arrived about dark and left early the next morning.
We left Kaza, at about 12,000 feet, the next morning at 8, driving up the narrowing Spiti. Some pea pickers along the road gave us hundreds of pea pods, and we spent the day munching those very sweet peas. By far, the best peas I've ever had. We reached the town of Losar, the last town of the Spiti Valley, at about 13,000 feet, about 10, and at about noon we reached the Kunzum La (Pass) at almost 15,000 feet. On the pass were three white painted chortens with hundreds of prayer flags fluttering all around them. Beyond were three or four snow and ice covered peaks, with glaciers, a great sight with the chortens and prayer flags in front. Five red robed monks were praying in front of one of the chortens and another man poured butter into little cups near the chortens. There were also offerings on plates of grains and seeds and spices and butter sculptures.
We zigzagged down the Kunzum La over a thousand feet, through maybe 20 switchbacks, and the took a very narrow side road off the main road up the Chandra River far below for maybe 8 or 9 miles to where the road ended near the Chandra Tal (which means "Moon Lake"). After a hearty meal of rice and dhal (lentils) we hiked an hour or so to the turquoise lake, set against very steep, barren brown mountains, with snow and ice covered peaks in the distance. You could clearly make out glaciers on the peaks. The lake, at almost 14,000 feet, is a little more than half a mile long, and we walked around it, taking maybe two hours. Parts of the lake bank are quite grassy and parts quite rocky. It was a beautiful day and we were in shirt sleaves. Birds flew by, the wind blew, and sun sparkled off the lake. We were there alone except for two local people. After a four hour hike, we returned to the jeep about 5:30, expecting to spend the night in one of the tents where we were parked. But instead we took off down the way we had come to the main road and then a little farther to where the road crossed the Chandra River and there we stopped a little after 6 at a desolate little spot named Battal, with about 6 buildings. There was a stonewalled little restaurant with a canvas or plastic roof where we had dinner (rice and dhal). Surprisingly, there were 14 tourists there that night. Soon after we arrived eight Israelis arrived on motorcycles and four other tourists were there when we arrived. Phillip and I slept on the floor in a sort of quonset-type hut made of white plastic. It was actually fairly comfortable. The others slept in other buildings made of stone. We were at about 13,000 feet and it took me till after midnight to fall asleep, despite going to bed soon after 9. The night sky there was full of stars, with the Milky Way among them.
We got up the next morning a little before 7, had a very good omelet and a potato parantha for breakfast, and set off about 7:30, following the Chandra, a tributary of the Chenab, one of the major tributaries of the Indus. (The rivers of Himachal Pradesh, the Chenab, the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej, all flow eventually into the Indus basin and so are, I imagine, partly responsible for the terrible flooding in Pakistan in August.) This valley is called the Lahaul Valley. We passed through a particularly rocky stretch, with many boulders the size of trucks, and larger. At one point there were three waterfalls cascading down the almost vertical cliffs hundreds of feet, probably more than a thousand feet. We stopped for tea at the little village of Chattru, where we crossed the Chandra, and about 11 or 11:30, I think, we reached the road leading to the Rohtang La and Manali. The road was very bad, but fairly wide, as we zigzagged up about 8 miles and 2000 feet to the top of the pass. At one spot we had to wait 20 minutes or so while two bulldozers worked on the road, moving dirt and big boulders. It was cloudy on the way to the pass, at about 13,000 feet, and on the Manali side it was fogged in. We zigzagged down on that very bumpy road and I couldn't identify just where I had been stopped by a landslide 19 days earlier. We passed through Marhi and somewhere below, maybe at about 10,000 feet, we got below the clouds and had good views of the green, rocky, tree covered mountain slopes. Soon it was quite sunny with great views of the mountain greenery, quite a change from the high altitude desert of Spiti. We reached Manali about 2 and checked into the same nice hotel I had stayed in before and had a good lunch in the sun in the restaurant in the apple orchard where I had had so many meals in the rain before. We went back there for dinner, too. At the hotel I was surprised to find Kfr and Danna. They had come all the way from Mudh, via Kaza, the day before. I went to bed about 10 and slept very well. It felt good to be back at 6500 feet.
The next morning (today) it was fogged in when I got up soon after 6. I washed my very dirty clothes (the water was almost as brown as the Sutlej) and enjoyed seeing the cedars again in the fog from my hotel balcony. Phillip and I had a long breakfast in the apple orchard and the sun dissipated the fog about 10. I had lunch there at about 1 and it's been sunny and warm this afternoon.
I plan to spend another day here and then head to Leh via Keylong. The road is open again and I'm looking forward to it.
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