Matt and I just got back from a three-day side trip to some of the more remote places outside of Leh. After eating our first good meal in a while, the first thing Matt did was buy a couple of papers. Since it was a weekend, the papers were two days old (no incoming flights on certain days to bring new news), but we didn’t care. In addition to the markets (of course), here is some of the news we caught up on:

• On the discovery of what could be the oldest human footprint found in Egypt, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities had this to say, “It could be the most important discovery in Egypt.” (Obviously WAY more important than the discovery of the Valley of the Kings, Tut’s Tomb, etc…)
• Girls streaking in bikinis may be the cause of India losing cricket match to England. (I guess the Indian team got distracted.)
• 12 year-old boy in Britain to appear in court for throwing a sausage at elderly man. (Matt and I both wish someone would throw a sausage at us. An all-beef frank would taste so good right now…)
• After yet another fatal accident, the state of Rajasthan is cracking down on overloaded jeeps. In one day police ticketed over a thousand jeeps, each with 25-30 passengers. (And we thought 11 people in a jeep was full!)

We were also enlightened by a full-page advertisement/application for the sailors for the Indian Navy. Traveling in the Jammu-Kashmir region we’ve passed by numerous military check-points, bases, and supply caravans. Observing the height of the soldiers compared to other people we’ve seen doing non-office jobs, we wondered exactly what the selection criteria were. Here is some of the information the recruitment ad had to offer us:

• Must be unmarried.
• Minimum height requirement: 157cm (no wonder they’re all tall).
• Weight and chest should be proportionate.
• Application should include a summary of sports achievements.
• Teeth and ear cleaning recommended prior to physical examination.

Driving anywhere in the Indian Himalayas, one of the first things you notice are the countless safety signs put up by the Border Roads Organization (BRO). Between five and six feet, these painted concrete signs are intended to increase traffic safety (although the usually just increase our laughter). Never mind that most truck and taxi drivers in India can’t read, much less English while driving. Nevertheless, the signs are well-intentioned. For instance, some signs warn of driving under the influence:
If you drink and drive, you won’t survive
Driving with whiskey is very risky
Cars run on horsepower, not rum power

Then there are signs that warn against speeding (although they don’t always make sense):
Speed is a knife that cuts life
This a hillway, not a runway
If you drive like hell, you’ll end up there
If you fly at 90, you’ll die at 19
Better to be Mr. Late than late Mr.
Better to be Mr. Late than Mr. Never
If married, divorce speed

And the commonsensical rhymes:
Don’t be a gama in the land of the lama
Safety on the road is safe-tea at home
Lane driving is sane driving

And of course clever signs with a hint of sexual innuendo:
I like you, but not so fast
Calm your nerve on my curves
Be gentle on my curves

We just completed our third and final “jeep-safari” from Leh. This time we visited the Nubra Valley, which is actually a Y-shaped valley with one side being the Nubra River and the other, the Shyok.

Much of the scenery was the same as our other trips (spectacular), but there were some variations. While we’ve seen a few oases that could support small towns or villages, the entire Nubra Valley was filled with small shrubs and trees.

This is probably due to the fact that, besides the rivers and streams, it actually rains in the region. While we were there, it drizzled briefly twice, which is unimaginable in many parts of desert Ladakh. One our first evening there, Joylani and I were scurrying back to our hotel from a walk, because we saw a pillar of rain moving towards us. We later discovered it was actually a huge dust-storm that was moving through the valley. I’d never seen sand stretch from the ground to the clouds like rain before. It made sense though as there were huge sand dunes about a kilometer away from Hunder, the village we were staying in. The dunes were larger than any I’d ever seen in Rajasthan and the main attraction there was to ride the double-humped Bactrian camels.

Aside from the geo-climatic differences, this trip was full of extremes. Sort of. To get to the Nubra Valley and back, we had to twice traverse Kardung-La, the highest motorable pass in the world at 18,380 feet.

Acclimatizing in Leh really helped, as I did not feel any of the effects of altitude sickness when we stopped for a few minutes at the summit. Although having been to all these high passes the past couple weeks has kind of killed the novelty of it all, we still took a photo next to the sign- it’s the highest in the world!

The other extreme we went to was the northern extreme. We visited the village of Panamik on our second day, which happens to be the northernmost point non-Ladakhis can go in India. I asked a chai-wallah there how far the LOC (Line of Control) was, which he told me was 60-70 kilometers. Other than that, we saw awesome scenery and some cool monasteries. Nothing truly extraordinary, but a fun side-trip nonetheless.

After several road-trips around Ladakh, I think I’ve discovered the most miserable job. Road building is the worst possible way to make a living. Much, if not most, of the roads in Ladakh are unpaved. Thus, we frequently drive by road-building camps and crews. The crews are usually all men, although we’ve seen some women too. From what I’ve witnessed, there are many different jobs. One of the very basic ones is breaking rocks. Men with sledgehammers just trying to crack large rocks and boulders. Bring the hammer up and then drop it straight down. They slowly and rhythmically do this over and over until the rock cracks. Then others with smaller hammers come and break the pieces down even more. Breaking rocks all day- talk about an unfulfilling job. Then there are the diggers and shovelers. Forget about the CAT, it’s all done by hand. One person drives the spade into the ground and then another person pulls on a short rope tied to the base of the shaft. Drive, pull, drive, pull. I guess it’s easier and more efficient that way than digging and shoveling by yourself. And then there’s the worst job, that of the tar-workers. These guys just mix small rocks into burning barrels and troughs of tar all day. The mixture is then applied to roadway, which is eventually run over by a giant tractor-roller. Sometimes women constantly wipe the giant rollers, while some just have some rags hanging to mop up the residue. Even with the windows closed, the fumes almost choke us whenever we drive by. And with the exception of a few that I’ve seen wear handkerchiefs, the road workers are just breathing the toxic fumes day in and day out. As if the dry air and high-altitude desert sun aren’t enough. If you’re working near a camp, that’s one thing. But sometimes we see three or four-man crews working out in the middle of nowhere, who try to stop us for water. Imagine doing manual labor in the desert and not having enough water. Miserable. Oh yeah, the minimum wage was recently raised to approximately 2 USD per day.

Joylani: Ok, so I know that there obviously aren’t the same standards for worker’s rights and workplace conditions in India as are in the US, but for a government sponsored organization, come on. It was upsetting to see the conditions the people were working under. How hard would it be for BRO to provide their workers with clean and adequate amounts of drinking water, and for goodness sakes, give them some masks to filter out some of the sludge they have to breathe in day in and day out.

On the seventeenth two people flaked on us and we couldn’t go to Pangong Tso. We could have gone on the eighteenth, but waited til the nineteenth to go with people we knew. But then one of them got sick, so we were delayed again. Finally on the twentieth we departed Leh with two women that had been looking for partners to go to Pangong. We were a bit delayed on the way out, having first forgotten our permits and then stopping to have the spare tire repaired. We took an alternate route at first, heading south along the western side of the Indus River rather than the eastern route. Apparently there was a lot of traffic on the main road, which was only believable in Ladakh because the Dalai Lama was speaking. I started out in the front and got to know our driver, Sevang, a bit. Between my broken Hindi and his broken English, I understood him to be ethnically Tibetan although his family has been in Ladakh for generations. Meanwhile, Joylani got to know our travel mates, Shella and Stephanie. Shella’s lived all over the world and had recently retired from Doctors Without Borders. Stephanie was a Swiss student who was on the tail end of a multi-month journey from SEA to India.

Before we knew it, we were high above the upper Indus Valley, staring down at the green fields that carpeted the valley floor. Cubic Ladakhi houses dotted the square fields, which were separated by stone walls. It was not long before we summated and were descending Changla-La, the third highest motorable pass in the world. At the summit and along the descent, glaciers and ice mixed in with the rocky landscape. We zigzagged down from the pass, before driving along the bottom of the glacial valley. We passed several villages and a few military camps and checkpoints, but most of the drive was through enormous valleys. At any point during the drive, we could look out and see tons of different mountains. We could see series of peaks rising in the distance, behind the giant ones in front of us. We would pass rocky peaks and then descend into a valley with slopes of eroded shale sliding down, only to emerge at the base of some snow-capped peaks we’d first glimpsed an hour ago. We passed boulder-strewn meadows in valleys that were full of wild horses just grazing, being dwarfed by the rocks around them. The wildlife was pretty exciting to see, as we also saw cows, goats, yaks, and marmots.

By mid-afternoon, we reached Pangong Tso, an amazing sight. Even more so after hours of staring at mountains and valleys. The deep blue water had bands of bright turquoise and light green, which made it look more tropical than central Asian. The Himalayan peaks rising out of the water reminded us where we were though. Since we arrived late in the day though, the glaciers were melting relatively fast which resulted in increasingly large and powerful “streams” pouring down the mountains into the lake. Several vehicles were stopped, the drivers checking out the situation. Then, one jeep attempted the rough crossing and made it. Then another truck tried to cross but got stuck. We watched as the passengers got out and tried to push, rock, lift, and anything else they could do to get the truck going. Watching them, our driver said we’d gone as far as we could- he wouldn’t attempt the crossing. It seemed like a good idea, as Joylani pointed out the stream was growing in width, branching out down the mountain. After about 20 minutes, the stuck truck got unstuck and made it across. Then another jeep tried and made it. Not to be outdone, our driver said he’d try. It was rough, with our jeep falling in and bouncing out of submerged holes in the path. We made it across without incident though, unless you count being stuck for a few seconds at the very end while some helpful observers quickly threw some rocks under our tires. All the vehicles made it across, with the exception of one car which was too small to attempt the crossing.

We drove along the lakeside for about five minutes, until we came to the village of Spangmik. We pulled up to the only official guesthouse, where our driver tried to negotiate a rate for us. However, seeing that we were foreigners, they quoted an exorbitant amount. Our driver pleaded with them to be reasonable and then I did with one of the English-speaking guys, but they wouldn’t budge. Refusing to pay such a ridiculous amount, we began driving back, our driver cursing them as dogs all the way. But just about 200 meters up the road, our driver stopped and yelled at a couple women in front of a small home. It turned out they had a couple spare rooms available, so we negotiated a rate. After checking out the rooms, we dropped off our bags, and headed out for walk. Pangong Tso is in a bowl of mountains, whose glacial runoff feeds the lake during the summer. Consequently, our walk (like our drive) traversed several streams, where we had to hop rock to rock to get across. The scenery was fantastic in a true sense of the word, which I hope my photos convey. A few interesting things about Pangong: 1. At 150 km long and 5 km wide, it is the largest brackish lake in Asia, which accounts for the countless dried-out shrimp shells that lined the beach. Shrimp were the last animal I expected to see in Ladakh. 2. It borders China, so although we were about 60 km from the border, we could see Tibet. In fact, the family we stayed with was half-Ladakhi and half-Tibetan. We got back to the house just as the sun was dropping below the mountains behind us, which was cool because we could see the shadows ascend the mountains across the lake.

We snacked on bowls of Maggie, which tided us over until dinner. Waiting for dinner, we watched the villagers end their days. Two little girls brought all the cows in, while a grumpy old man yelled at the goats. I thought to myself, “This is the farthest we’ll be from home.” A five hour drive from any town of significance, in a village of 60 people, powered by small solar panels on their roofs, and watching the farm animals returning to their pens. Dinner was simple. We sat along the perimeter of the room on their beds, which were straw mattresses on the floor. On the short tables in front of us, we were presented with dahl chavel (lentils and rice), some vegetables, and chapattis. The women just sat and watched us as we ate. It wasn’t too awkward though as one of them had a 15 month-old son, who was pretty entertaining to watch. I’ve never liked any butter tea that I’ve tried, but I thought maybe Ladakhi butter tea made with local Yak butter might be different- I still hate butter tea. Their black tea wasn’t much better, as I learned that Ladakhi’s add salt to their tea. Luckily dinner was pretty good. Despite leaving two full cups of tea, I cleaned up two full plates of food. After dinner we chatted for a half hour or so, until we realized they were waiting for us to finish before they would eat. So we headed to bed. The room looked so good when Joylani and I inspected it earlier in the day. But night was a different story, which I’ll let Joylani recount.

Pangong-Tso, some things Matt left out.
For the most part, Matt does a pretty good job capturing various events throughout our travels. This time he left out a few things that I found to be amusing, so I’ve taken it upon myself to fill in the details

We left the tour agency almost on time, impressive. Matt and the driver hit it off and were speaking broken English (driver) and Hindi (Matt) to each other. About 20 minutes later we made a pit-stop at a tire garage to have the spare tire fixed. Good. Our driver informed Matt that the jeep we were in was kharab, loosely translated: terrible. Not so good. As we waited he pointed out a field in the distance where some ammunition accidentally went off a couple weeks before. Nice. The tire was soon fixed and we were on our way again. The driver asked Matt if he wanted to drive. Matt replied (in Hindi), “No, they want to live,” pointing to us three women in the back. The driver laughed. He gave each passenger a Ladakhi name, Matt’s is the only one I can remember, Dorje. We had a somewhat uneventful drive the rest of the way to the lake, and listened to the same music tape about 10 times in a row.

Upon arrival at the lake, our driver helped us to find a place to stay for the night. Options were few and we settled on a family-run guesthouse: two bedrooms, a pantry, and a kitchen/restaurant. Our room had a little goat in it when we arrived. It was only about knee high (smaller than the one-year-old kid who was toddling around the place), and still figuring to what was edible and what was not, as evidenced from its attempts at eating rocks later that night. The driver opened the windows in our room, smiled, and said, “AC.” Matt and I laughed to each other. It was only 3 in the afternoon, but the mountain air was definitely already too cold to warrant any type of AC, natural or otherwise. The outhouse was down the hill, and washing could be done in the glacial stream since there was no running water. I will correct Matt in saying that the room looked good enough, not “looked so good,” as Matt put it. The place was quaint (adobe brick walls, sticks for the ceiling, and of course a picture of Lhasa, a staple of Tibeten decor), definitely had that “village feel,” and the goat was cute. Upon initial inspection there were no visible spiders, I didn’t see any fleas jumping around, and besides, where else would we stay?

the kitchen/dining room
One of the women in our jeep, Shella, a seemingly experienced traveler, had decided to sleep in the jeep instead of the house because, “I stayed in a place like that once and it ended up having fleas that I had the hardest time getting rid of.” She also told us a story about how a Doctor’s Without Borders co-worker had fallen into a latrine when the floor collapsed as she was using it. I let her stories get to me, and by nightfall I was feeling a little bit uneasy about our shelter decision, in addition to being afraid to go to the bathroom for fear of falling in. (The floor did seem a little unsteady.) Matt and I opted to share one twin-sized cot which we pulled out from the side of the wall into the middle of the room. (That’s my logic for making a bed less accessible to bugs, not sure if it actually works, but it makes me feel better.) I dressed for bed, wrapping a scarf around my hair, tucking my pants into my socks and my undershirt into my pants before climbing into my sleep sheet and then sleeping bag, pulling the drawstring tight to keep out any bugs. (If you haven’t caught on to this by now, I HATE bugs.) I awoke a couple hours later sweating from all my layers. That’s what he meant by the AC, I realized. Those mud buildings can get pretty warm inside. Bravely I consented to take off my long sleeve shirt and the socks, but I still tried to wrap myself as snuggly as possible in my sleeping bag. It was only midnight and I had 6 more hours to go until the sun brought its sweet relief from my nighttime paranoia.
Matt and I both had a rough night’s sleep, but thankfully we survived with little incident. There was an oversized grub-worm thing in one of the hotel provided blankets (luckily we had our own), and a few large insects that Matt heroically squished, but no fleas, bedbugs, or a single bite. Even still, morning brought a sense of calm as we emerged from our nighttime enclosure to the fresh outdoors. Breakfast was a simple affair: boiled eggs and chapattis with black tea (the unsalted variety) to wash it all down. I didn’t feel so bad that Matt didn’t finish his tea the night before when, after a couple bites, our driver made a sour face and said his Ladakhi breakfast tasted horrible. His meal consisted of hot yogurt, yak butter, and flour. No wonder it was gross. We laughed and headed for the jeep to settle in for the ride back to Leh.

This morning we woke up at 6:30 to get ready for our two-day trip to Pangong Tso, with our new friends Anderson, Liz, and Reannon. But when we got to our meeting point, we found out that they could not go because Reannon was beginning to experience some of the more severe symptoms of AMS. After chatting for a few minutes, Joylani and I went from tour-operator to tour-operator trying to see if anyone had any open seats going to Pangong Tso or the Nubra Valley. With all the jeeps having already left for the day, and a jeep to ourselves out of our budget, we were left with yet another day in Leh. But Leh isn’t so bad and we’re feeling more and more comfortable here. We have a handful of good restaurants and bakeries that we rotate for our meals and snacks. Joylani knows where to find her muesli with curd, while I know where to find day-old newspapers (two days old on weekends or if flights are disrupted). And while we send most of clothes out to be washed, Joylani went down to the stream to wash our socks where some other dhobis (who continually stared in amusement at us the whole time we were down there) wash clothes. And having been here for a week now, we know some people too. Its kind of cool running into other travelers we’ve met or Leh residents we’ve met walking around town. Even though we’re eager to get out and see some stuff, Leh is feeling more and more like home.

Matt found us a “home base” for while we’re in Leh. It’s a little hotel a pleasant ten-minute walk from the main part of town where the restaurants and shops are. I like it here because it is quiet, there is a nice view of the neighbor’s garden and surrounding mountains, and the water is SO HOT in the mornings. (Most hotels here have a water heater in the bathroom that you have to turn on 5-20 minutes before you bathe, and often the water, if it even gets hot, runs out before you’re done. Our hotel has one heater for all the rooms that gets turned on in the mornings and doesn’t run out until the afternoon, by which time we don’t need hot water anymore. (If we did, the hotel would bring us a bucket of hot water.) To make things even better, the hotel owner is very friendly and at night time guests gather in the restaurant lobby to talk and the owner sits with them and seems to be having a great time. To appreciate this, you have to realize that the type of hotels we have been staying at are small, about 8-15 rooms, and the price is always negotiable. The owner is often the guy you see sitting outside the lobby all day, and there is often at least one or two hotel staff (or servants) who take care of maintenance, etc. Sometimes the owner is very gruff and business-like, sometimes they are pushy, sometimes they are friendly, but rarely have I met one who truly seems to enjoy his job, such as this owner. It makes our little hotel such a happy place to stay. Being at one place over the course of our time in Leh is definitely a breath of fresh air after moving hotels every night or two. And the hot water isn’t bad either.

I’m discovering that one of my favorite aspects of long-term third-world travel is spontaneity. Traveling long-term frees us from any time constraints, while being in the third-world removes most budget constraints. Today is a perfect example. We met up with our friends Anderson, Liz, and Reannon (from the Manali-Leh jeep ride) for breakfast to discuss doing a jeep safari together later in the week. After a long breakfast full of conversation, we headed to a tour operator to book a jeep for two days later. After working out the details, the man asked us, “What are you doing today?”
“Uh, nothing really.” “We don’t have any plans.”
“Have you heard of Lamayuru?” he asked. He continued to tell us about the ancient monastery, along with the nearby ones at Alchi and Likir. “You can see all these today.”
I looked around at everyone in the group, “I’m down if you guys are down.”
Everyone echoed that sentiment to each other, “If you’re up to it, I am.”
“Dude, lets do it then.” Thirty minutes later, we were on our way to Lamayuru. Like the ride from Manali to Leh (and all of Ladakh for that matter), the scenery was amazing. We stopped briefly on the way to see where the Indus and Zanskar rivers merge, which was interesting and I only mention because the two rivers are different colors. Besides those things, we saw lots of military camps and a couple road-building camps. Although relatively far, the drive only took three hours, due to most of the road being paved. This is a result of the road passing through Kargil farther west, a town that sometimes receives a random shelling from Pakistan.

After driving through a region known as “moonland,” we arrived at Lamayuru. The valley was an oasis of green within the Martian landscape, with the gompa (monastery) perched atop a hill, only to be dwarfed by the surrounding ranges. In addition to being quite scenic, the monastery’s significance lies in that it’s the oldest in Ladakh, dating back to the 10th century. Stones with Tibetan or Ladakhi inscriptions were piled everywhere and the dozens of wooden prayer wheels still spun gracefully. I’m not a huge gompa enthusiast, so I’ll skip a lot of description. On the way back, we stopped at Alchi, renowned for some of the best Tibetan artwork in the world, which consisted of the entire interior being covered in paintings of Buddha. I was happy to just see one of those Tibetan sand “paintings.” I’m not sure what the real name for it was, but it was a circle of different colored sand organized into intricate patterns, designs, and pictures- amazing. The last gompa we visited, at Likir, was closed, but was incredible to look at nonetheless.
Although I skipped a lot, today was awesome. The best part of it all is that we weren’t going to do anything today. We were just gonna eat breakfast, book a jeep, and then try to kill two days. Instead of spending a non-eventful day in Leh, we saw new and amazing landscapes and thousand-year-old monasteries. I love spontaneity.

Our guidebook’s first two sentences about Leh couldn’t be truer: “If you’ve battled across the mountains by road, it’ll be with some relief that you’ll greet Leh. Here are all the restaurants, cozy guesthouses and services of recuperation that you’ve longer for, all in a stunning desert-and-mountain landscape.” We’ve been in Leh a couple days now, just resting and acclimatizing. Thankfully, Joylani is feeling much better and enjoying Leh. And although my stomach is still far from better, at least the altitude sickness has worn off and I’m not puking.
Sick or not, Leh is great. It’s an old city of approximately 30,000, although it seems smaller. I would assume that most of the population are villagers that live outside the main town. And old fort and gompa (Buddhist monastery) overlook the city from the mountain that the city is built on. Across the valley, snow-capped peaks rise up thousands of feet from Indus River. It was once a trading city nestled between Central Asia and the subcontinent, while today it is a strategic military town (given the disputed border with Pakistan to the north and China to the east). Despite the military checkpoints and the well-paved roads in the immediate area, the town is a maze of brick and wood. Rock walls delineate property boundaries, as well as line dozens of back-alleyways that cut through vegetable gardens and green fields of grain.
The Muslim and Buddhist population relies on traditional farming or adventure tourism for their livelihood. This accounts for the preponderance of 4×4 Jeeps and donkeys in the streets. In addition to learning about the different demographics here, compared to the rest of India, I’ve also noticed the different traveler demographics. Dharamsala attracted Tibetan refugees, Buddhist pilgrims, and younger hippies. Manali was full of Indian tourists and older resident hippies. Rather than hippies, Leh is full of older more affluent foreigners. Mainly the adventure types- alpinists, climbers, trekkers, and rafters- who come for the highest and most scenic mountains in the world. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of Europeans from the Alp regions- Swiss, Germans, Austrians, and French.
Despite the adventure tourism, Leh doesn’t feel too touristy. Perhaps that’s because it’s still a harsh place to visit. The overland route is only open a couple months a year, depending on when the high passes are open. The numerous guesthouses are simple, but all with large sun-collecting windows. The nights are cold even now in August. There’s a chronic water shortage, the electricity goes out several times everyday, and hot-water usually is provided via buckets. Despite the cold, Joylani and I have both gotten sunburned. Our lips are constantly chapped and peeling, and sometimes we get bloodcots when blowing our noses. On the upside, while our mouths and noses are parched day and night, the air dries our laundry extremely quickly, considering the cold. Reading back over the last paragraph, Leh may seem like a miserable place. But it’s nice and the small discomforts really aren’t that big of a deal.
There are an increasing number of amenities though. Last time I was in Leh, there were no ATMs or internet cafés. Now there are two ATMs and countless internet cafes. Phone calls to the US used to be about 1 USD per minute, but are now approximately .50 USD. Internet costs a little over 2 USD per hour though; about six times as much as the other places we’ve been in India. It’s nice to be out of touch with the world and the 24-hour news cycle though. Outside of some trips to remote villages that we’ll take during the next couple weeks, we’re about as remote as could be. Despite the ATMs, internet cafes, and tourist shops, Leh retains its small old-town feel. Older people, in traditional Ladakhi dress greet us (“Jule”) as we walk down the street. Stacks of sticks and wood can be seen throughout town, stockpiled until needed for winter. Numerous dhobis can be found throughout town, washing and rinsing clothes in the polluted stream (polluted because beyond clothes soap, it collects litter and piss).
As I write this in the courtyard of our guesthouse, I can see our dhobi hanging our river-washed clothes on the clothesline string between trees. A neighbor just walked through with a basket of lettuce to sell at the main bazaar. The houseboy is sweeping the walkway with a “broom” made of sticks. Thinking about my old job at a brokerage and then looking around this courtyard, I realize I couldn’t be farther away from home.

Matt and I decided to take a jeep from Manali to Leh. The total estimated time for the trip is 18 hours. Going by jeep is still quicker than the bus, which takes 2 days, and we were able to secure front seats in the jeep so that we (Matt) could take better photos along the way.

Our trip was set to being at 2:00 in the morning with a pick-up from our hotel. Matt and I groggily checked out of our hotel to realize we were on a pedestrian only street, and wondered where our ride would be picking us up. As we stood in the deserted street with our big packs on, two patrolling police stopped to question Matt while I giggled quietly to myself.

Police: “Hello. What are you doing?”

Matt: “Uh, we’re waiting for our jeep to Leh.”

Police: “Have you already booked your ticket?”

Matt: “Yes, we have it.”

I found this to be funny because it was 2 o’clock in the morning on a street that did not allow cars. What did the policeman think we were going to do if we hadn’t booked a ticket? Hail a cab and ask them to drive us 18 hours north? It seemed obvious to me that if we said we were waiting for a jeep that we would have already booked our ticket. The police continued on down the road and a few minutes later our “pick-up,” a runner for the taxi company, came to let us know we had to walk 40 yards down the street to the bus stand where all the jeeps were waiting.

At about 2:15am we found our jeep among several others and our driver loaded up all the bags on top, covering them with a tarp. And then we waited to leave. The front and middle rows in the jeep are forward facing bench seats which “fit” three and four people respectively. The back of the jeep has two side facing bench seats that fit four more people. Including the driver there were 11 of us, a full car. We stood outside the car, watching a group of men (possibly other drivers or tour operators?) who were talking and sharing a bottle of beer as we waited for a sign that we would leave soon. About an hour later a man in a white kurta on a motorbike (who seemed to be in charge of the beer) looked at us and enthusiastically announced it was time for us to get in the jeep. Thankfully he was not a driver.

We settled in for the long ride ahead. I thought maybe I could get some sleep but was quite wrong. From the beginning the ride was very bumpy as we drove over dirt roads and rocks (an old riverbed perhaps?). Sitting in the front provided a good view of the road ahead and I could see that although the ride was bumpy, the driver was avoiding the big potholes in the road. One word kept repeating through my mind as I made out the narrow road ahead and the cliff to the edge: precarious. I couldn’t believe that I would be sitting in a jeep with no seatbelts (sorry mom) for the next 18 hours traversing roads like this. We crossed more rocks, honked at a few nocturnal cows, and made our way over little waterfalls as we drove up the mountain. About 30-40 minutes into the drive I heard a loud pop followed by a quick rush of air. A flat tire. Already. Luckily the jeeps to Leh travel caravan style and a couple jeeps stopped to help as our driver put on the extra tire.

For the next few hours I tried to sleep, waking up every now and then as we drove through a bumpy patch or if my head bobbled to one side, either hitting Matt’s head, the window, or falling backwards (no headrest) giving me a mild jolt. As the daylight broke I slowly woke up to the most beautiful gray and green mountain side, leading to a valley below. Little horses grazed along the side of the road, and gentle waterfalls trickled down the side of the mountain and over the road on its way down to the river below. At this point Matt began taking an endless stream of pictures, and I will let him (and the photos) finish the story of our drive through the ever changing and very majestic Himalayas.

Originally, I was thinking about breaking the aforementioned jeep ride story into multiple blog entries. There are so many angles I could take with it. I could describe what Joylani ended her entry with, the indescribable scenery and landscapes we drove through. Perhaps I could make it a story about transportation in India, which might even be more indescribable than the landscapes. Or I could write about how sick and miserable I was during the last five or six hours. All would be good stories in themselves, but I feel an obligation to write about everything in the same entry- I will explain my reasons at the end of the story.

Joylani left off when she woke up around dawn, just as an unseen morning sun was illuminating the magnificent high-altitude pass and accompanying valley of Rohtang-La. We rolled down the windows to take photos and breathe in the crisp morning air of the Himalayas. It was refreshing after three hours of sleepless bouncing around in the jeep and only about 45 minutes of sleep the night before. I’m not sure why I couldn’t sleep that night- perhaps it was the anticipation of finally going to someplace I’ve dreamed of returning to for the past three years. As we descended from Rohtang-La into a bottomless valley, my dreams of returning to the Great Himalayas were realized. We were in the midst of a landscape unparalleled anywhere on earth. After two weeks of being sick and largely unimpressed, Joylani was truly mesmerized. After chaotic Delhi, interesting Dharamsala, and scenic Manali, we were finally seeing and experiencing something extraordinary. Joylani did a good job of describing Rohtang-La, although even this photo does not do the place justice.

After we turned the last switchback and reached a small village at the bottom of the valley, we stopped for a break. After handing our passports to the driver, who needed them for the checkpoint, we stepped out into the beautiful morning. Next to the river, we looked up at the mountains we had just descended to see dozens of waterfalls and small streams cascading and trickling down to the river. It was amazing to the see their paths cut through the green-covered mountains from the snow-capped peaks and glaciers all the way down to where we were.

After admiring God’s creation for a few minutes, I asked someone where I could find a bathroom. It turned out that there were no bathrooms in the village; the bathroom was “open.” Familiar with “open” already, I walked up above the village where I found a clump of bushes I could squat behind. It was hardly private, but at least I could go. In fact, while I sat there doing my business, another foreigner came scrambling up the hill, frantically looking for a place to relieve his Delhi-belly. Seeing I already had the spot, he frustratedly ran further up the hill. It made me laugh. Meanwhile, Joylani had found a spot below the village to go. She popped a squat and did her thing, but right as she finished a man popped out of an unseen hut and scolded her, “Here NOT bathroom.” (note from Joylani: it wasn’t an unseen hut, I just didn’t care because I had to pee!) Having stretched, relieved ourselves, and passports checked, we were soon herded back into the jeep for another few hours.

We drove along the meandering river for awhile, as the sky grew brighter. The sun’s rays angled farther and farther down, until the sun itself finally peaked over the mountains. As Joylani mentioned though, this wasn’t a leisurely scenic drive in the country. This part of the road was unpaved, like the majority of the drive. But, as Joylani said, our young driver skillfully maneuvered around potholes and large rocks. It was still extremely bumpy, as any dirt and rock road would be, but we were in the front seat and seeing the incredible.

At around 7:30 am, we stopped for breakfast at another extremely small village (several tents and a couple food stalls). Between momos, fried egg, and maggi (like a saucy top-ramen), I chose fried eggs. I love momos, but not having seen any agriculture or poultry for hours, I decided against them (good thing because some other people in our jeep ordered them and hated them). That’s one thing I hate about the remote parts of the Himalaya- there’s never any good food. Even worse, it always the same bad food: maggi or fried eggs. My eggs were greasy and oily and tasted pretty bad. But at the same time, it was an amazing moment in time. Over the past two years, whenever I was frustrated at work, I would always think about what I’d be doing once we were on this trip. And we were finally living one of my daydreams. We were sitting in some remote part of the mountains, sipping chai, enjoying the clean and crisp mountain air, together. Although the eggs were gross and I was really starting to feel tired, what could be better?

Additionally, we talked to and began to get to know another couple that was in our jeep, Anderson and Liz. Married, from Iowa, and a year or two older than us, they are almost a year into their around-the-world trip. They were traveling with their cousin Reannon, too. It was cool talking to them at breakfast, throughout the entire jeep ride, and even during our stay in Leh, because I feel we could really identify with each other. We talked about moving out of our apartments, what we did before, what we’d like to do in the future, where we’ve all been and would like to go, budgets, and so forth. We continued talking throughout the day.

The day, however, had hardly begun. We’d been on the road for about five hours, it was only 8am, and we had at least another 12 hours ahead of us. Despite being extremely tired, the bumpy ride kept me pretty awake the entire day. Once, I began to nod off, when my head fell down to the left and banged hard against the partially open window. With a bruise just to the left of my eye, I tried to stay awake. The bumpiness and winding roads took a heavier toll on others in the jeep. A couple times, we stopped so Liz could jump out and hurl. I felt bad for her- feeling sick on such an incredible ride. I guess it could’ve been worse though, as a guy in another jeep in our caravan got barfed on. As the day stretched on, Joylani and I rotated between the middle seat (cramped by the stick shift) and the window seat. The scenery was continually amazing, although I’ll spare you the play-by-play (“and then we came across this incredible valley…then we saw the most amazing mountains…”). Instead, I’ll attempt to entertain you with some photos of every obstacle we came across. (Joylani: As you can see, this ain’t no I-5)

Traffic

Stream over the road

Cows

Goats

Road-Building

Pack Horses

Photo opp

Bridge repair

High passes

Curvy Roads and Hairpin Turns

Unpaved Roads

No roads

Broken clutch

Stuck in sand

Helping others

By the early afternoon, everyone in the car was sleeping except me. I couldn’t fall asleep and a headache began to build as we snaked our way up to the second high-pass of the day, this one over 5000 meters. Partly from not sleeping and partly from going from 2000 meters to 5000 meters so quickly, I felt miserable at the top. I felt a little bit better as we descended, but then all the bumping around in the car began to get to me. Others in the car had been noticeably sick throughout the day, probably since they were sitting closer to the rear. Joylani, luckily though, who had been sick for days before, only felt a little light headed. I was glad she was finally feeling better and kind of amazed that she was doing so well. And I was surprised that I was feeling so bad. In the past, I’ve usually been the one that isn’t affected as much by altitude, compared to my friends. But it was a reminder of how little I was. As if the scale of the Himalayas all day didn’t remind me of that, the altitude certainly humbled me. We were not conquering the mountains by summiting the high passes or getting through them- we were simply enduring them.

The last major stop on the Manali-Leh “road” is Pang, which is not much more than a cluster of tents offering food and accommodation on a temporarily dry river flood plain. I got out of my jeep, found out that obviously the bathroom was “open,” and headed for the other side of the road embankment. Next to the river, with a small hill behind me, I popped a squat. Having been healthy most of the trip, but barely eating anything all day, my GI tract had finally succumbed to the subcontinent. As I sat there, feeling sick, I then puked. I finished up my business and then walked over to the river, where on hands and knees, I expelled all the water and Marie Gold biscuits I’d been consuming all day. After washing off, I headed back to the jeep to sit and rest. It was about two minutes before I was back by the river diarrhea-ing and puking some more. As I was lightening my load, I thought about how sick I felt. But looking around, I was in a beautiful place. I guess this was the price of admission to such an amazing place. The cold water felt good as I washed my hands and face, although the cold was biting as I trudged back to the jeep.

After Pang, we began our ascent up to Taglang-La, our final high-pass. I was fearing this one, as it was the second-highest in the world at 17,582 feet. Last time I was in Leh, I traversed this pass and felt sick despite having already acclimatized. This time, I was already feeling sick and had started the day at a mere 6700 feet. Of course, before we got to the pass, our clutch went out, which took a good 20-30 minutes for our driver to fix. (Joylani: fixing the clutch meant our driver had to lay beneath the car to fiddle with the stick while one of the other drivers got in his seat and teased our driver by slowly rolling the car forward, eliciting (presumably) a string of Hindi curse words from our driver and lots of laughs from the everyone else. Our driver emerged covered in grease the first time, the second time covered in powdery sand.) Not long after that, another jeep in our caravan got stuck in the sand of the high desert plateau, and our jeep’s clutch went out again. Travel in India rarely goes as planned and although I’ve pushed my fair share of buses and had plenty of vehicles break down mid-journey, this was the worst. Since Pang, my headache had only worsened, probably due to the fact that we were continually driving between 10-15,000 feet. Being stopped in cold desert with a terrible headache, while trying to help lodge rocks under tires and push a jeep was only prolonging our journey. After 45 minutes to an hour, we were on the road again. Well, figuratively speaking, as we were basically driving across an open plain.

We did end up reaching the pass, where we stopped for a couple minutes. Just long enough for Joylani to take one of the coldest pees of her life (“open bathroom”) and to take a quick picture next to the Taglang-La sign. I think everyone in the jeep was feeling the altitude, a bit of car-sickness, and the cold. As we descended down towards Leh, my headache eased, although I only focused on trying not to throw-up for the next three hours. When we finally did stop about three hours later (about an hour from Leh), the altitude was still hurting. While our driver had hopped out for a quick snack, everyone else stayed in the car, too tired or sick to get out. I stepped out and puked all the water I had drunk the past couple hours right there next to the front tire. I then walked behind a wall, since of course this small town only had “open” bathroom. Puking next to the jeep at that snack stop was one of my most miserable moments. I can’t remember if I’ve ever continually puked and had the runs simultaneously. And if I have, it hasn’t been at least an hour’s bumpy jeep ride away from a place to stay, with altitude and sleep-deprivation working against me.

The last hour of the ride went by fairly quickly. We got into town, haggled with too many hoteliers, finally found a place, and quickly passed out leaving my throbbing headache behind. And that was our day. Our ride lasted from 3 am until 9 pm. And although we only traversed a 475 km, our ride spanned 3278m in altitude. While the first two-thirds of the ride were pure excitement, the last five hours were miserable. Despite this, the last leg of the trip was still filled with new and sublime landscapes. And despite my feeling sick, Joylani’s exhaustion, a flat tire, a broken clutch, and getting stuck in the desert, we made it. We endured the journey and we made it. We didn’t do anything, but sit (and bounce), but we still arrived in Leh with a sense of accomplishment.

The reason I feel obligated to write only one entry rather than split it up by topics, is that this is how it was. To write just about the landscape and focus on the scenery, without the sickness and rigors of travel, would be to idealize the journey, and travel in general. To focus on just the bad would be to neglect everything that can be appreciated, even under difficult circumstances. And to entirely focus on or neglect the standard of transportation wouldn’t be telling the story at all. I can honestly say that that overland journey was the best and worst I’ve ever embarked on. The question obviously is then: Is it worth feeling miserable to see the unimaginable? I would say so, within reason of course. One of my favorite authors, Paul Theroux, has written that travel is rarely comfortable. And I tend to agree, travel is often tough. But if comfort were our first priority and our focus, we’d never see anything truly awesome. We probably wouldn’t visit Asia, certainly not India, and never go on such a crazy jeep ride. But we did. We sacrificed our comfort for a day, just a day, and saw things we couldn’t imagine and will never forget.