Alex's Asian Adventure

I am in Leh, the capital of old Ladakh. Ladakh is in the eastern part of Jammu & Kashmir, in northern India. This city has been here for probably a thousand years, and is a confluence of three major cultural groups:

• Buddhist Ladakhis, who owe their culture largely to Tibet, although they speak a different language.
• Muslims from Kashmir, west of Ladakh
• Hindus from the rest of India (a very small minority).

For hundreds of years, these groups have coexisted peacefully, although it seems like over the past few years (under 10) there has been increasing acrimony, perhaps because of the fact that India is sabre-rattling with Pakistan and the Kashmir area (ie around Srinagar) is a bit of a powder keg at times.

Leh itself is a backpacker mecca. There are hordes of Israeli backpackers everywhere, and they all seem to dress like hippies. The Israelis in China certainly didn't seem to dress like this. I guess if you come to India to do drugs (and almost every Israeli backpacker openly claims to have this purpose) then you should dress the part, too.

Anyway, Leh is great. The old part of the city (aka "Old Leh"), where I've been spending all my time, is a hub of shops selling Tibetan antiques, pashmina shawls, rugs, jewellery, etc. There is a central mosque and a Buddhist temple right in the centre of town, perhaps 100m from each other. Over them, on a hill, is an old palace modeled after the Potala in Lhasa, although this palace is (I think) about 50 years older. There's also a gompa and a fort. We climbed up there today for some terrific views of the city and of Stok Kangri on the other side of the valley.

Speaking of Stok Kangri: I leave tomorrow. I've changed the plans a little bit, in that instead of going for 3 days I will be going for 4. This affords a margin of safety, and means that the climbing will be a bit more spaced out and therefore a bit less brutal on a daily basis. However, I still have to climb to the same elevation regardless of whether I do it in 3 days or 4, and there's no way to make a 6k peak "easy".

I should be back to Leh on the 4th of July, and hopefully have a summit party with Kim and whoever else is still in town at the time. I fly to Delhi on the 5th, where I will be picked up at the airport and whisked to Agra to see the Taj Mahal up-close & personal. After a night in Agra, I come back to Delhi for a night, and then back to Canada.

Okay, so I now have a bit of time to actually write in the blog instead of rushing off for dinner. I've been keeping a paper journal of the trek and I'll probably reproduce it electronically (edited for content!) to allow others to live vicariously through me.

The trek was 21 days of actual walking, starting at Darcha (near Keylong) in Himachal Pradesh and ending in Panjila in Ladakh. We were supported by 6 crew (guides, cooks and helpers), 7 horsemen, and 37 horses and ponies to carry the gear. Plus, there was Kim & Joel to lead everything. We crossed the main Himalaya barrier by way of the Shingo La (5100m or so), went down into Zanskar, the Land of White Copper, crossed Zanskar into Ladakh through the Takti La, and ended up in Leh, the old capital of Ladakh. On the way, we climbed over 8 passes, all but one of which were at least 4600m and three of three of which were above 5000m. We went through Zanskari and Ladakhi villages, interacted with the locals, drank lots of chai, and soaked in the Himalayan culture.

The trek is impossible to adequately describe in a few short sentences. You are surrounded day & night by stunning mountain scenery - snow-capped peaks, glacial moraines, remote villages. You wake up in the morning, unzip your tent door, and have to do a double-take because you're staring at a sunrise over multi-coloured peaks or a snow-capped mountain range or something. And the day just gets better from there. After a day of trekking, you come to camp, set up your tent, and eat a gigantic dinner in the dining tent.

This is not to say that it's all fun & games. There are a lot of strenuous walking days, and a lot of very scary exposed terrain. For instance, when we walked through Bear Valley we had to cross a steep skree field, with practically no trail, over a river. A slip on the skree and no self-arrest would likely be fatal, as you bounce down the skree, over some rocks, and into a shallow river. And, the trail is totally safe (ie, most of the time) you're often walking uphill, climbing over a pass, huffing & puffing. If that wasn't enough, lots of people on the trip suffered from some sort of ailment, be it altitude, indigestion, a cold, or a stiff, painful & immobile back. By the end of the trek you are tired, your body has been through a lot and you need a rest.

I'm back in Leh for two days of rest, shopping and mental prep for the climb of Stok Kangri, the biggest peak in the area at 6123m. I can see it from town: snow-covered and dominating, by far the most impressive pile of rocks near town. I leave in July 1st with Lobsang (one of the guides, a first-class shit-disturber, and an incredibly strong climber and guide), and we'll spend three days going up & down the peak. I should be back in Leh on July 3rd to celebrate my first 6k peak. Then, it's a quick saunter to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and then back to the real world in Toronto. Sometime after that I'll retype my journal with day-to-day details of the trek for those who want to see. If you do want to see, please post a comment saying so.

The trek was awesome. Everything's a-okay. Stok Kangri in a few days. More update later.

This morning we got in jeeps, again, and went for a drive to Keylong, a stop on the way to our roadhead at Darcha (tomorrow's destination). The road to Keylong is a winding mountain path that's partly paved and partly crap. It goes over the Rohtang Pass, one of the weirdest places I've ever seen. It bears elaboration.

The Rohtang Pass is about 60km north of Manali, and is a huge tourist destination for Indians. It is close to civilization and they can play in the snow! On the way up you pass countless shops selling three things:

• Fur-like coats in all kinds of strange colours and patterns, like leopard skin and neon green.
• Old-looking ski suits.
• "Snow shoes" that are, in reality, rubber overboots - a poor man's Sorel boot.

When you get to the top of the pass, you find hordes of Indian tourists parading around in their leopard skin furs and their snow shoes, all over the dirty, nasty snow. Between the snow banks you find a lot of brown mud, so it's not exactly in a scenic location. There are horses that drag sleds up the snowbanks for Indian tourists to toboggan. There are snowmobiles that you can ride. There are even skis you can pose on with a mountain backdrop. The whole thing is really, really surreal.

Anyway, once you cross the Rohtang Pass the scenery changes dramatically and the Indian tourists disappear completely. Instead of lush forest of the Kullu Valley (where Manali is located) you see rugged mountains and alpine scenery - bushes, grass, etc. Not many trees. This region is called Lahaul, and stands right before the main Himalaya range. On either side of the Lahaul valley you see countless snow-covered 6000m peaks. One of the peaks here reminded me of Mt. Edith Cavell near Jasper, a very striking peak - gorgeous. It's a pretty incredible drive to Keylong.

Keylong, a ways down the Lahaul valley, is the capital of the region and feels a lot like a very small town. Population of maybe a few thousand. The women here dress in a distinctive purple & gold costume - very pretty. The place is laid back. Our hotel overlooks the river next to town, and has great views of a few 6000m peaks, one of which looks vaguely like the Matterhorn. Wow.

Tonight we stay in Keylong, and tomorrow we'll go for a climb up to Keylong Gompa, on the other side of the river. I'm looking forward to doing a bit of hiking after all these days in Hong Kong, Delhi and Manali. In the afternoon we're driving to the end of the road at Darcha, where we get to meet our crew and our homes for the next few weeks: a collection of Marmot tents!

The trek itself is going to be about 300km and ends in Leh, the capital of Ladakh. From there Joel & I are heading down to the nearby village of Stok where we'll climb Stok Kangri, 6122m. I'm back in Delhi on July 4th, and back in Canada July 7th.

There is no 'net access between here and Leh, except maybe at Purne (though I somehow doubt it). I even hear that access in Leh is sketchy. In other words... no posts for a while.

At around 7 PM last night Katie & I boarded our Toyota Qualis (or whatever) to get to Manali. The schedule was that we would arrive at around 8ish and have the day to tool around town here. No problem. The only downside is that it's harder to sleep on a jeep.

Our driver, Darminder, was Punjabi. He had the unenviable task of driving all night, and with Indian driving being crazy as it is, the addition of darkness and crappy roads doesn't help matters at all. The driver likes Punjabi music, which is very repetitive, shrill, and makes you want to superglue your ears shut. Horrible.

At around 1:30 AM, Katie was sleeping in the back and I was trying to stay awake in the front seat. The driver (whose name escapes me) asked politely that one of us stay awake with him, otherwise none of us get to Manali. I was scheduled to be up until 2:00 AM. We're driving along right near the border of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Suddenly I hear THUNK followed by repetitive thunk-thunk-thunk from the area of the left rear wheel. Driver says "puncture" which is evidently the Hindi word for "puncture". Crap.

We get out and change the tire. Not a big deal. Driverman gets all worried, though, and decides it's critical to find a place to repair the flat immediately - and this is in the middle of nowhere, in India, late at night. Fuck. I convince him that it's not essential, given that we have what looks like a perfectly good spare. It just needs some air, and we get it.

Well, the driver knew more than I did. We drive along a bit more, he gets more and more nervous. He starts yammering "big problem" and "not good" and "horrible night" and things like that. It appears that his spare is.... not really good at holding air. We're now in a town very close to the Himachal/Haryana border when he gets out to show me the tire, now lower in air and hissing. This is when I realize that this shit is no fun at all. Katie gets up to look. The decision is made to stay: we'll sleep in the jeep.

I should point out a few things about this location:

• The most distinctive feature of the town is a truck stranded in the middle of the main road, on blocks, with its rear axle also on the road and the differential in pieces all around.
• Everyone is asleep, but there are two places within spitting distance that can repair a flat - if only their staff were present.
• This is India, a malarial area, and none of us are taking antimalarials (because their side effects involve dreams about Hannibal Lecter, or worse). Malaria-carrying mosquitos only bite at night. It is now 2 AM.
  

We get what we need from the back and jump in the car, which is now infested with mosquitos. Katie & I decide that it's important to make the night more miserable by spraying DEET on exposed skin. You gotta love the smell of DEET.

I spent the next 5 hours or so attemping to sleep in the front passenger seat, contorted into a pretzel, while Katie was looking rather comfortable in the back seat. There were three bodies in a small space. The windows are rolled up (although by this point the mosquiots that were inside earlier are either gone or dead). The place is stuffy. Hot. Horrible. I got out a few times to breathe air, and the difference is unbelievable - although sleeping with windows open is totally out of the question.

The bottom line is that I got roughly an hour of sleep distributed into 5-10 minute catnaps. Of the last four nights, I have slept soundly... once.

In the morning, I had a good look at the punctured wheel and the spare, as they were both being fixed. In Canada, these wheels would both be considered garbage - in fact, the blowout on the "real" wheel is unserviceable in Canada since we use tubeless tires. However, in India they use tubes and the hole in the tube was actually quite small. The tube and tire were patched, no problem. The spare, also, had tubes -and also had some nails stuck in the tread, and a leaky valve, and looks like some pretty severe cracking. Again, I don't understand how one can use such a tire at all, but it was fixed and away we went.

We finally got to Manali at around 3:00 PM. Manali is a town overrun with Indian tourist kitsch and Israeli ex-army types looking for pot. Both pot and kitschy souveniers are in plentiful supply, I understand. The nice thing is that this place is situated at around 1900m, and it's quite cool here. It's a welcome relief from the scorching heat and humidity of Delhi.

Tomorrow we leave for Keylong, by way of the Rohtang Pass, which is supposed to be a place where Indian tourists go to throw snowballs at each other. Beyond the Rohtang Pass is Keylong, Darcha, and the trek. I hear there is internet access in Keylong, so I'll try to put up an update from there if time permits. If not, the next update might not be for quite a while.

I suppose there's good news and there's bad. The good news is that the day was actually rather nice! The bad is that I didn't get a wink of sleep the night before, or for reasons unknown. I got up after a fitfull night feeling like a million rupees and likely looking the part as well. Coffee cures all. Move on with my life.

Around noon I decided that it was no use feeling tired and went sightseeing. Delhi has a number of interesting gems to see. I saw the following cool places:

• Rajghat, Ghandi's memorial park, including the spot where he was cremated. There is an eternal flame there. There's also a nearby museum, very nice.
• The Lakshmi Temple, which is a wonderful Hindu temple - very peaceful and very pretty and just a very nice spot.
• Jama Masjid, the giant mosque in the old part of Delhi - Hindus and Muslims seem to have no trouble living together in India, although the relations between India and Pakistan are anything but friendly....
• The Indian government area, and the massive India Gate. From the government compound looking down, it seems like it might as well be the Arc de Triomphe!

To do all this sightseeing, I was going to get rides as I went in the local tuk-tuks. As I was stepping off to find myself a ride to the Red Fort (something of a letdown I must say) I was intercepted by.... the tuk-tuk driver I chatted with the night before! I said "allright, lets go" and I had my own personal tour guide or the day. It was real nice. I had no idea what I wanted to see, so Lakhan basically set the agenda and showed me very nice places. He also found good places to eat and drink tea - it helps to have a local expert.

It seems that I found a tuk-tuk driver who's honest and dependable. At the end of the day, we came back to the hotel and it was time to discuss what this adventure would cost. He kept insisting that I pay whatever I thought was fair - and I had no really good idea of what was fair. It turns out, in the end, that my ballpark of 500 rupee was close to his ballpark of 600. I got the tour guide for six hours, with transpotation, for only 600 rupees.

Another amazing thing about Lakhan is that he's illiterate, but seems to be able to speak English (reasonably well). What blew my mind, though, was when we encountered a pair of Japanese tourists and he was actually able to speak a bit of Japanese. This is an Indian man, a native of the country who grew up with nothing and never - ever - attended school. And yet, he seems to have a very good sense of ethical conduct (as a tuk-tuk driver who doesn't rip tourists off), seems to pick up languages easily, and seems to be a nice guy to boot. Amazing.

The evening was spent at dinner with most of the trekking crew. We have quite the diverse group, with three doctors, a few university-types, a retired lawyer (currently teaching) and a few others whose background I haven't identified. The majority are Americans (including one fellow who's very, very obviously American - ahem!). The age range is 23-60ish. I sense that subgroups are starting to develop and it'll be curious to see how the group dynamics pan out. More on this later. Maybe.

Tomorrow is another almost-full day in Delhi. We leave for Manali at six-ish - Katie & I are going by landcruiser. I'm hoping to do a bit more sightseeing in the evening before the long trip. There should be internet access in Manali, and I understand there's some access in Keylong (where we stay the next day). After that, it becomes sketchy.

Just days from now, I'll be in the Himalayas with sun in my eyes and a smile on my face.

I flew to Delhi last night. This is an event because the flight was, without any doubt, the most fun flight I've been on in my memory. I had an exit-row seat (legroom!) and the person sitting next to me turns out to be a ladies fashion designer from Paris. She's half-Indian, half-Brit. We were the fun-loving section of the plane for sure, and with Air India serving free wine on the flight the conversation went smoothly and much fun was had by all.

On landing, my plane-mate Nupur invited me to go party with her and her friends that night in Delhi. She's staying at a super-posh hotel on the other side of town. I said "maybe"

Joel picked me up at the airport - I finally met the illustrious Joel Schone. He seems like a fun-loving guy, very experienced, knows the way around town. I told him about this plane-mate and I think he was a bit surprised atmy willingness to actually go out given that we got to the hotel at nearly midnight Delhi time. Close to 1 AM I got myself a driver, and went over to see what Nupur was up to. Joel must think I'm a loose cannon - which is probably not far from the truth.

Oh man was she ever surprised that I actually turned up. The party wasn't really much of a party - just her and her friend sitting in the hotel room eating room service food. Mmmmm... But hey, this was a genuine Experience and that's what I'm after. I left pretty quickly and my driver waited for me outside the hotel. Very convenient.

On the way back I told the driver to swing by the airport, hoping that I'd be able to catch Joel there waiting for Katie (who was coming in on a later flight). No cigar. By the time I got to the airport they were already gone, so we connected back at the hotel.

This morning, after a fitful night of not sleeping well given the malfunctioning aircond Katie & I hit the town a bit. We both had errands, most important of which for me was picking up my duffel of expedition gear from Druk. In the process, I make the following observations:

• Indian people are super-aggressive about getting you to do business with them. Much worse than China.
• The pace of life here is very rough & tumble - not chill a la Lijiang or Lhasa.
• Driving is even more nuts than anywhere in China. There are tuk-tuks everywhere. I don't know how drivers survive.
• People here will mislead you and give you wrong directions and don't seem to care that you don't want to talk to them or want their help.
• There are lots of beggars. They are also super-aggressive. Giving them money or food just invites more beggars and sets the wrong incentive.
• There is a Scotiabank in town. This warmed my heart, even though it's a competitor.
• The food is simply amazing. Amazing! I love it.

Incidentally, this morning a very helpful Indian fellow helped Katie & I find some breakfast in our hotel's area. Just now I ran into him again outside my hotel (Katie is out meeting another friend) and we chatted for some time. He's a tuk-tuk driver and he seems to be one of the very few people around who are not super-aggressive about getting your business. We just chatted for half an hour. He and his brother run a small travel shop and work as taxi drivers. He offered to take Katie & I to see the town tomorrow, essentially by private car. I'll see what Katie thinks. He would also be able to take me to Agra to see the Taj when I come back from the trek

One of the things he said is that Delhi is not a malaria-risky. Instead, Delhi has lovearia. Don't be afraid of mosquitos - love is in the air! I am not making this up. It'd be good to verify if what he's saying is true....

On Sunday we are heading to Manali by private landcruiser. I'm super-excited. Beware that after Monday I will almost certainly have no internet access until I am in Leh around July 1st.

I'm sitting here at the Hong Kong Airport, killing time. One of the neat places in Hong Kong is a chain of coffee shops called The Pacific Coffee Company. Aside from expensive coffee ($2.80 or so for a cup of plain coffee - London prices for sure) they have computers at every outlet and if you buy a drink you can use them. They have an outlet at the airport, computers & all. The point is that I can waste more time in front of a computer.

On the topic of Hong Kong is Bigger than Life, I got to see the Hong Kong harbour today. The new Hong Kong airport (opened in '97 or '98 I believe) is bloody remote, and the most sensible way to get to it is by the airport bus, which is slower than the airport train but also much more scenic. Anyway, this bus goes by the container terminals of the Hong Kong harbour. The scale of this place defies description. There are containers and container ships literally as far as the eye can see. Thousands of them. Billions of dollars worth of cargo. How they manage to get this stuff sorted out is beyond me. I wonder how many illegal Chinese migrants hide in the containers planning to make a long journey to greener pastures...

Also, Mike "Tortellini" Tersigni pointed out that apparently part of Hong Kong's airport is built on man-made land. Hong Kong has a large land reclamation program in place. They literally extend islands by dumping clean fill into the sea, packing it down, etc. For example, the tallest building in Hong Kong, the International Finance Centre (building #2 of that to be precise) is built on reclaimed land. I think the fact that part of this (very large, very beautiful) airport is built on a man-made island is pretty cool. The only other case I'm aware of where something like this was done is in Osaka, where the Kanzai airport is built on a 100% man-made island - not simply an extension to an existing island. It's a marvel of engineering.

Something like that is also done on a small scale in Toronto, at the Leslie Street Spit, except the Spit is not used as space for an airport.

Not much else to say, really. My flight is in two hours. I'll be meeting Joel at Delhi's airport, and he'll take me to our hotel. Tomorrow I'm going to try to find ways to escape from Delhi's oppressive heat. At this time next week, I will be in the mountains!