Till The End of The Land

So I'm in the back of the truck, and the girl next to me just finished throwing up, but that doesn't stop the youth guide from keeping on chanting the local songs with the kids.
Wait, let me backtrack for a minute so this doesn't sound like a scene from a Kusturica movie.

It all started because of Adam. I haven't seen Adam since my pre-army volunteer year, when we were both working for the SPNI. And now, naturally, he's here - in Ladakh. The jagged mountains and inviting natives attract a big crowd of trekkers, and ex-SPNI members are a major target group for that kinda thing. We first meet in The Jewish House, a Chabad-esque organization that operates tourist houses across the globe, though unlike the Chabad House phenomena, the organization isn't affiliated with a specific branch of Judaism, and so the tone is set in each house according to the family operating the place. In Leh's case, we are talking about a bizzaro Kabbalah oriented family on a four month mission from Tzfat. The house provides workshops during weekdays about various religious and spiritual subjects, but I guess the main attraction is Friday night dinner, when a Kiddush is held, and pretty much all of the Israeli crowd in town (which is a hell of allot) comes over to pray, say "Shabbat Shalom" and enjoy a free hot meal along with some light missionary work on the hosting family's part. Adam's been in India for several months now, and was in Nepal before that, and this is his last week here. Although I'm thrilled to see him again, I soon get the same feeling of meeting a work friend, or simply an acquaintance from a very certain point in your life - once you get past the formalities and the joy of reunion, you find you don't really have that much to talk about. But it's still fun to hear about the guys from Adam's group, and where they are today (including the one that found religion, got married and moved to Tzfat meanwhile), and filling him up about what my guys are up to these days.
The next time I see Adam is three days later, just before his departure south towards Delhi, and I can see that his time was well spent, by his burnt skin, stubble and horrible stench. And that's how I hear about Pangong Tso. Although the name sounds familiar from my Lonely Planet guide, you have to be careful about what you pick from that book, since allot of times major disappointments would be highlighted whereas hidden gems would be completely absent from mention. In this case, however it seems that both guide and traveler are in agreement.

Since the lake (Tso means lake here, by the way) is located on the Chinese border - part of it actually lying in China - a special permit is needed in order to allow access to the region. Also, not wanting to hire a private Jeep to get there (for frugal and sentimental reasons both) I decided to look into the local bus scene. Leh being a major hub for tourists and trekkers, virtually every second shop in town is a travel agency, but you still need to choose carefully. The first places I try inform me that: A. There are no local buses going to Pangong, and B. Permits are only issued for groups of two people and more. These two facts naturally lead to the agencies trying to coax me into joining an organized trip that does Pangong and back in one day (which doesn't allow much, since the drive is about seven hours in each direction). It only takes a couple of hours to find the shady agency where the owner promises me he can arrange a permit for individuals, and another stroll down to the bus station to realize that there are indeed local buses going to Pangong.

Saturday morning. 5am. Still dark. I get up and start making my way towards the bus station which is on the other side of town. On the way down I stop and pick up some local bread fresh from the oven, sold at the Muslim side of town from day break. The bread is wrapped in year old newspaper pages, and costs 3Rs. per "pita" (roughly 7 cents). Thank god I checked the schedule in advance and bought a ticket at the same time, since the bus is already full by the time we leave Leh, and in the first half hour of the ride at least twenty more people join us. Although the bus is a local bus, which means that it is the most dilapidated and messy as you can find, the seats are more comfortable than those on the "deulxe tourist buses" I rode before. That doesn't mean, however, that there's too much room for standing, and so, some of the unlucky tourists who joined the ride late choose to climb up on the roof and enjoy the ride from up there (never mind the rain, occasional snow and terrain we face ahead). After the depressing first half hour, where we stop at practically any house on the road to pick up more passengers/luggage, we finally get going and the ride seems to go fairly smooth. Even climbing Chang La, the third highest motorable pass in the world (at 5,289m), only causes the bus to stop twice, during which the errand buy attached shoves melting snow from the roadside down the radiator to try and cool it.

Fixing the radiator at 5,300m

It's only in Tingtse that things got messy. TingtseChuchul (relatively nearby, 80km). After a quick stop for lunch we start moving again, but as soon as we are out of the village the bus stops once more at the side of the road. Since this is not the first (or tenth) time we had to stop during the ride - to let people up, down, to cool the radiator, to haphazardly tie some more gas tanks to the roof - no one seems excited at first, but as time goes on we realize this is not one of these stops. When one of the passangers eventually moves up front and asks about the nature of the delay, the driver explains in broken English that the bus died. It seems like this time no amount of waiting, water, snow or anything else will bring the thing back to life. While some of the passengers decide to head back to Tingtse and take the next bus that comes by tomorrow to the lake, a small group of tourists stays on the road, and I am among them. Our first vehicle of salvation comes in the form of an army truck rolling from the nearby camp towards the lake. Only after we jump on the back cabin does an MP come and inform us that under regulations the truck can't carry us and we all need to depart. Strangely enough, this wasn't his way of asking us for cab fare, since no amount of arguing and haggling helps us stick to the car. A few minutes later, another truck rolls by, this time civilian. By the looks of it, it seems likely that the truck is used daily as a garbage truck, but right now the back cabin is empty. After we all climb on top once more, the driver asks for an outrageous amount of money (though too embarrassing to mention here), and we all get out of yet another transfer option.

But third time's the charm. Another garbage truck-cum-bus comes along, but this time, there are already passengers in the back. Since by this point there were only six of us who were brave (or desperate) enough to wait for so long, we can all fit in the back, but barely, since there are about 30 more kids sharing the ride with us. Summer vacation having started, all the kids are on their way summer camp somewhere on the lake, and we get to enjoy the camp songs that they seem to know by heart, and we get to experience first hand the fact that many kids suffer from car sickness. It takes about another hour to reach the lake, while the trucks whooshes along at a breakneck speed of 30km/h (and I'm not kidding, that does feel fast by now).

Our cosy ride

When we finally get to Pangong, we are dropped at Spangmik, a "village" consisting of about five houses, all of which double as homestays for tourists in season. During winter (September-May) no one stays in the lake, and the families move to Leh or other, warmer places in the south. We decide to stay at the Parachute Cafe closest to the lake. These cafes are basically tented restaurants, serving a basic meal of rice, Dal (lentil soup) and Sabzi (cooked vegetables), offering a nearby second tent with mattresses and blankets. Ours also serves omlette and Chapati for breakfast - Joy!. Since the seven hour ride eventually took us nearly thirteen, we don't mess around and go to sleep pretty soon after dinner. It's only when I wake up the next day that I can really appreciate where it is that I am. Pangong Tso, spreading some I-don't-know-how-many miles (but allot), is eerily quiet, with clear blue water, surrounded by a desert scenery encircled by snowy peaks that remain snowed all across summer. The road next to the lake is only visited by a solitary Jeep every couple of hours, and apart from that there are absolutely no noises around. There is no source of electricity (not even an unstable one like in Leh) and so most families either make go with no power at all, or keep a tiny solar panel attached to a car battery outside their huts.  Except a "hotel" offering concrete rooms, the houses are built using adobe bricks held together with mud, and the fences dividing each family's tiny wheat field are simply made out of stacked stones. The weather changes from chilly during most of the day, because of the clouds and the wind, to brief periods of intense heat when the sun is out. Since we are at around 4,500m, the water remains cold all year long (and freezes over during winter), and I can only force myself into a 5 seconds dunk in the icy water before running out. And that's it. There is nothing else to do in the lake except enjoy the place, and the feeling that you've literally reached the end of the world, and that if you keep going down the road, you'll very soon fall off the face of the earth. Here be dragons, indeed.

The view from Spangmik

Although there is some touristic movement in Pangong, most of which comes by in shared Jeeps and on motorbikes, there are so few people around - locals included - that the lake holds a feeling of a different century. Even though I can't imagine myself living this way for the rest of my life - or even for a few years, at that - the peacefulness and cosy primitiveness of the place hold a unique charm that can't fail but soothe your spirit, even if you got the place after thirteen hours of bumps, hassles and haggling. The owners of each home or cafe survive for five months every year on the very limited diet mentioned above, and with no diversions around, or no life around as some would say. Indeed, coming back to Leh two days later the place seems at least as big as New York, and twice as noisy. The kids and teenagers I ask around in Spangmik tell me that they spend the winter months in Leh. When I ask which place they prefer they instantly reply that the "big city" is the favorite location. But since the kids all stay at home, with no prospect of formal education, it seems positive that they are destined to spend their mature years in exactly the same way their parents spend them now. In a country that is rushing towards westernization and globalization at an alarming (and I believe unsustainable) rate, this bygone haven providing foreigners with an unprecedented feeling of unison with nature and calmness, only acts as a prison barring these children from the world they have grown to admire and aspire to.

In the past two months I believe a great part of me had become disillusioned of the romantic feeling that draws so many people to India, looking for that something ancient and exotic. The same faux-local commodity seems to be offered, as eye candy or for sale in any tourist spot, while getting of the tourist map into the heart of India is virtually impossible, and seems, at least to the outside observer as a very unpleasant and not very interesting place. I'm so happy to have had the chance to take a sharp turn sideways, even if only for a few days, and see something as unique as Pangong Tso.

Greetings from Pangong Tso

Where The Yak and The Apricots Roam

The Ride

Driving to Leh is breathtaking. No, seriously:

First of all - The scenery IS amazing. Climbing from the Kashmir valleys up to the mountainous regions of Ladakh, leaving the greenery for the arid and jagged scapes of the Himalayas. Crossing the valley leading to the Amarnath cave, where tens of thousands of tents and buses are leading the way for the sacred lights the Hindus flock to see each year. Spending one crazy day where you are subject to sweltering heat, hard rain and snow left over from the past winter, only to finally reach a desert surrounded by temples and snowy peaks.

Secondly - No ride so far in India, has prepared me for the terrifying terrain, or for the recklessness of the driver. Though much of the road crosses plains, there are passes along the way, that are usually narrower than a standard bus, but somehow allow for a truck and a bus to manage crossing each other along the way. The BRO (Border Road Organization) is still "building highways in the sky", but the further you get away from the populated areas of Kashmir, the lesser the roads seem to resemble roads. Add to that the well known fact that many truck drivers along the way are driving while intoxicated, and you've got another reason to hold your breath and make deals with the almighty.

Third - Did I mention this is the Himalayas? Coming from Srinagar (elev. 1,5Km) to Leh (elev. 3,5Km) in one day is bound to cause at least a little bit of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). While the Jeep driver and my fellow passengers were throwing away my Ibuprofens as if they were M&Ms, I mostly suffered from the rising lack of Oxygen. The weirdest thing is, that breathing is no longer a natural action, and you sometimes feel the need to take a quick deep breath, just to keep things steady, as if rising from the sea after a long dive.

And finally - The Indians, known as such a caring, polite people, will never miss a chance to pass around a pack of cigarettes. And with my luck it's been so long since I've had a ride with any other Westerners in the car with me (there were three Brits who almost joined the ride, and in the last minute were ushered to a different car). And so, it would take about two minutes after leaving the rest area for the smoke to start feeling up the cabin, and since it's so cold (or hot) outside anyway, you're not going to let a little air in. And I'm not even mentioning the exhaust from other cars (Oh well, maybe I am).

And in the end, after 21 hours of non-stop driving, with bumps, cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes, heat, cold, rain and one drunk guy who was sitting next to me for the whole time, we got to Leh.

The House

When you get to a new place, it's recommended to have the name of a guest house or hotel for the first night. I never do. As a result, when rides end at night time - and half of them seem to - I usually find myself at a shady place, in a shady part of town, where the owner is most likely to be a friend of the driver. But it's been so long that all I wanted to do was get to my room, take a shower and read a book for an hour before going to sleep for two days. So naturally, there was no single room available and I had to share a double with a fellow passenger (an Indian businessman from Dubai meeting a friend who's finishing a trek), there was no hot water, so I couldn't take a shower and, of course, there was no electricity, so I couldn't even read.
Six hours later, very grumpy and dirty, I packed my bag and started browsing the hikers part of town for cheaper, nicer accommodation. It seems like most houses in town serve as guesthouses during tourist season (June-October), and I just happened to knock on the first door on my way, which had no sign on it and no advertisement at all, but whose owner agreed to house me nonetheless.
Though I stayed there for a lovely week, I still have the feeling that this place is not actually a guesthouse, and the owner just took pity of me and agreed to let me stay in for awhile. There were no other guests, and I actually think my room was the only one not regularly used by the family. There was no food or drink offered, though in times when I was having fits with my stomach the owner gladly offered rice soup and black tea to soothe my pains. At one point the owner - an old Ladakhi lady, practically Tibetan - along with the nun who also shares the house, left for two days to visit family at a nearby village, and simply showed me where they hide the keys to the front door and told me to take care of the place in the meantime. Add to that the fact that whenever I was relaxing in the sun in the lovely garden outside with a book the owner would come and engage me in conversation with broken English that very much reminded me (the English and the badgering talk) of my grandmother, and you get a great, homey place all around. Whenever my landlady will feel I have slept enough - say, it was already nine o'clock - she'd wake me up promptly, and one time it was even worth it, because she had kicked me out of the room telling me that the Dalai Lama was in a nearby village in cause of celebrations of his birthday. Naturally, he wasn't - I later heard he spent the occasion in Washington DC - but the masked dances and the singing was still a lovely experience.
And all was well, until I got my eviction notice, for coming home too late and *gasp* hosting a lady in my room! Thank god they didn't know about the my little joint, or they would have had to burn the place down for sacrilege. So being a little over two thirds of a rockstar (sex and drugs, and maybe my MP3 player counts as a bit of rock'n'roll), I had to find a different place, this time at a much more common, run of the mill guesthouse.

The Ultimatum

Though a lesser known fact to those who've remained in touch only by being avid readers of the blog (and you guys have only yourself to blame!), there have been physical issues. They have been troubling non stop. They have been frustrating. And they are ongoing.
Coming to India, I knew a person with IBS is much more susceptible to ailments than the average traveler, but I was unaware of the extent of these problems. Taking the time to try and find a suitable diet, having periods of "forced relaxation", and having used antibiotics to no avail, there were times of great frustration.
After allot of consideration I have decided to prescribe an auto-ultimatum, and give myself till August 1st to feel a change in my condition. If there is to be no change by said date, I'm moving onwards from the subcontinent.
Where to? Thoughts right now are centered around either Japan, Australia or anywhere in south east Asia - depending on cost issues, Visa difficulties and my whims.
Other recommendations are most welcome, and may be addressed to my email inbox for me to consider and discard of.

There is allot more to Leh, and there is allot more to say, but it'll wait for the next time (Internet here is so expensive, 2$ an hour is a rip off!).