Ladakh - desert in the skies !

Return from Leh!

2009-05-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

Huge mountains, breathtaking scenery , ice cold rivers, deep blue lakes and beautiful women … after staying there for almost a month and a half, we started feeling at home in Ladakh. The steep climbs became easier, and the body had easily acclimatised to the sub zero temperatures and below normal levels of oxygen. Towards the end we began feeling nostalgic without even leaving Leh. Our last few days were spent in a hectic manner composing and finishing the reports for the NGO ending with a presentation about the work done by us.

One day before we left, we made a dash for the Famous Pangong lake, and thankfully as Changla was merciful, we came back the same day.

Ladakh seemed like a place on a different planet. The mountains are immensely huge and the terrain extremely barren. We were craving to see some shade of green after some time. However it is extremely beautiful and they say it blooms in the summer months of June, July and August. As the Zorjila pass connecting Leh to Srinagar was closed even as we left, we came back after coming within kissing distance of Kashmir.

Though the living conditions are tough, people are always cheerful, and never complaining. There is no electricity and even running water in most of Ladakh. The only water source in few villages was the Village handpump. Still they are simple people with no greed for money. In fact few villagers responded to one of our questions saying “Kya karenge utna paisa ka, Hum aise hi khush hain”.

It is a must for everyone to visit Ladakh atleast once, and im quite sure it is more beautiful than the famed Alps of Europe( though I have only seen it in pictures).

We clicked an astounding number of pictures with an average of 1500 per person( Every locale was so beautiful, we wanted to capture it all, but as in Desi’s words “ Hum uski Mahaanta capture nahi kar paaye”) . The total folder size reached 20 GB. It was tough to decide which to put up in this blog, though I selected few which are in the posts below. Writing about Ladakh has severely tested my knowledge, of Superlatives however some of the scenery is indescribable in words..

PS: The pics in the blog are thumbnails, can be expanded with a click.

Ill update the flick r links of Ankit, Satya and Harsh when those lazy blokes manage to upload on net.

Till then signing off ….

Never ending ranges of Karakoram

Kahwa at Khardungla

Alchi Monastery - one of the oldest in Ladakh

(L to R : Satya, Hanish, Ankit, Harsh, Sunil, Kishore)

Due to the useless design of the Delhi Airport by the useless company of L&T, I had to wait for my flight to Hyderabd alone, away from my friends. In the idyllic moments I clicked this:

Mom won't let me play!

Pangong Lake

2009-05-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

Pangong is the most famous lake of Ladakh region. It runs to a length of 135 Kilometers! Almost half o f the lake lies in China and the other half remains with us. It is set in a location rivalling the paradise. It is said that if one patiently waits for bright sunshine one can see the entire Vibgyor in the waters of the lake. Since it was partly cloudy, we could only see few shades of Blue. The water was crystal clear and one can see the bottom at the point he stands.

This lake apart from millions of tourists, caught the imagination of Mani Ratnam sir, he shot the ‘Satrangi Re’ song entirely in Ladakh. One can see glipses of the Shey palace in the ruins in the background , however most of the song is shot at the Pangong lake. Btw the MTV roadies where the Karizma is burning in the background of a lake and mountains was also shot here.

As mentioned in the Changla story in the blog, we had failed in an earlier attempt to reach Pangong lake. Hence it had boiled down to the last day before we left from Ladakh, as none of us wanted to miss it at any cost. It was worth the wait and the struggle over Changla.

Apparently the chinese and Indian soldiers near this border are very friendly unlike the other border with Pakistan. They meet on few occasions of the year and exchange gifts and other cultural artefacts. There are also events when Indian soldiers are invited over and vice versa. Since it is J & K, non locals are not allowed to visit the villages on the border.

Tso Moriri & Tsokar Lake

2009-05-21T03:03:00.000-07:00

In the span of 40 days, 40 nights we managed to visit every nook and cranny corner of Ladakh, except Zanskar valley, which is called one of the remotest places on earth. It is closed by road for around 7-8 months in a year, having access only in peak summer or peak winter.

How in peak winter?? Well the river is frozen so hard that people drive vehicles over the river!

We also managed to build a social circle in Leh. Almost the entire market knows us. Either they know us so well that they even lend the books form their shop without asking for a penny, or they are terrified of us because of our bargaining down to the penny! We used to play the ‘Student ‘Card everywhere, a certain shopkeeper was in particular scared of Hanish because he managed to bargain heavily for an artefact for which she quoted 150 Rs, he finally bought it for 15 Rs!

We made friends with a guy named ‘Namgial’ ( the most common name in Ladakh). He originally owns a business, but is temporarily driving the vehicles they own. He is a stud of his own accord. His dressing, demeanour and refined taste in music used to make us feel like rustic bumpkins in comparison. We planned to go to Tso Moriri Tsokar with him in a Scorpio with an amazing audio system. The only problem was that he loved his car more than his would be wife … this meant that whenver we came across a rough patch on road , he would inevitably slow down to speed of a caterpillar driving us impatient.

Night in the School at Sumdho:

Namgial had promised us a free stay at a Tibetan school as his cousing sister was the Principal there. Bad news was that since we arrived quite late in the evening, they had given the guest rooms to some angrez family. This meant that we were spending a night in a classroom.

It was the coldest night we spent in Ladakh, with temperature dipping certainly below – 15 or 20. The worst part was that the room was not airtight. The harder we curled in the mattress, the harder we shivered.

It was a school for kids of nomadic Tibetans. Do nomads still exist outside our social textbooks? Yes they do. They keep shifting with their cattle, their only possessions, to wherever they can find grazing grounds for their cattle. We clicked few pics with the kids. If -20 is the temperature in summer months, we can only imagine what the condition is in peak winter. They told us that if we touch any metal part with bare hands… it sticks instantly to it!!!

We decided to send our shaitan kids, in future, to this school for a month to face some realities of life! But only in peak summer if we want to see them alive.

Location of the Tibetan School

Discipline !

Cheers :)

Tso Kar:

Snow capped mountains around, vast grasslands extending till as far as your sight can go .. Wild horses grazing around lazily .. and a beautiful lake in the middle of it. It certainly looks like a hollywood set or like a scene out of Switzerland. The slight disappointment was that major portion of the lake was frozen at the time we went. It clearly wasn’t summer in this part of India, while it was a scorching 44 degrees back home in Hyderabad. Talk about geographical diversity!

Tso kar Lake

Wild white stallion

Tso Moriri Lake:

This was arguably the best thing we saw in Ladakh after the Khardungla. Deep shades of blue all around. The lake seemed to extend til miles ahead with no end in sight. It was like a sea with the ripples made by the strong gushes of wind create a feeling of waves.

It is set in a picturesque location with mountains all around it in varied shades of brown and black. Half the lake was frozen, but it was too vast to be entirely frozen at this time in the year. There a lot of camping sites around the place and as was usual with al our trips; we were the only tourists in the place.

Nubra - Valley of flowers!

2009-05-21T02:47:00.000-07:00

Though it is famous as the valley, we could not see as much as a blade of grass over there. This was thanks to the timing of our DOCC project. We can reach Nubra valley after negotiating the Highest Motorable road in the world which passes over the mighty ‘ Khardungla Pass’. The pass is over 18000 feet and is tough to cross. Normally vehicles keep waiting for the weather to clear, which can take from few hours to few days, as it later happened in our case.

Soldiers to Siachen:

We were successful in crossing the pass on our first attempt. At the K Top we met few soldiers who were heading towards the Siachen Glacier. We all felt proud of our army again. They were dressed like Astronauts in their distinctive head gear and long boots. We had a small chat with them and learnt that the base camp of Siachen is at 16000 feet and they have to trek upto 24000 feet to reach the highest camp. The temperature is around - 40 degrees. They told us about a soldier who had removed his goggles for about 20 seconds in a hurry to read a mail from home. He was rendered partially blind for 4 days! We failed to understand the logic behind occupying such extreme terrain. Indian government apparently spends 10 crores per day to maintain the Siachen posts ! ! !

They told us that since it is not an international border, the land belongs to you if you are present there, else tomorrow some one might claim it. We are not willing to part with even an inch of our Indian soil they said. Jai Hind we replied!

Ki Ki so so Ladgyalo!

One more 'I was There' pic

We visited the villages of Pinchimik and Chemshen for our field visits. We also had a dip in the hot water springs at Pinamik which are reported to have some medicinal properties which unfortunately we could not discover.

On the ways we saw an amazing lake in the middle of a crater of a hillock. One has to climb over the hillock to reach the lake. The legend has it that on a full moon night, they can see Tibet , Potala palace and the forbidden capital of Lhasa. Needless to say, the locals throng the place and worship the lake.

In the middle of a mountain...

Udmaroo: This is definitely the most beautiful village we have seen in Ladakh. IT has to be reached after a trek of some 2 kms and crossing the river and again an uphill climb of considerable effort.

Udmaroo village

Paradise lost ... found !

Apricot blossom

Diskit Monastery:

Due to a snow storm on the Khardungla Pass, we were stuck in Diskit for about two days. We spent most of the time at the Dragon restaurant in Diskit as it had a T V and we could catch some IPL action sitting in Ladakh ! We were informed that in the monastery there is an idol of the mahakala. Some 600 years back there was an invasion of the Mongols onto Ladakh and Tibet region. The Locals won the war, and the Ladakhi king cut the head and right hand of the Mongol chieftain and placed in the hands of Mahakala. They can be seen in the pic below.

Diskit Monastery

Mahakala - The terrible god !

Cricket at 16000 feet:

Finally one day we decided to return to Leh at any cost. We proceeded towards Khardungla pass. We were stopped at the army checkpost at South Pullu. We waited long getting bored. Then we noticed the army people gathering for cricket. On requesting to join, we were told that it was part of their acclimatisation routine before they proceeded to Siachen. However they allowed us to join them. It was some experience playing cricket at 16000 feet and around -5 degrees at the least.

DOCC concept

2009-05-20T14:14:00.001-07:00

This blog will be totally incomplete without the mention of the reason why we visited Ladakh in first place. Every year the entire batch of SPJIMR, Mumbai goes on a social project for 6 weeks. We work with NGO s all over the country providing them with the key managerial inputs. It is the vision of our honorable dean that such thing would amount to an year of service in Social sector considering the man hours. This has a potential to cause a major difference.

Being a little enthusiastic, we decided to do our projects with LEDeG ( Ladakh Ecological Development Group). We were a group of six members :

Sunil V N
Ankit Varshneya
Harsh Mehta
Hanish Shah
Satyendra Singh and
I

We split into groups of two each. Me and Sunil worked together. The topics of our project were:

1. Creation of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Pre-feasibility, Detailed Project Report, Installation, Testing and Commissioning, Maintenance and Sustenance of Hyd-ram Technology in rural Ladakh.

2. Integration of 200 Women Self Help Groups in Ladakh region into a co-operative and proposal for Product development, Distribution and Marketing of Handicraft products of these SHGs.

With the entire team of LEDeG on day of farewell

( L to R : Me, Sunil, Pranai Thapa,Ankit, Hanish)

Motorcycle Diaries Part 2 - Chang La

2009-05-20T12:25:00.001-07:00

Young Che Guevera once left his MBBS degree in the middle because he had a dream to reach USA on a bike all the way from Argentina. Some 80 years later, Young Satya planned to be the first to cross Chang La pass on bike to reach the famous Pangong Lake in this year.

We started on an ambitious plan of crossing the Chang La when trucks with chained tires could not cross it. After obtaining the inner line permit which is required while travelling close to the LOC, we left Leh at around 11 AM. The initial part of the journey was quite fine with only the Brake and Horn not functioning on my Silver Enfield. After we reached the treacherous mountains, Harsh’s brilliant diversification strategy started paying gains …. As the Pulsar simply refused to climb the steep inclines of the mountains. Cursing him in all the possible languages they know, Sunil and Ankit managed to push the bike whenever it got stuck.

We didn’t even click any pictures as the only thing on our mind was to get to the other side of the Chang La before sunset, if we wanted to reach there alive. We were not stopped by the army check post at Zingral, hence we proceeded with great enthusiasm.

But after 15,000 feet, the road became treacherous… as the snow started melting and was in a partial state.When Sunil tried to brake, the Pulsar turned 360 degrees on snow due to skidding. After 16,000 feet we paused for some time trying to decide if we wanted to proceed any further. Since we were still in enthu, we tried to press on. The only problem was that the nearest army camp was 40 kms. If we failed to reach before the sunset there would be some considerable problem. In case we were stuck, our bodies would be found like that of George Mallory, in a total frozen state, probably after the roads opens!

Some mention must be made about the guys who rode on such terrain - Sunil , Satya and Hanish. After we started climbing rapidly, i gave up as the bike had no brakes, then Hanish managed the bike with a remarkable control, i fail to understand how he rode such a bike on those roads ! Hail Hanish !

The Road to the ascent

The 'We were there' pic

They say its their trademark .... ahem ! Sunil n Ankit

We almost made it buddy ...

Harsh

We turn back ...

Motor cycle Diaries Part 1 - Chilling !

2009-05-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

As a teen (that was long time ago ) when I used to drool over the Avenger ad when the guy drives past majestic mountains on an awesome bike .. the ad goes with a cool jingle and ends with a great tagline “FEELS LIKE GOD ! “. The ad is etched in my memory, and I guess so is the case with most of the people in my age group. I wanted to experience such thing and tried a 500 km drive in Hyderabad… which was good but not a god level experience.

The wish was fulfilled when we went to Ladakh. We wanted to drive around to Pangong lake and went hunting for bikes. We had a discussion about which ones to chose, not that we had a great choice .. we just had to chose between Pulsar, Karizma, Royal Enfield .

Due to a brilliant “Diversification of portfolio” strategy by a budding financial whiz kid among us – Harsh .. we ended up taking a Pulsar along with 2 Royal , Royal Enfields.

Feel Like God !

BRO Rocks !

We visited Gurudwara Pathar Sahib on the way. It had a legend that Guru Nanak had visited the place and he was meditating on a rock. There was a demon who lived nearby and he once rolled a huge rock onto Nanak Sahib. The rock passed through him and had an imprint of his body. Guru Nanak then won over the Demon who later was either slain or became his disciple … the basic point is that the gurudwara is very old!

The Sikh regiment of Indian Army maintains it and it was renovated after the success of Operation Vijay as thanks to the Guru.

Pathar Sahib

Kheer at Langar was a welcome break from usual drab of Dal - Chawal !

Having a lot of time and tankfull of petrol at our disposal we started driving aimlessly. We saw a beautiful confluence of two rivers. Both of them were of different shades and the view was beautiful.

Majestic View

Confluence ( A - Don't Sue me ! )

Courtesy : Satyendra Singh

Monks going to a monastery across the river

Chilling story:

As we started driving away from the river confluence, we saw a board saying Chilling 26 Kms. Some one made an idyllic remark saying we will drive till there and return. Others added saying “I want to have chai samosa there” … I told Sunny that we should get the air pressure checked and may be get the brakes tightened etc …

We kept driving and realised that driving 26 Kms on mountainous road is certainly going to take more time than on plain highways. After reaching the place … we were greeted with a Board saying Chilling 0 km. That’s it !! There was not even an animal to be seen around the place. We had a nice laugh about Harsh’s samosa chai and started returning.

We met few labourers though who had been working there since 2 years building roads for BRO. Expectedly some of them sounded cuckoo and that their mental faculties had given away , being in such environment all be themselves.

to be contd ...

Kargil Visit

2009-05-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

I had never dreamt that I would visit the town of Kargil. The name evokes the conflict of 1999 which almost escalated to a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It evokes the name of operation Vijay where the soldiers of Indian Army braved the hail of bullets from the hill tops.

First view of Kargil town !

Main bazaar of Kargil

A village we visited in Kargil

Kargil is distinct form the rest of Ladakh as the populace is predominantly Muslim. They are radically different in their food habits and also dressing and customs. Their language is sparsed with urdu vocabulary and speak with a typical accent. Yet the people are cordial and extremely hospitable. When we refuse a second helping of tea and biscuits, they almost feel offended.

Women are extremely beautiful, however are very conservative in their dressing. Being a bunch of 6 boys, we were advised by the local not to stare / ogle at women there, lest we risk being lynched by the mob. We clicked few pics with the kids of our tea shop owner. I consider my best pic in Ladakh trip!

Smile :)

Kargil is a sleepy town quite close to the LOC. During the conflict there was heavy shelling from across the mountains. It sustained heavy casualties on the people of Kargil. The situation was such ironic that during the World cup match between India and Pakistan in 1999, whenver a Pakistani batsman hit a boundary there was a round of mortar Shells fired on Kargil. Just imagine few people losing their lives due to a game of cricket.

We heard the tales of bravery and misery of the people and the Army. Surprisingly the populace of Kargil is extremely patriotic to India, probably because of the irrational shelling from the other side of border. Without the active support of the locals and the Ladakh Scouts, it would have been impossible for the Indian army to have won the war.

Cross the mountain and you ‘ll be …. Behind the enemy lines L.O.C!

Kargil intrusions:

Suddenly the cattle and Dzos of the locals started disappearing from their households. Since they are main sources of income, people got furious and lodged reports at the local police station. As is usual the case, all their reports were ignored, until the number of complaints became too huge in number. However no sufficient action was taken.

As it was shown in Lakshya, few shepherds who had gone too far to graze their sheep had noticed some people carrying RPG propellers and rocket launchers and other heavy ammunition crossing from the border and heading towards the posts on the mountains. They rushed to the local authorities to complain about it. The civil authorities complained to the Army Brigadier who conveniently neglected the matter. Some say that he had accepted bribe running into crores. While some say that Army was not scared, because they thought that they could have recaptured those few posts whenever they wanted.

What totally escaped everyone was the scale of infiltration across the sectors of Drass, Batalik, Kargil etc. They had even captured strategic locations overseeing the Srinagar highway and could bombard the supply trucks at will and with great accuracy.

The civil authorities finally got vexed up and lodged a protest with the PMO. Then the HQ of Army was informed and they swung into action But by then they had captured strategic locations and were ready for combat.

No comments!

Logic behind the intrusion:

The occupation in 1999 was exactly similar to the one in 1948 in J & K which later became the P.O.K. After they tribal forces from NWFP of Pakistan occupied significant land. There was a ceasefire. After that there was international pressure on India not to launch an offensive to occupy the rest of Kashmir and to accept the LOC as the international border.

They were expecting similar thing to happen this time especially since US is paranoid of any war escalating in to a nuclear war.

We visited few villages on the LOC which were with Pakistan pre 1971 and were later occupied by Indian forces. They don’t permit non locals to the villages very close to the border since it is a very sensitive region. We went as close to the LOC as we could by a kucha road as we would not have been permitted to go by the road.

There were barbed wires along the road along with the signs saying “Area strewn with landmines. Don’t stray away from the Road”. !!!!

This was enough to scare us out of our wits, when the technician said that the army guys are watching us from their base camp below. Don’t make any suspicious gestures and certainly don’t click any pictures.

On the whole ... Kargil visit is something we are damn happy about.

Ju-Le!

2009-05-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

If you want to learn one word in Ladakhi - Make it Ju-Le (pronounced as joolay). This is a multi purpose word which can means anything under the sun. for eg:

Jule – Good morning
Jule – Good Afternoon
Jule- Good night
Jule – Hello / Hi Jule – Thanks
Jule – Welcome
Jule – Good bye…. The list goes on.

This is said in a very sing song manner especially by the ladies. There were atleast a hundred variants of saying the word which we encountered during our stay.
The people here are extremely cordial and very helpful. They smile almost non stop and look very happy. This was a welcome change from the hustle bustle of Mumbai where everyone has a frown on their face as if only their life is screwed up. This is some thing we can learn from the people of Ladakh that they manage to stay so happy despite the tough conditions they live under.
The Leh market is good but unfortunately most of the stores and the restaurants were closed down during our first visit to the market. They started opening up gradually as the days progressed and slowly tourists started trickling in. One thing you have to do invariably is to BARGAIN ! Since they are used to fleecing the tourists they quote a price which is usually twice or sometimes thrice the actual price!
We visited the Chokhang Vihara in the market. It was well bu2ful! Like every other shop or building in the market, it was inaugurated by His holiness The Dalai Lama the 14th.

Trip to Monasteries !!

2009-05-20T05:23:00.000-07:00

On the first Sunday, we set out to see the monasteries around Leh. The places were Thiksey, Shey palace, Stok. Thiskey is apparently the largest monastery and is very ancient in its origin. We hired a Qualis with Imtiaz Bhai and set out to hit the places.

We have to cross the Indus river which was not quite at its peak, but beautiful nevertheless.

Shey Palace: This was home to the first king of Leh – Lanchen Paigyigon in 1600 A.D. It houses a splendid statue of Lord Buddha of a height of 3 stories. There is a stunning view from the palace.

Thiksey Monastry: This monastry is situated on top of a hill and again like any other place in Ladakh offers a splendid view of the town below and the mountains around it. An ancient shrine built by Rinchen Tsangpo himself is beside it, however is in ruins now. As usual we clicked a zillion pics here too.