21st – How I turned into a fried chicken

The rest of the day after returning from the summit was spent on relaxing and sleeping, so when dinner was done people went straight back to their tents. The Topas group would be leaving that same night for the summit, using the same route as us, and the weather had improved so much so that for the first time since Rumbak there was barely a cloud in sight. Everything seemed to indicate that they would be having a visually better – maybe perfect – summit day as opposed to our group. But due to the lack of clouds the night ended up being by far the coldest night on the trip. Looking towards the summit in the morning we realized that it was the clearest we had seen it yet and a bit of jealousy was had as the group would have some great views from the top, including K2. But we consoled ourselves with the fact that our achievement with climbing during a snow storm and whiteout would be the bigger one.

I woke up several times during the night and I soon realized. It was quite annoying as I usually slept though most of the night without problems (except for the night where my travel pillow had a puncture…), but it was soon clear why this was; descending from the summit and having the sun occasionally popping out through the clouds when spending hours on a glacier it is a good idea to apply sunglasses and sunscreen. In this case 1 out of 2 is not good enough – the sunglasses do not cover lips, cheeks, forehead… I woke up due to when turning around my face touched the zipper of the sleeping bag (which was for once completely zipped). I was far from the only one making this mistake – there were even some who hadn’t even been using sunglasses. We looked like a group of inverted raccoons. My face has never been so sore before.

The rest of the morning went without hiccups and we were soon on our way down, descending 1300-ish meters in 5 hours to the town of Stok where we were picked up and driven back to our hotel in Leh. The walk brought us through more parts of the beautiful landscapes (when thinking of India this is definitely NOT what I have in mind!) and even seeing a flock of blue sheep (bharal) which to me mostly look like a mix of mountain goats and impalas. And no – they are not blue. We were lucky enough to stand within 20m of them for what felt like an extended period of time, but I must admit that for just a moment, only having my small compact lens, I was missing my long tele. It is stunningly beautiful here and absolutely not what I had expected to see.

Also arriving at Stok we said our goodbyes to our guides and other personnel. They will be remembered for the high spirits and good humor, and also for their impressive breakfasts and dinners (plenty of food at both meals, dinners were always a mix of salads, pastas, potatos, rice, weird tasty concoctions and the occasional deep pan pizzas, steamed momos and the like). Therefore it was always surprising that while these meals were so impressive the lunches were merely a piece of limp deep fried white break, a juice box, piece of fruit and candy. It was a huge contrast.

Being back at the hotel we had the obligatory showers. Being a creature of habit when drying off the first thing I do is to throw the towel in my face and rub. If anyone was wondering; doing so with a burnt, sore face is NOT a good idea. At all. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent on having our last walk around in Leh, packing bags for the trip back to Delhi tomorrow and generally relaxing and enjoying not having to worry about more climbing mountains in the next couple of days. Breakfast is at 0430 as we are leaving for the airport at 0500 to catch our flight.

Clear weather in the morning. Bad timing!

You can clearly see the summit!

Blue sheep.

We came down from the right and turned down the way straight ahead into the shot. When going towards BC we came up from the left.

Just beautiful. 

If you look carefully you will be able to see that there are ruins from watch towers/a castle on the top of those two cliffs.

13th – Bikers gone wild

Waking up early we had a quick breakfast before being picked up at 0730 to go to the Khardung La pass for the day’s planned activities. As Leh is at around 3500m and our destination was at 5600m it meant that we would be getting some pretty aggressive acclimatization done.

Starting the ascent we came onto a new asphalted road, still having that fresh smell of asphalt. The road was quite narrow at times with barely room for two small cars to pass each other. Combine this with sharp turns (and plenty of hairpin bends along the cliff side) you had very low visibility on several of the stretches during the drive. Not being able to see very far on a narrow road with a fall on one side and cliffs on the other a drive down on bike could potentially become quite exciting.

After having ascended about half way we reached a military checkpoint, and from there on after the road turned into gravel, albeit the width of the road increased slightly.

Reaching the top Bo’s GPS said we were at 5250m, not the announced 5600m. The following was found on Wikipedia after coming home:

The 5,359 m (17,582 ft) elevation measure was taken from a modern GPS survey by a team of researchers.

And

Khardung La is widely, but incorrectly, believed to be the highest vehicle-accessible pass in the world. A well-graded Indian military road […] reaches 5,610 metres (18,406 ft) 250 meters west of the 5,545 metres (18,192 ft) Mana Pass on the India - Tibet border. […] There are also higher motorable passes at Suge La, west of Lhasa, 5,430 m (17,815 feet), and Semo La 5,565 m (18,258 feet), between Raka and Coqen in Central Tibet. […] Vehicles have been driven over the 5,582 metres (18,314 ft) Marsimik La, in the Indian Karakoram to the north-east of Khardung La, but it is debatable whether this pass should be considered to be motorable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khardung_la

Walking around and taking in the views we soon fond our bikes which were then distributed among us and soon we were on our way down. It is to be said that I have not had much experience in cycling in rough terrain (as in: none) and with the blind spots at the sharp turns I took it slow. It didn’t feel very slow, but it didn’t take long for me to end up in the back. No worries – no pressure and it felt nice enjoying the views bumbling down the gravel road. The three cars that brought us up split up in two teams; one went into the front and the two others stayed behind making sure that all made it down. Most in the group seemed to have done similar things before, considering the speed they went ahead. Now and then we were met by others in the group who had turned around and driven up to keep tabs on us in the back and a quick chat before turning around and racing back to the font.

Despite my lack of speed I realized I hadn’t been far behind when we had a short break at the check point. I could feel my palms getting quite sore from all the bumping around on the road. Continuing after the checkpoint and onto the paved road the speeds naturally increased, still with me in the back trying to keep up, but still a bit from the highest recorded speed that day; 62-ish km/h. But despite the constant blind spots around some of the bends I ended up feeling more relaxed – probably because of getting into the rhythm but also because there was no bumping around anymore. The road might have been narrow, but it was smooth!

We were back at the hotel around lunch, slightly dusty and polluted by the constant black smoke that had been bellowing out from the large trucks on the road, but very happy overall. My right hand/wrist was pretty sore, and I wonder when it will pass.

Lunch was had and the planned trip to the Kalachakra was approaching. Unfortunately we were informed the schedule for the afternoon had been moved to the morning in an attempt to avoid the worst heat of the day. Bummer, no Dalai Lama for us. The afternoon was therefore spent on relaxing and walking in Leh to let people get the last things needed before leaving tomorrow.

In the evening we had a short briefing on the following week where the actual trek/climb starts. At dinner we found out that one of the girls in the group had fallen ill, but it seems as if it will be an easy day tomorrow, and as it is road all the way to camp (5-ish hours walk down to 3200m) she will be able to get a lift all the way if necessary. Poor girl, let’s hope she gets better fast!

Not all places are equally hospitable.

A lot of signs are standing around promoting the non-truth. But apart from that the views are not bad. At all.

12th – The monasteries

Woke up with no headaches. Success!

This day was spent on a relaxing tour in the area where we drive around to see three major monasteries; Hemis, Thiksay and Shey. They were beautiful but otherwise classical in their appearance. Imagine an average Buddhist temple in the Himalayas, how it’s either perched on a top somewhere or almost molded into the side of a mountain, and you’re pretty much spot on with how these looked.

The interiors were beautifully painted with the usual Buddhist images. Some of the paintings were so detailed that you could keep looking at them for an extended time and keep seeing new small details popping up in the images.

On the way home from the monasteries we came through the area of the Kalachakra. People were now on their way home/back to their camps, and seeing most of 150.000 people leaving in one go was utter chaos. Massive traffic on small roads (apparently they had diverted the “wrong” direction traffic around and away so they could utilize the entire road for the one necessary direction), several close encounters, large amounts of honking, dust and heat (long live AC!) made it an interesting – or maybe even fun – experience to have had. But thank god it was only that one time we had such chaotic traffic to navigate.

Coming back we spent the rest of the afternoon in Leh before going to the hotel for dinner.

Tomorrow we will be leaving early to go to Khardung La at 5600m, which is the highest drivable pass in the world, to force some acclimatization. We will be going by cars up, but bikes will be brought with us which we will drive down back to the hotel. We will likely be back around lunch time, so hopefully that means we will have time to go out in the afternoon to see the last of the Kalachakra.

Hemis monastery.

Check out the details of the image!

This friendly fella (and his twin) was found at Thiksay monastery.

9 stupas with Thiksay monastery in the background.

Shey monastery.

11th – Going to Leh

Despite being on a flight at 0650 we arrived at the airport and starting checking in at around 0430. According to our papers and reservation confirmations we would have a weight limit of 23 kg on the flight to Leh. When checking in the employees – for some of us – insisted the limit was 15kg and we therefore had to pay for the excess luggage. Bo and I were two of the affected so we were referred to another booth to handle the payment. We managed to convince them that our reservations said 23kg but they insisted on seeing our boarding passes for our previous flight to prove that we had just arrived and therefore didn’t know any better. Bo had his handled immediately, whereas I, for the first time ever, had cleaned out the paperwork for the now (I assumed) non-relevant flight to Delhi. With long talks back and forth we managed to convince them that we (Bo, I and the others) had been on the same flight and both our fees were waivered. That was much more stupid than it had to be.

Going through security my bag was stopped and I was told that they had to confiscate my scissors. I informed them that there were none in in my bag, and they emptied the bag and brought the things through the scanner separately again. Yup – they could still see the scissors. They then came over and began a thorough search of my bag. A couple of years ago I received a small first aid kit from my the travel insurance I usually use; as I already had/have a larger kit I decided to keep this one as a spare in the bag I use as a carry-on and day-pack. Because I already had one with what I needed I never took a thorough look at what the small kit contained. See where this is going? Yes, security found a small pair of scissors. I apologized profusely that I had completely forgotten about it and therefore constantly insisting I didn’t have any, they apologized for confiscating it, and that was it.

2 years I have had the small first aid kit. All that time it was in my carry-on bag. I have been travelling quite a lot the previous years, but not until now the scissors were found. Yeah…

The rest of the stay at the airport and the flight to Leh was uneventful and at around 1000 we arrived at the hotel where we met the last participant of the group.

After a short rest and check-in we took a walk through the town to get our bearings. Apparently the Dalai Lama is nearby doing his teachings these days so some of us are discussing trying to get a chance to go and see him if we have the time at some point when in Leh. This is something he does regularly in different places in the world; it’s called the Kalachakra and apparently the first time in more than 20 years it is done near Leh. We had lunch at the hotel, a couple of hours rest before we had a walk up to Shanti Stupa, a stupa just outside the town. In the evening we met up with out guides for the next couple of days while situated in Leh. Dinner at 2000 and afterwards everyone pretty much just went to bed.

I can easily feel that we've come directly from New Delhi to Leh at 3500m. After having been drinking plenty of water I expect tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep, to be much better (and less headache-ish).

A cup of tea was had at the hotel upon arrival. Stok Kangri can be seen in the distance.

Leh.

Shanti Stupa.