16th – Cloudy with a hint of marmots

The day started as usual with the exception of the weather being overcast with some heavy clouds here and there. We started gently ascending some 100 meters to Rumbak village where we got the chance to see how a normal house here looks from the inside. We visited the guide’s sister’s husband’s father where we got to taste butter tea and chang. Chang is basically home brewn beer and it is never know how strong it is so some caution is usually necessary when having a drink. The butter tea didn’t win any prizes and the chang, well… I’m not a fan of that, either. Smelling the contents in a small glass I was reminded of a yeast/water mix you start off with when baking.

There are 9 families in the village and three sources of income; guesthouses, camping sites (like the places we were staying at) and farming. The families are split into groups of three and each group gets the income for one of the three sources. Every year the groups rotate so that the split of money coming into the community is as fair as possible.

We continued our walk and after ascending to 4260m we reached the next camp, but to do some acclimatization we kept going on tomorrow’s route towards the Stok La pass, but stopped and had our lunch break when we reached 4400m. After the break we turned around and went back down to our camp where we arrived at around 1300 and had the rest of the day off.

Up to late afternoon the overcast held its grip which meant we had the occasional drizzle. Coming back to camp we had some actual showers but they were only short-lived which made them relatively easy to avoid. Late afternoon the sun managed to cut through the clouds, but it wasn’t long after it set behind the mountains.

Sitting in the dining tent during the afternoon we were able to see marmots in the distance, and by the looks of it it seemed to be a whole family/group.

Our host.

15th – Lord of the Flies

This is becoming a luxurious trip – you know, apart from the high altitude and walking by ourselves. At 0630 we were woken up with cups of tea, at 0700 we were given hot water for washing and at 0730 breakfast was served. At a bit past 0800 everything was packed and we were ready to depart. The staff packed the camp and followed later with everything loaded on the horses.

The day’s walk was relatively short – only 2-3 hours – but we ascended up to Rumbak at 3750m. The walk itself wasn’t too hard, but with several water crossings with only the occasional bridge there was plenty of chances to get wet feet.

Arriving at Rumbak we had our lunch break before having a 3 hour acclimatization walk up to 4100m.

Apart from that we had another relaxing afternoon.

While the camp is nicely located, we are seeing quite a large population of flies. I had thought/hoped that bugs wouldn’t have been an issue at this altitude, but it seems as if we have to cope with them some more yet. Either that or we are already more rank than we are aware of.

The acclimatization walk to the one house village.

Location of our camp.

14th – The Walk Begins

With an early start from the hotel we were picked up at 0730 with all our luggage and daypacks and were driven to Spituk just outside Leh. The girl who was sick yesterday felt much better this morning but to avoid overexertion she got a ride to today’s campsite together with our luggage.

The rest of us had a relatively short day ahead of us. We were to walk app. 5 hours along the road before reaching our destination which was Zinchen camp at 3200m. While it at the beginning didn’t feel as charming as one might have hoped to just walk along the paved road through the landscape we soon put villages and constructions sites behind us and found ourselves walking on the road with tall cliffs surrounding us, following the river Indus.

We had been picked up at the hotel early to avoid the high temperatures of the day, but when arriving at around 1300 at the camp we could still agree that it had been very hot already. Luckily most of the time breezes were able to decrease the temperatures to a tolerable level, but at soon as be made a turn or somehow came out of the wind it was obviously it suddenly got noticeable warmer.

The afternoon was spent relaxing. The camp site is an established one so a few groups arrived during the day. No problems whatsoever, but the amount of pack animals (horses and donkeys, and probably the occasional mule) was surprisingly high. But we are a group of 11, 12 (!) helpers (2 guides, cooks, kitchen staff, animal handlers etc.) and 23 animals, so if the other groups are similar the numbers of animals quickly increase. The interesting thing was that we saw a lot of animals but not near enough tourists to justify them, so it seems that the site is used for parking while tourists camp somewhere else.

Funny thing; before dinner we were all handed a brand new roll of toilet paper. I wonder if it is because they don’t have faith in their own cooking, but I hope it’s just to make sure we have the necessary remedies for when we have the need/urge. Always prepared!

The river Indus.

Freaky rock formations.

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.

9th-10th – Departure and arrival in India

We met up at Copenhagen airport in the morning with the group before checking in. I had met both our tour leader (Bo) and one of the other participants before; when climbing Ararat an Elbrus, respectively.

Checking in was a breeze, boarding went without a hitch and we were soon on our way to New Delhi via Istanbul. We flew with Turkish Airlines which gave me reason to worry as they had managed to lose 2 of 14’s luggage when going to Ararat, and it didn’t help that I had heard similar – and worse – stories about them from others, too.

Anyway, off we went to Istanbul where we had a 4 hour layover. We found a café pulled a bit back from the main area of the airport which meant that our drink break was a relaxing and calm one. We continued to New Delhi where we arrived according to schedule at 0430 in the morning. To my surprise – and relief – we all received our bags. Success!

We were picked up by a local contact and after a short drive we arrived at the hotel. We were checked in and had a couple of hours of rest before breakfast and leaving for at city tour at 1100.

Luckily the bus we drove in had AC; the temperature was, as we found out later, up and reaching 40°C with high humidity. That was fun when walking around. The tour brought us to the Qutab Complex, a ruin of a Buddhist temple with a largest stone tower (Qutab Minar) in India which is 72,5m tall, a botanical garden (Lodhi Garden), India Gate and the center of the city. Our lunch was had at a high-end restaurant in the embassy district. The food was great but it took the waiters 3 tries to get the bills correct (and the last attempt they relied on manual corrections with a pen to make it fit).

As the hotel was located close to the airport it meant that it was a bit away from anything interesting in the city so that meant when coming back in the evening from the tour we had our dinner at the hotel. Early departure tomorrow at 0415!

Qutab Minar.

A temple located in Lodhi Garden.

India Gate.