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Published: September 22nd 2008
Firstly enormous thanks to everyone for sending messages or posting comments, as ever they were all gratefully received; in fact we’re slightly incredulous both that we haven’t received more abuse and that we have been nagged for not posting more about India.
We left India about a month ago and are clearly well behind with the blog so here goes back to June 21st.
Leh - Ladakh
We stayed put in and around Leh for fourteen days (which is as long as we’d spent travelling around the whole of Uzbekistan). It was two weeks of blue skies, sunshine and much happiness. To us the Buddhist environment felt more Tibetan than Tibet (which we couldn’t travel to because of those blasted Chinese pixies withholding Visa privileges) and there is clear support every where for Tibet’s plight.
Our guesthouse (The Dolma) was small but so friendly, it didn’t matter that hot water had to be requested by the bucket (that just reminded us of our first ever trek long ago in Nepal; the joy of throwing warm water over each other removing the grime from the first six days trekking). We even grew to “love” the
Tea Pot Beer
About five years previously alcohol had been banned to prevent the growth of bars and general disorderly behaviour. Alcohol licences are difficult to come by or too expensive for most restaurants but this is India, so of course it was still possible to buy beer but it either came in a teapot or you had to be ready to hide the beer bottle from the police inspectors!
hard coir mattresses, whilst wondering if the floor might be softer. It seems that unfeasibly hard mattresses are a bit of a theme throughout Northern India so be warned.
Another theme shared throughout India are the power cuts. In Ladakh they were frequent but irregular whilst in other parts of India there are regular, lengthy cuts every day. Politicians are promoting Nuclear power as the solution and there was much debate about it in the media, or leastways much coverage of the political spates surrounding nuclear power; we looked at the fast flowing rivers and wondered why hydro isn’t exploited more.
We’d bought an Airtel Simcard in Delhi, the purchase of which proved an amazingly bureaucratic affair, beyond even India’s normal standards. Since arriving in Srinagar our pre-paid mobile phone signal had been blocked by the military, all just part of normality on a disputed border. (A few weeks after this, two cities further south were rocked by numerous bombs, simultaneously detonated by mobile phones; further restraints may now inevitably be in place)
Nubra Valley
On the bus from Srinagar we’d met three lads all travelling individually (Jad, a Canadian Indian,
Shanti Stupa,
A gift for peace from Japan
Richard, an English Student and the inimitable Pako a German like us travelling for two years). We were all still speaking after the 22hr bus journey (!) and when Pako wasn’t in a snooker hall, we continued to spend time together, including a three day jaunt, north of Leh, to the Nubra valley.
It was another amazing road journey to Nubra, passing over the world’s highest motorable pass and on into a beautiful remote area, tucked right up into the border with Pakistan and China. Remote but busy with military and truck traffic the decoration and messages on the trucks (and there were many of them) made us smile. As did the road signs of the BRO (Border Roads Organisation) urging safe driving using such cringe worthy idioms as:
“Driving risky after drinking whisky”;
“If married divorce speed”;
“Be gentle on my curves”;
“Yes dear we can gossip once I’ve got us safely home”
In Nubra we visited some lovely Monasteries, the boys took a camel ride on Bactrian camels, across sand dunes but mostly we just gaped at the lovely scenery.
It was Euro 2008 time when we got back to Leh and we watched
The lanes around Leh
Just look at those lovely legs!
the final at just past midnight on a large open air screen, which doubled as an outdoor cinema. Otherwise time passed in lazy days people watching, or more accurately Cow watching. We never did get used to the cows, bulls and buffalo that wander so freely - or more accurately we never got used to the evidence that they had recently passed by!
Onwards to Manali
We’d have stayed longer but the altitude had started to affect me, well at least I think that’s what caused the racing pulse and sleep apnoea. So it was with regret that we said goodbye to the various almond eyed peoples that we have been amidst since May.
Bleary eyed we got on the three am bus for a seventeen hour journey, crossing two mountain ranges into Himachal Pradesh and the much talked about Manali.
Even at that early hour our bus was a treat, all decked out with images of the driver’s favoured deities, the walls and ceiling covered in tassels and a small electric desk fan was suspended over each seat. (The driver had clearly been enjoying too much Dal and each time he broke
Inside the Ghompa
We visited a Buddhist ghompa (monastery) way up on the hill. Parked nearby was a car which we reckoned was the Monk-Mobile when we realised there were just us and two monks there.
In a very ordinary looking room startled by massive Buddha, smiling serenely
wind he’d put the fans on for five minutes to clear the air!)
It was another spectacular journey, on a road which is only open for five or so months a year and is in a permanent state of repair. But that mattered little as we passed through majestic scenery well beyond my descriptive powers. It’s a journey we would readily undertake again, except perhaps for the section of hairpin bends down from the final pass (Rothang-La) into Manali. They were covered in cloud and fog so dense that everybody on the bus was silent, fearing for their very lives and so we were welcomed back to the Indian Monsoon.
Manali
In other parts of India the area is known as Little Israel, reflecting the number of young Israeli people there. One Israeli girl explained that on finishing their national service (to which of course the girls are also drafted) its common for them to take a six month break - usually in Northern India or South America - hence so many of them together there.
The valley was covered in cannabis plants growing wild everywhere, it was amusing to watch the cows, and
Leh
Looking across Leh to the Shanti Stupa, so green and so beautiful
even a passing Elephant munch on the plants. Wonder what the milk is like?
Despite its glorious setting in a green steep sided valley, we found Manali a little disappointing. Perhaps because whilst we were there the mountain tops only occasionally peeped out from behind monsoon clouds and it was too wet to take advantage of the walks around the valley. Or maybe it was the flies, it’s the only place we encountered them in such numbers on our ten weeks in India!
So, after a few days at the great Veer Guest House, (with not only hot running water but an almost comfortable bed and a TV showing the British Grand prix and Wimbledon, whilst selling beer all for less than £5 per night) we headed off on yet another bus to Shimla, capital of the Himachal Pradesh region.
On the Road Again
Himachal Pradesh is crowned by the western peaks of the Himalaya and is covered by mystical mountains and valleys; all of which meant another beautiful but neck crunching and bum numbing ten hour journey to reach Shimla. It was annoying how often we’d been sitting in a bone shaker
On Shanti Stupa
We visited at Sunset, the views over Leh were amazing.
Peaceful, canât keep smile off face
“deluxe bus” looking at air-conditioned buses whizzing past, leaving us to ask “Why aren’t we on that”? So seasoned travellers that we now were, we grilled the booking agent and demanded photos before booking the bus to Shimla.
But it was two depressed Philips’ who early next day climbed aboard yet another ancient vehicle who’s suspension had passed its best in the 1970s (presumably when the picture had been taken) and with a crew determined to pick up every potential paying passenger, never mind how late we were running.
On the bus we met two Australian ladies, from Alice Springs, travelling with a seven year blond girl, called Daisy, who loved so much about India but not the food. Thank the Lord for Jam Sandwiches!
Let’s hear it for the bus drivers.
I’ve complained about sitting on the busses but the drivers have to drive for hours with barely a break, they get equally bum numbed and then have to get up and do it all again the next day and the next, all for a very low wage. The achievement of much of the workforce is stunning; India has a population
Road to Nubra Valley
In part the attraction of visiting Nubra was crossing the Khardung- La pass which at an altitude 5,602 meters is the worldâs highest motorable pass and on yet another barely formed road.
of over a billion, consequently the workforce is cheap and it’s striking to us Europeans just how much they achieve with so little in the way of tools/plant but so much ingenuity. I’d swear that the road crews that we saw in Ladakh had only a few wooden tools, a broom and a big smile between them yet they somehow managed to keep those impossible roads passable.
It was however entertaining to see shovels operated by two people, one person holding the handle whilst the other helps pull the shovel on a rope! Women also have their place in the manual teams and take their fair share of the hard labour.
Yet each miracle of individual effort is not co-ordinated to create an effective whole. There’s an enormous programme of road development to help cope with the current and forthcoming explosion of cars, evidenced by the new dual carriage ways and overpasses under construction every where, yet very few new or completed ones. Typically a mile or so of dual carriageway will be completed but perforated by the original unsealed road. The passing traffic of course uses these pieces of new carriageway but happily travel in either direction
Hugs at 5,600m
It quite takes your breath away. and on either lane. As Terry quickly realised the grass covered central reservations are used for grazing cattle; you might wonder about the heady mix of fast cars, Indian driver’s notoriously appalling sense of road safety and the cattle!
Shimla
Boy but its wet during a Monsoon and we arrived in a damp and strangely British looking Shimla; its where the Raj created a little part of England and it looks like Bromley transplanted to the Himalaya, especially the imposing Christ Church. Shimla is still a really popular hill resort and favoured honeymoon spot and was high on our must see list before leaving home. Tales from other travellers had lowered our expectations, incorrectly as it turned out as we loved it!
We’d also been told that whilst in India we’d both love it and hate it at the same time and that is so true. Indian people are so lovely yet others so annoying. The touts that greet you everywhere are overwhelming at any time but after a long journey, they are unbearable and bring out the worse in us. In Shimla we walked a mile up a steep hillside, with bags, in
95% humidity rather than pay 20 rupee ( about 25p) to a porter who earns so little. What is that all about?
But pleased to report at the top of the hill was a proper coffee shop. Double Espresso all round, Hooray. Also, I found a mini element in the bazaar, the type which is dunked into a cup of water to make tea. No safety mark and I get regular electrical shocks from it but hey, bed tea is restored !
The surrounds of Shimla were of course swathed in high cloud, except when it was low cloud and the rain tipped down. But somehow that added to the views. Fortunately, the cloud inevitably lifted in late evening and we were rewarded with some magnificent sunsets. At night the lights of the houses clinging to all the steep sided valleys twinkled in competition with the stars and formed a double firmament. Really lovely.
Really lovely, but oh so damp. Never be so foolish as to hang anything in a wardrobe overnight; it just comes out the next morning wet. Nothing dries, we gave up trying to wash our own clothes out and sent them to a
On the Road to Nubra
The scenery was breathtaking, with Yaks and marmots lining a roadside amazingly busy with innumerable trucks, which even as working vehicles were richly decorated; the hand painted HAZ CHEM certificates however, made us smile.
laundry. It all came back wet, we complained, they shrugged and said what can we do it’s the Monsoon.
Surely it can’t be so bad down on the Punjabi Plains?
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charuavi
Anuprita Avinash Kadam
You are so lucky
Dear Christine and Terry, Read the blog. Now I know what I missed by not visiting Ladakh. Some day I will have to just take a flight to Leh. (No I can't imagine taking the sort of buses you described NOW.) You have beautifully brought out the essence of Northwest India, which we in South India know so little about. Keep up the good work. Charu and Avi