Ladakhi living

This week the SECMOL students went on a 6-day field trip to the Zanskar area, which involved 2 days on a bus each way, so I opted to go on a local trek with Catherine, another volunteer from Quebec.

We did a 'Home-stay' trek which involved walking between villages and staying in the homes of local Ladakhi families. It was a great way to see both the scenery and to see inside Ladakhi homes and meet the local people. We just bought a map and set off. The Home-stays provided bedding and food, so we needed very little and carried our own bags. Also we didn't need a Guide as the paths were well defined (apart from a few exciting river crossings the first day).

The area is a geologist's dream as there are so many different types of rock - both in terms of colours (everything from deep purple, through black, browns, beiges, to bright greens), to different types of rock often occurring right next to each other. At the top of the Stok La pass (4900m) there if dark slate type rock butted up next to brown pebble-dash type stuff (sorry about the non-technical descriptions!). You could clearly see the divide between the two down the valleys in both directions.

We saw a few Marmots, Mountain Hares, Blue sheep and birds, but the snow leopards were keeping hidden - I think there's only about 5 of them in any case.

The Ladakhi people in the villages (as everywhere) were very friendly, even those who did not speak any English. We had taken a phrase book with us and tried to learn some basic Ladakhi to their great amusement. The language is not tonal, so we were able to make ourselves understood reasonably well and had a few enjoyable evenings trying to 'talk' to the Home-stay residents. It was very interesting to see their main living area / kitchen where we took our meals, even if it was a bit disconcerting that they wouldn't eat with us, but sat and watched us eat instead. A lot of the villages were quite deserted as many people had gone to Leh to see the Dalai Lama and another important head of a monastery (Rhomposhe) who was there about the same time.

At a place called Skiu we sat through about 90 minutes of a special prayer session at the local monastery, which was very interesting. They were praying for water for the village, and on both the next two days it rained! This is the rainy season though... I even had to put on my waterproof jacket for the longest of the rain showers, mainly because a strong cold wind blew up - it lasted all of 15 minutes and enough rain fell to almost join up the dots on the ground and change the light coloured dust to dark!

Our early morning hikes up a little hill (approx 200m climb) near to SECMOL must have paid off as we made short work of the passes, even with our bags, and generally walked a lot quicker than the times given on the map. We hope to arrange a trip up Stok Kangri next, a 6,000m+ mountain.

Prior to going away I took the risk and had my hair cut in Leh - I was a bit dubious as the man who cut it could hardly see over the top of my head he was so short and the chair was so high. However, he made a good job of it, although it is quite short and it only cost me about 30p.

We also went to see the Dalai Lama at Choglamsar when he was doing one of his outside addresses. We sat in an area for foreigners which was quite near the front to one side, and there was an English translator. At first it was OK as the Dalai Lama would talk for a few minutes and then stop so the Translator could relay his words of wisdom to us - the Dalai Lama was talking in Tibetian, so there was also a translator into Ladakhi for the locals. However, after a while he got into the swing of it and would talk for ages, often laughing out loud, then not give the translators enough time to repeat it before he started up again, so it became very disjointed and I lost the plot after a while. It was an amazing spectacle seeing about 10,000 people all sitting in the field, some under the canopy and many under brightly coloured umberallas to protect them from the sun. Even if he had given enough time for the transaltion, I'm not sure if I'd have followed it all (even without the odd pronunciation of the translator) as I borrowed a book from the SECMOL library of an interview with the Dalai Lama in America and I couldn't understand most of what he was going on about! I'll have to leave enlightenment for another time I think...

Well, enough ramblings for now. Back to SECMOL tomorrow to try to do something to the pump. Thanks to everyone who has come up with suggestions.

Hope you are all well and enjoying the last of the summer...
Take care and have fun
Helen

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