Indias high Himalaya, Little Tibet or contestested ground?

We boarded our old airbus A320 at Delhi’s Palam Airport. (They like to call it Indira Ghandi International, but I prefer the old name). Indian Airlines has been operating this type since 1990. I suspected that our aircraft was one of the first batch. My seat was worn, but soft, and the leg room sufficient for a man of 6’2”. The main benefit of these airbuses is that the Indians ordered many of them with double bogie undercarriage, so rather than breaking with four wheels, we braked with 8. A major bonus at some of India’s shorter and less easy airstrips. We taxied out and took off in a typical Delhi fog. We climbed out through the pollution and haze and through the clouds. We popped out into the semi dark of the pre dawn. We levelled out and the air stewardesses served breakfast as the sun rose slowly over the start of the Pir Panjal range. To be exact, the sin rose over the clouds, but shone onto the mountains.

In front of me sat a senior officer of a mundane government department that politeness dictates I do not name. We talked openly of Ladakh, and the issues facing India. He was a highly educated and polite man, who showed a sense of intelligence and insight that was momentous. He said something like this:

“If Pakistan fails as a state, no one has more to loose than India. The ensuing chaos would affect us more than any other country. It is in our interests to see that Pakistan succeeds, but it is failing, its institutions are failing”

“Perhaps Pakistan is not India’s real enemy” I ventured “I would say that economically and in terms of Influence surely China must be….”

“Exactly!” he cut me off “Pakistan is merely a tool of the Chinese. The Chinese are single minded. They develop at any cost. Look at Nepal and the roads they build there. There is no conservation. They are truly the ones to be wary of”

Our conversation continued in this vein. I explained that I had once been to Pakistan and many times to China. He seemed fascinated, as I tried to explain the Chinese way of thinking and doing things. To do this properly would have taken a few months, but we only had a 70 minute flight and we had to eat breakfast at the same time. I could only hope that India had more men like this who had such foresight and analytical ability.

By now, we were flying with mountains all around. Our travel companion for the flight had done the journey often and Pointed out the sights.
“That is the Pir Panjal range, then we cross another valley into the Great Himalaya range and finally when we enter Leh, we are in the start of the Karakoram range. The view was incredible, a non stop line of white capped mountains lit by the morning sun. The horizon was mountains. .
“That must be China” I said, pointing at some mountains.
“Yes that is China”
“What lake is that?” I asked pointing at a white flat frozen surface.
“Tso Mo Riri.” He replied. I had been there and knew that this was literally just over the border. I looked into what was definitely the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. I wondered what other domestic flight in the world flies over and then into the Himalayas, and lands amongst the midst of them.

We curled around now, and the air stewardess announced a photo ban, that everyone ignored. “Have they not heard of google earth?” I asked myself.

The a320 followed a route familiar to me; we zoomed up the Indus valley, over the town of Leh, over a ridge, and curled round in a sharp left hand turn. We descended and our wingtip literally went past Spituk monastery as we lined up on the airfield. We thumped down on the concrete slabs interspersed with Teflon. Our reverse thrust had limited effect at 10,400 feet and we used up most of the 9000ft long runway. The taxi to the terminal was short and we climbed down the air stairs. I was not allowed to take a photo so I just stood there for a second, remembering the view of the sun shining on the parked jet, Mt Stok Kangri, the bus on the right and the white snow covered line of mountains as a backdrop.
“Incredible” I said to no one in particular.

A pleasant taxi driver took us to the hotel Lasermo, where we got in for a pre arranged Rs 2000. There were no tourists on our flight and precious few in Leh. There was and plenty of sun. As part of our acclimatisation we walked very slowly up to the gompa and Leh castle. Then we walk around, have lunch and attempt to get to the Shanthi sputa. We are stymied and stop half way up. Clearly wandering in the day is not the same as wandering in the night.

On our first day, I decided to write a letter to my friend Mike Eggers to try to explain the complexities of the region to him. Having written it, I decided not to send it from India, but to wait until I was outside the country. The truth after all, is not a commodity that the Indians are keen on:

Dear Mike,
Greetings from Ladakh. This is a district of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. This means that it is disputed territory between India Pakistan and our Chinese friends over the border. Let me explain.
In 1947, the princely state of Kashmir was supposed to decide whether to join India or Pakistan. The ailing Rajah was a Hindu and his Muslim state was in open rebellion against him. He had little control outside Jammu and his days were numbered. In his last gesture of control he decided that his state should join India. His people saw things differently and wanted to maintain their independence, but with their man in charge, not a Hindu. They were never given an opportunity to vote on this issue. The newly formed Pakistan saw the Kashmiris as opting for Pakistan.
So the Indian army of India (which had recently been split into two, regiment by regiment-but not on overtly religious grounds) walked into Kashmir to support India’s claim and the Rajah. (Who took his cash and promptly fled). All would have been fairly simple if this had remained the status quo, but the Indian army who walked in, were not the previous Indian Army of the Himalayas.
One unit, of The Indian army of Pakistan (Still with me here) decided that this Indian Hegemony was not a good idea. These chaps, called the Gilgit Scouts (now the Northern Light Infantry, Pakistan Army) went racing into western Kashmir. They wrested control of all the high places and the Chinese border from the Indian Indian Army. So as it stands now, India controls 30% Pakistan 60%.
You may ask, “where did the remaining 10% go? Well the inscrutable Chinese walked into the Aksai Chin in 1962. The real Indian Army had not changed much since world war two, and were issued with world war II bolt action rifles and greatcoats. The Chinese had made some changes to their army since 1949 and were issued with down jackets and burp guns. Surprisingly, the Chinese won control of what they wanted (A road to Tibet) and captured an entire Indian Brigade. The Indians were humiliated. An officer in the Indian Army at the time told me that one of the wives of the brigade was still waiting for her husbands return till the day he died.
“Where did the Brigade end up?” I asked.
“Some labour camp we think.” replied the officer”
All was quiet until 1971 when India and Pakistan fought yet another border skirmish in the Himalayas while India freed the Bengalis from yoke of Punjabis. (they invaded west Pakistan and allowed them to form their own state called Bangladesh. The land or Bengal). All would have remained hunky dory until the mid 1980’s when the Kashmiris on the Indian side of the Line of Actual control decided that they were serious about the independence thing. Demonstrations became violence which became open insurrection. The Indian Government call the Kashmiris terrorists. The Kashmiris call themselves freedom fighters. The campaign was adequately contained until 1999.
In 1999 the Northern Light Infantry (remember them) walked into Indian controlled Kashmir at a place called Kargil and Drass. The Indians were totally unable to dislodge them. They used jet aircraft, artillery, helicopter gunships and bayonet charges, but the NLI remained lodged on their hilltops. The Indian Army had again been humiliated.
It took Bill Clinton to do what the Indians could not. He did told the Pakistan prime minister, a chap called Nawaz Sharif to stop messing about and stop playing games. He then had to tell the Pakistan Army Chief, General Pervez Musharaff (does the name ring a bell) to stop fighting and clear off the hills. Musharaff was apparently very annoyed, he was, after all winning and humiliating India. Now his army had been humiliated. The Indians claimed victories, and called the Kargil campaign a huge success. I suppose it was, but really America was the winner, both in influence in Pakistan and India. The Indians had really lost influence here.
To further complicate matters, Pakistan not being a democracy, had some internal ructions. Nawaz Sharif got mega annoyed with Pervez Musharaff and sacked him while he was in the air (PIA airbus a310) and low on fuel. Top tip in a shenzy country- do NOT sack your army chief when the only place he can land is his sworn enemy.
So faced with the sack and the further humiliation of a forced landing in India, Pervez calls some of his men on the planes radio and has them storm to the airport to let him land. They then become a little over enthusiastic and storm the country. By the time he landed, "General" Musharaff had become "Chief Executive General".
The funny thing is, ersatz democracy of a sort has returned to Pakistan. (For some of the major cities at least) and Asif Ali Zardari is the president, Nawaz Sharif is in pole position to become prime minister. General Musharaff is retired and as I write this, in India giving a speech on leadership and peace at an intellectual forum.
Pakistan is on the verge of collapse as a state. And the Indian State is petrified that the state of Pakistan will fail. India’s leaders, and more importantly her civil service have finally come to realise that India more than any other nation has the most to loose if Pakistan becomes another Afghanistan. So very quietly, the sensible Indians are trying not to destabilize Pakistan, rather to bolster that nation.
Well I hope that you are now fully cognizant of the tooing and froing of various Indian armies, the newly formed Pakistanis and the wonderful Chinese. I suppose it just goes to show, that nothing here south Asia is set in stone.

enjoy sunny Kabul, take care,
Yours Raf


After writing the letter we meet Peter, a curious, but very pleasant Dutch road engineer who lived near Delhi. Strangely enough, he was not working on India’s roads, but on the Netherlands’ roads system. Using Indian engineers, and basing himself in Delhi he worked more cheaply and effectively. Peter was off to the Nubra valley soon, and arranged to meet us on his last days to go to the Buddhist festival at the weekend.

I went to bed, so excited at the prospect of a week here in Ladakh, but the room was cold and I froze. Snot went down the back of my throat and I found myself running to the toilet to projectile vomit in the night. I mean the night, as there was no power and finding the toilet bowl at 3metres in the dark is no mean feat. Needless to say, I did not disgrace myself totally and managed to get 50% of the puke into the bowl. The rest went on the marble floor and the carpet. I cleared up as much as I could, but the next morning I requested the ladakhi cleaning ladies to assist me. They smiled knowingly. Altitude vomit in the winter was normal to them. What was not normal was the Rs 100 tip ($2) that each of them got. They beamed as they wandered off into the cold air. I suspect that they hoped my ailment would long continue!

We were lucky the next day in that the sun still shone. We meandered down the Indus river to Thikse and then Spituk monasteries. The blue sky, and crisp cool weather and total lack of tourists made the day very special. It was almost as if we were the only tourists in the valley.

That day, a Polish girl and a Sri Lankan boy arrived. The Polish girl was open minded, but quite singular in an eastern European way. What she lacked in finesse she made up with openness. The boy was full of beans and was effectively a westerner in Sri Lankan clothing. He was a mover and a shaker, and he was good at his job. We warmed to them both. Chandu was about to meet his nemesis in India. He and Maria went off to Apply for inner line permits. Permits issued by the district magistrate to go within a certain number of kilometres of the line of actual control. We were all given ours, but Chandu, being a Sri Lankan was denied his permit. He had an Indian Overseas Passport, and was in effect an Indian Citizen (overseas), he was also a Tamil, but this made no odds. The District magistrate said “NO”. Chandu had never been refused a visa before and he considered himself as Indian as an Indian. He had lived in India for 20 years and the certificate of Overseas Indian Citizen lulled him into thinking he was the same as the Indians or his Sri Lankan Passport made him the same as us. In Colombo, Chandu knew all the diplomats, he played rugby and Cricket with them, in Colombo, the diplomats needed people like him. Here in high India he was just another Sri Lankan. The worst sort of foreigner to be in India is a neighbour.
“Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka all not allowed” Said the guide gleefully.
“What about Nepal”
“Almost Indian” smiled the cheeky ladakhi guide.
And so while Chandu went to plead with the DM, we three went to Nimmu where Indus River goes into Zanskar. The weather was cold grey, wet and miserable. We had tea at Nimmu as the bus came in and froze. My photos were dreary, I coughed up half of my lungs and I swore that I regretted coming to Leh. Of course I did not, but swearing such oaths made me feel better.

Every night in the Lasermo Hotel got slightly easier. We slept slightly longer and ate slightly more. Leh had power for about four hours a day. The hotel provided us with power in the morning and evening and some heating. We read our books, edited photos and coughed up more of my lungs. Cisca ate momos in a Tibetan restaurant and caught a nasty case of what we now think is Giarda. It’s been 5 weeks and she still has a permanent daily appointment with the loo. I wanted to be in contact with the outside world, so I bought a Kashmir only simcard. This took only a few moments, but by the time I left, the airtel corporation knew everything that there was to know about me. They had copies of every document that I owned.

On our penultimate day was the day of the Buddhist festival, we climbed up to the mini Potala Palace and mingled with the ladakhi people. We shot frame after frame of towns’ folk, and monks freezing in the slight sunshine but everyone was excited. As we sat on the hillside, we were treated to the most gorgeous views of the Indus valley and Mt Stock Kangri behind. The people were happy, but there were a few too many wide boys wandering around. At this point I could see why Ladakh needs tourism. The youth need to be gainfully employed, and there are two choices. The Ladakh scouts regiment or tourism. By afternoon we had tired of the endless dancing and chanting and hired a cab to go to Yangthang. The drive took us up into a parallel valley and up over a cold 12,000ft pass. Puntsok our driver slid the two wheel drive Mahindra around and about and up the curves with skill and a high degree of dexterity. The light was grey but lucid. The cold was unbearable unless moving, and so we munched on our energy bars and walked between the cow sheds, the dogs, the people and the fields. In the background were low snow covered brown hills that were the barrier to the next valley. Behind us were steep mountains and bushes that reminded me of Switzerland in winter. I made a mental note to try to come back in spring. Before catching hypothermia in the -20’c temperature we retired to the Mahindra and the Leh road.

That night I wrote in my diary:


Meet Chandu and Maria again. The DM keeps saying no to Sri Lankans and Chandu won’t give up. Oh well. He keeps trying.

Snow falls around us, visibility drops to a variable 2000m. That means 2000m in one direction and 200 in another. We are in our fourth day of bad weather and very snowed in. Leh is cut off from by road from its state capital of Sri Nagar from October until April the 14th. It is cut off from Manali and Uttar Pradesh on from September until May or June. During the winter, the only way in or out is by plane from the local airfield. Effectively this is the civil terminal at I.A.F station Leh. The locals call it “Airport”. And now, the airfield is definitely closed. Nothing is coming in our out. On sunny days, there are three civil flights and the Indian Air Force operates up to six Ilushin 76 “candid” s a day. These huge freighters are called the Gajraj by the IAF, meaning King Elephant in Hindi. They carry the supplies needed by the enormous troop contingent up here in Ladakh. All the Ladakhis suspect that they really only carry beer and Scotch Whiskey. We hope to catch a jet airways flight tomorrow, which will allow us to fly to Delhi and then on to Doha and Dar es Salaam. But all depends upon the weather. If we miss two flying days in a row, we miss our Qatar Airways flight, and there are no seats to Tanzania for a week.

This was our last night and so we went to our favourite restaurant, the Leh View. They supplied us with Dahl and Chicken apple juice and not much else. The Kashmiris were very friendly, but more importantly, they did not further poison us, like the Ladakhi kitchen liked to do.








I knew that leaving Leh was not going to be easy. The day before we flew, I had met the acting station manager of Kingfisher Airlines in the Hotel, a young Kashmiri Muslim from Sri Nagar called Mirza.
“I miss my family” he said “My health is not good” He went on “I have high BP here”
“What does the doctor say?”
“What Doctor, there is nothing here” he bemoaned. “Luckily my brother is a physician and he advised me to take pills and drink water. If I get no chest pains, I am ok, then I have three more days here and I can return to Sri Nagar.”
“What is the situation vis a vis flights?”
“We have cancelled for three days in a row. Today we had snow warnings until 1300hrs so I cancelled. And then at 1000hrs the sky cleared. We could have operated” He looked thoroughly upset then spat “we could have easily operated. The Indian Air Force met officer are useless. Now I have 450 passengers stranded in Delhi waiting for a plane up here. Tomorrow we have the same snow warning, but I will not cancel, these boys know nothing, we will wait until the last minute.

I had a funny feeling that Mirza was going to operate his flight the next day come hell or high water. And I knew for a fact that Jet like to cancel if their schedule looks like its going to be slightly out of kilter. I took the plunge and explained that I was a jet passenger. “Look if Jet airways cancel, can I board your aircraft?”
“Definitely we will sell you a ticket” Kashmiris love the idea of selling anything.
“You are sure?”
“Farhat” he said conspiratorially “we are brothers, if Jet cancels, Kingfisher will fly you”
“and my wife”
“Of course, and your wife too, I have seats” He said with a nod of his head.

The next day We woke to a snow shower. We said our goodbyes to the Lasermo team. They had been a bit grubby, but the lads had served us so well. Our bill did not reflect the kindness and free teas that we had availed off. I dropped off a large amount of tips and a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka for the manager. The entire staff came out to wish us well and tell us that we would probably see them in four hours.

The airport was an armed camp. Central reserve policemen mixed up with Indo Tibetan Border Policeman, who mixed with the army and the Jammu and Kashmir Constabulary. All of them had a plethora of automatic weapons from Indian indigenous plastic, to new Russian ak type to ancient Belgian cannons that would stop a buffalo. All of them were adamant that we could not enter the inner zone. We waited and, after an hour were allowed to check in. The snow did not clear, and delay after delay after delay was announced for both jet and Kingfisher. The sun came out and burned off some of the clouds.
“we need 8000metres visibility, cloud cover 9 and both passes open” said the jet man authoritatively. “We have 5000 metres and climbing”
“now we have 7000metres, but we are not sure of the passes”
We waited with a Japanese family and some none too friendly French Climbers. We waited and waited. Kingfisher put their entire flight through security and jet waited. The sun burned off so much, surely this was it. We were out?

“Jet airways regrets to announce the cancellation of its flight….” Boomed the tannoy.
“What’s this?” I asked the Jet man.
“Chances are less than 20/80”
“But kingfisher are trying”
“They will take off and turn round when they get here he said coolly”

I walked over to the kingfisher desk.
“I need a ticket”
“We cannot do this, see the office”
I found an “officer” who happened to be a Kashmiri, not a Ladakhi and he agreed.
“If you have cash, you can have a seat” He said.
“Ok I have cash”
“When the aircraft is overhead, then we will sell you a ticket” he said.

The French started arguing about free accommodation and the Jet airways crew had to fend them off, but one of them took care of his clients with onward bookings.
“Mr Jah, chances are still only 50/50 but we will help you board kingfisher if they fly”
“The aircraft has taken off from Delhi” shouted a kingfisher girl with her head to a radio.
We waited at the check in desk, for more news with the friendly Japanese.
“Mr Jah, some good news” said the jet man. “an army plane is circling, so the runway may be open”
“But they have different tolerances to jet” I said
“Yes, but the chances are now 60%in your favour.”
The Ilushin 76 candid came screaming down the runway. All four of its powerful polluting soviolev turbines howled as the plane neared the runway, the black smoke increased from the turbines and it roared back into the sky. It actually sounded like a very p*ssed off lion. The watchers in the terminal looked on in dismay.
“He says the wind is too high” said the girl with the radio.
The Il 76 did not return. I wished we had stayed in Leh; we could have had a nice meal of stale dahl and chapattis and passed another night in the Himalayas.

Minutes later Mirza appeared like a colonel of the household division. His hat was set at a jaunty angle, his trousers creased and his shoes shone like mirrors. The rest of the kingfisher team deferred to his presence.
“Farhat of course you can fly with us” He beamed. Our plane is over head. “Issue the tickets” he barked in Urdu at the incredulous staff.
“Look I really want a window seat, if I am paying $190”
“Of course,” Seat one A and one B for Mr Jah” He barked at the girl. “I hold them for VIP traffic” he whispered to me “Today you are my VIP’s. After much ado about nothing, we had our tickets, jet re tagged our bags, endorsed our paper e tickets for refund and then all hell broke loose. A single Airbus a320 came past the spituk monastery on finals. All the staff of all airlines, the police and the passengers raced to the plate glass windows. As the twin bogie undercarriage kissed the teflon, the entire airport started cheering, hugging each other and jumping up and down. This was the first commercial flight in four days to have landed in Leh. The siege had been broken, contact with the outside world had been renewed. The cheering drowned out the full reverse thrust and the Indo Tibetan border police finally came to their senses and started shooing passengers off the luggage belts as the airbus taxied in to the parking matt. In the end, the Kingfisher crew were overwhelmed and so the jet airways crew wrote out our manual boarding cards and pushed us through security. I identified our bags and Mirza was there to say goodbye on the tarmac.
“You simply must visist me in Sri Nagar he beamed” as he ushered us and the Japanese onto the plane.”
We boarded in the light sunlight and sat next to a very high ranking monk. A Belgian who had been chatting to Cisca looked at us and said
“how did you get those seats, I asked and they were full” he rankled.
“Well, they just gave them to us, must have been a last minute thing” she smiled at him in a stressed manner.
“That’s really bad, he said, really bad” and the Belgian stormed off down the aisle in a bad mood.

The sun shone through a hole in the cloud on the parking mat. Some of the jet airways ground crew waited with the Kingfisher crew. They would not leave us, until we were in the air, or back on the ground and in need of a hotel. The first officer walked around the aircraft boarded and the doors were sealed. Captain Singh, a middle ages Sikh gentleman set the pressurisation (I checked on my barometric altimeter) to 10,300 ft, effective ground level. And taxied to the end of the runway. He had 150 odd passengers waiting to get out of the Indus valley and only a short window of opportunity to take off. He taxied us out to the end of the concrete/teflon runway and we waited. Once we were rolling, this was it, there was little chance of turning back in such foul weather. He applied the brakes and opened up the throttles. The engines roared and he let go of the brakes, we belted down the concrete, thumping every teflon crack. Whuck whuck whuck…… went the nose wheel and we built up speed. We rotated and the noise stopped and then climbed inexorably. Not into the sky but towards a mountain. Then the plane banked and we turned towards another rockface. We climbed onwards and upwards. I looked out of the window and looked up at yet more mountains. We entered thick cloud and flew on instruments. I rather hoped we would miss the rest of the mountains. The airbus buffeted and bumped and we popped out into a blue sky and glorious strong sunshine. Not the weak sun of Leh, but strong warm, UV burning light of high altitude. Below us was a carpet of white with the occasional peak poking out. We levelled off and turned south to New Delhi, and Mr Shah’s carpet shop.

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