A few days holiday in Paris, to finish shopping for the trek (mostly medicine-related stuff), pack everything and review the planning. Here are two maps I drew from the trek's description and the official maps of Ladakh: First map is the complete itinerary, including plane, truck and train travels. Length is about 1'500 km. Second one is trek-only, that's when we do the walking. Length is 80 km. [View Full Entry]

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Obtaining a Visa is mandatory to travel to India. As a tourist, you may ask for a 3 months, 6 months or 1 year Visa. From France, Visa requests may be done through a specialized agency, if you lack the time to go yourself, or directly at the India Visa Center in Paris 10th. A common mistake when filling out the web form is forgetting to note down the Request Ident. The ident is necessary to review the form and print it... If you lose the Ident number, as I did, the only solution is to call them during the week, [View Full Entry]

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So, at long last we are four suscribed travelers on our way to Ladakh and Kashmire. Including our guide Igor, that makes five. After so much trouble finding enough people to join the trek, newspaper talk about governments closing frontiers to avoid spreading Swine Flu. Argh ! Anyway, time to get a visa and the remaining stuff ready. Only 30 days left to departure (and thank you Redbull for keeping me up at work until then...) [View Full Entry]

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I called the travel agency once more today, it really looks like not enough people can join the trek. But no worry, I am still going to Ladakh, with this trip: link So what are the pros and cons? - pros: * a part of he trip is in Kashmir, where there are extremely few tourists at any time * the guide Igor is renowned as the best guide in the whole Himalayas (or so the travel advisor says) * longer walks each day (up to 9 hours) * travel is confirmed to go - cons: * shorter trip (20 days [View Full Entry]

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From the Western parts of Ladah, you can see the K2 mountain, which may - or may not - be the highest place in the world, but is in any case renowned to be the most difficult peak to climb. As for 2008, 299 people have completed the ascent (nearly 300, they must be of Spartan blood!) versus 2600 for the Everest. Obviously, no travel agency organizes group climbing that high. This would be irresponsible for a group of people who have not proven their level before, or who meet for the first time. However there are a number of organized [View Full Entry]

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First of all some good news: I went by the Travel Agency last week-end, two more people joined to the trek, this is in favour of confirming the departure. And even in the worst case where less than two additional people join before the end of May, I took an option on a similar, but shorter, trek where enough people have already suscribed. So, here is the planning as given by the Agency: - Day 1 and 2: Paris - New Delhi - Leh by plane - Day 3 and 4 a few days tourism around Leh, to get used to [View Full Entry]

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Do you remember this strip in Tintin in Tibet where captain Haddock falls down the mountain while Tintin shouts him to stay to the left of a chorten? Chorten are a religious Tibetan monuments, generally supposed to contain relics of Buddha and Saints. They are also very useful to help mountainers and trekkers find their way! In Ladakh and Tibet, every small village has its small chorten, which can also be decorated for special occasions. Walking to the right is supposed to irritate demons, [View Full Entry]

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Check list: - vaccinations: done, finally! It did not hurt even once :) - material: mostly done, all that's left are medicine and some last-minute material. Starting from naught, the complete material cost me around one thousand Euro. I guess you could find a lot cheaper, but I prefer to have the best available stuff, there won't be any chance to find better material up there ! - new camera: done, this is an awesome digital Canon, powerful but not too big or flashy - visa: still to do - find travel compani [View Full Entry]

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I have finally received the book by Olivier Föllmi that I mentioned two weeks ago in this blog. This is actually not a novel, but a short story of the author's travels to Zanskar with dozens of incredible photographs of the mountains and of Zanskari people. He tells how he got to know this land, how he made friends with a local mountain guide and how he agreed to bring the guide's child to a school in Leh. This was extremely seldom at the time, all other children in Zanskar stayed working in the fields and barely had any education at [View Full Entry]

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Acute Mountain Sickness is an extreme form of body's reaction to altitude and lack of oxygen that may appear above 2,400 metres. When this happens, you had best go down the mountain, because it only gets worse... Easier solution is to climb slowly, spend several days at a middle altitude before heading for the true adventure. Our trek will start from the lowest areas of Zanskar, in Lamayuru and end up with the highest passes (5,500 metres) close to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [View Full Entry]

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