Continued adventures in Ladakh

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13-24 August

When we returned to Leh it was just in time for the Dalai Lama's teachings in Choklamsar, which is only 8 km down the road from Leh and the place for his summer palace. His teachings here were different from those in Dharamasala in that the crowd was mostly Ladakhis form near and far, the place was a large open field backed by beautiful snow-capped mountains, and you could actually see the Dalai Lama while he was talking, whereas in Dharamsala unless you had a very fortunate seat there is no way to see him talking. Just like in Dharamsala, all the Ladakhis wear their best clothing and there is a nice festive mood surrounding the event.

After enjoying the culinary and visual delights of Leh for awhile I headed out east to Pangong Lake. It is a beautiful lake and everybody said "you must go there" but the real reason was something altogether different. When leaving Dharamsala I asked Chogyal (the owner of Cafe Rewa) if he wanted anything from Ladakh, because I knew that he had spent several years up there when he was in the Tibetan army (yes, Tibet has an army!). I thought maybe he would be interested in some food or clothing or something. At first he said no but after a minute or two he said "well, you can bring back some holy water from Pangong Lake". "Done, and done", I replied, "where and what is Pangong Lake?"

I had a beautiful share-jeep ride for 5 hours to the lake with four young Koreans and a Japanese woman. Since I was the oldest of the group I was continually addressed as "Douglas-san", which after a while has a nice ring to it and one can easily get used to, I must say. I asked my travel companions what they thought of Indian rice, since Asians are so particular about their rice, and after a series of wrinkled noses, out-thrust tongues and mild retching noises they provided responses like "too dry", "no taste" and "ït doesn't stick together". At least they don't have the frustration of trying to track down a hamburger in India.

The lake forms part of the boundary with China and, after the 1962 war, India still doesn't entirely trust China so there is a rather massive military presence here and in Ladakh in general. It's an enormous lake, too - 134 km long and 5 km wide, with 2/3 of it in China. It sits at 4250 m (13,900 feet) and amazingly it is salt water. Even at this altitude it is possible to swim in the lake since it is rather shallow for a while before the drop-off, and the sun is so intense that it gets quite hot in the afternoon.

It's amazing that with over a billion people in this relatively small country (there is only one time zone) it is possible to find places like this where there are almost no people and fantastic wide-open landscapes. And of course the people you do encounter are just tremendously happy and friendly because, well, all the other people in the country live somewhere else. Most of the people that are here are military, with numerous passport controls. This is one of the areas in Ladakh where a special Inner Line permit is required and is only valid for one week, so soon it was time to return to Leh, with te precious cargo of holy lake water.

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