Snakes Go Up, Ladders Go Down

Trekkers go 'round.

Last things first. We are now at 1770 metres and our ipod works again!!! We're in McLeod Ganj / Dharamsala; a place with soul and a place where magic happens. And we needed all of H.H.'s healing powers to resurrect our song box. Thank Buddha we have music again. Not just any music, but our music, good old-fashioned Western rock. And our photos of friends and family. Sure Hindi music is fine, if you don't mind the sound of cats screaming at each other, but our ear drums, as damaged as they are from the sound of car horns, were in desparate need of some melodious respite. And it seems the Mountain Gods (above 2500 metres) don't like our kind of music.

We held our breath and recharged the ipod, turning it on and dreading the clunking which meant that the thing still didn't work. But our luck changed and we had a wonderful moment, which lasted about an hour, listening to songs and looking at our pictures with tears in our eyes. Who says we don't need our toys? Much introspection on this issue (our electronics breaking, one by one) has led us to believe that though the esoteric among us may say that it is the universe telling us that these things are unecessary manifestations of a material desire (the bane of Buddhism), we are away from home for THREE YEARS, that's right people, YEARS, not weeks, not days, not months, but freakin' years. And they're our toys, and we get grumpy when we get our toys taken away from us. Having said that, the phone is still broken (after being in the repair shop for three weeks), the EPIRB broke and the GPS (presumably fixed) is still AWOL within the Indian DHL etherworld (we think it's in Srinagar!?!?!?!? - just the Indians trying to be helpful). All of these have been (hopefully) temporary sacrifices to the Mountain Gods.

The major happening and influence on us in the last couple of weeks has been the 100+ kilometre trek of the Markha Valley which we did. The trek lasted for eight days, covered two scheduled passes : 4900 metres and 5100 metres, plus one unscheduled 5000+ metre (?) pass. We will cover the days in brief here, but anyone who would like to read more (including the 'adventures' we had i.e. the bits that went wrong) can email us for a copy of John's diary.

We travelled with a Belgian couple and a promiscuous Italian swf. We seemed to have very happy guides. And horses. Actually, two of our horses were injured and while a normal five person trek would have seven horses, a general shortage meant that we only had five, and the two injured ones meant that only three were operating at full horse power.:P. So our horsemen became sherpas.

Our guide was a brilliant chef who had a keen sense of direction in the kitchen, but in the great outdoors, hmmm..... But we had a compass and a map (if not a GPS) and a path to follow. It led us from Spituk south-west of Leh, into the Markha Valley (following the Markha River), then up and out to Hemis - further south of Leh.

A quick side note on Hemis: while John was sick, Tiff attended the famous festival at the Hemis Monastery. There she saw repetitive Buddhist dances and lots of tourists idolising folkily dressed locals by sticking a camera within inches of their faces (often these people worked in packs, like ravenous wolves they devoured the self-respect of their subjects). The photo Tiff took of the local was discreet, from a covert position, using a massively over-compensating zoom lense. How else are you supposed to get candid shots? Far and away the greatest part of that experience was seeing the amazing character etched into the locals' faces.

Back to the trek: we saw so many different landscapes: sandy hills; slate-covered slopes; amazing green and purple hues (for those of you who read John's diary - he just can't get over the green and purple rock - the rock was green and purple - can you imagine it!?!?!?!); lush green grassy meadows and wheat fields - like anything you might expect in the European countryside only more remote, more untouched; moonscapes; waterfalls down barren rockfaces; knife-blade edges; remote buildings perched precariously on prominent precipitic plateaus; so many things you would only ever dream about, unless you saw our photos (a selection of which are published here...).

We came back weighing more than when we left, despite walking for seven hours uphill some days. It was brilliant. The feeling of putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that nothing else matters. Finding your rhythm in footfall and chant (John in 'Om Mani Padme Om', Tiff in 'I want you to play with my dingaling...'), and losing yourself in this one moment, and in the sheer weight of the majesty of the mountains in the next. It was hard some days. Blisters and aches and bad guiding; uphill slog and downhill plod. But whenever it got too bad, the group and your surroundings buoyed you. You only had to look at the mountains to be reminded that it is the process of the trek that is the experience. It was a simple joy, to be operating under your own steam, relying on yourself to get over the next hill, into the next camp, walking on your own two feet.

It was great to really and fully get away from everything. So coming back to Leh, we were a helluva lot more relaxed, but it was a helluva shock. What, do tourists multiply when it rains? Dirt, horns, people everywhere. Maybe we'd just forgotten what it was like, or maybe it actually had gotten worse (World Cup's over now, so tourists go a-walking...). We settled back into Leh with a definitive plan, a timetable if you will, which would see us staying away from Leh as much as possible.

It started with a few day trips. First escapade was a trip to Chiling. Two and a half hours by local squishy bus (there's a line in here - something about sardines and tins, but we won't use it because the sardines never had it so good - we thought we were attempting a Guiness World Record), got us to a road blocked by a massive boulder. There's was only one bus in and one bus out that day, so, two kilometres away from the town, we had to hurriedly walk the remainder of the way - with limited time to do what we came to do, we had to get in, cross the river, look like fools and get out - without looking too foolish. We had come to experience the ultimate peasant mundanity - something few tourists do, but locals do everyday - the river cable crossing. Yes, that's right, we travelled five hours round trip, very uncomfortably, to do a two minute cable crossing. Much to the bewilderment of the crate puller. And the locals couldn't quite work out why we wanted to get to the other side, only to come back again without getting out.

It was great. Something for Tiff to tick off her 'things to do before I die' list. "Yeah but you could have chosen something a little closer" -John. At least we got to get away from Leh and enjoy a different style of mountain. But after briskly walking the two kilometres back to the bus, the rock rolled off the road (with a little help from the drivers) and we drove back to town, waited for an hour, before returning home. This leg of our adventures in commonly found under the heading "Pointless but entertaining things to do in a day".

The next stop was Thiksey - a major monastery in the region whose claim to fame is a two storey high Maitreya (future) Buddha, complete with conch shell for a third eye. We saw some Indian dignitary (being ushered around the complex by army dudes) and would have been star-struck if we knew who he was. We then went to Shey Palace - one of the ancient palaces of the Ladakhi Royal Family. We wandered around the ruins marvelling at how time just wears everything down. It's mud brick people, come on! When it rains you just get mud!

Likewise, the rest of Leh started melting too, while we were away on our next excursion... Picked up by a jeep (groan) with two lovely, chatty car-companions: one Japanese and one French lady, already aboard, we chatted our way to Pangong Lake. On the way, we stopped off at the third-highest motorable pass in the world ( gotta love ya BRO), where John touched snow for the first time. This was only posssible because it had been raining so much over the past couple of days. There was lots of it! John danced in it (see photo), threw it, made it into a snowman, and even had an attempt at writing his name in it (not with a pen :P). The danced looked a little funny, the snowman was a little small and looked kind of evil, and he's got a little work to do on the letter formation (on account of laughing hysterically).

The lake was gorgeous and changed colours as a kaleidescope in the hands of a child. A strangely uncoordinated child with chubby fingers and no sense of rhythm. Greens, blues, reflected reds and oranges all made their home in the depths of the lake. The lake is saltwater (so not glacier runoff), and although very clear, it contains lots of little fish and idiot shrimp that beach themselves periodically. Oh, and we observed a plague of locusts (well, seven, but they were in a group), swimming across the water and finally making it to dry land. There they sat on rocks until the ducks ate them.

We were only allowed to visit a vast 10% of the lake, as the other 90% lay in Tibet. There, off in the distance, we got our first glimpse of that forbidden territory. Indian navy patrol the shores constantly, and we were warned that the two armies (Indian and Chinese) faced each other warily. We thought about asking the navy dudes for a quick ride in their patrol boats, but thought better of it when we read the signs telling us to not embarass them with that request. They've been hurt before you see. We can't imagine what an embarassed navy dude would look like.

Our stay was cut shorter than we had hoped, and the next morning we were told by our over-zealous "sure you've hired me but I do my own thing" jeep driver that we were leaving. So much rain the night before had caused problems with the roads, and he wanted to get out before conditions worsened. A group had arrived at midnight after being bogged for hours, and then left early to get home. We passed them bogged again on our way out.

The snow-covered pass from the day before was bare and dirty. So John's first snow experience was incredibly well-timed luck. The roads were indeed bad (silencing our skepticism of the driver), and we saw police turning back cars heading towards the lake. Getting back to Leh, we found out that all roads had been closed due to landslides, excess water across roads and downright miserable driving conditions.

Our bus was due to leave in two days, so we had our fingers crossed. Everyone except the travel agency who had sold us the tickets said the bus wouldn't go. It did. And we were incredibly lucky. All the problems with the road had been fixed or detoured (except one landslide which only caused a four hour delay - see we're getting good at this Indian bus trip shit). One flat tyre, a night in an cold, but ultra-comfortable, luxury tent with it's own sit 'n' flush toilet ensuite, and lots of rain later, we made it to Manali. Later we learnt that the roads had closed again.

Beautiful Vashisht welcomed us back and was once again a great respite. Unfortunately John got sick again ("I'm very sensitive OK?!?! It must be the air..."), but we were happy staying in this gorgeous place. But finally we had to move on, and caught a bus to Dharamsala. The luxury bus we paid for was great, but deposited us 35 kilometres away from our destination at 1 o'clock in the morning. We transferred onto a local bus full of sleepy Indians, cringing at all our gear crammed into the aisles, and made the three hour journey to the DS bus station. Arriving at 4am, we found that the next bus to McLeod Ganj didn't leave until 6:30, and so we made alternative arrangements with a cab driver. We waited under the eaves of the very closed hotel where we hoped to stay, sheltering from the rain (with sleeping dogs, they were very accomodating and we let them lie) until two hours later, when we were shown a bottom floor mouldy room, and slept.

We had intended to move, but hey, the room grew on us as the mould did on the walls. We celebrated our sixth anniversary the next day by getting frustrated at computers not working; we bought an expensive (AUD$10) bottle of Indian wine; consumed some fine genuine swiss chocolate and a bigger than is healthy for you (especially if you're dairy intolerant) tub of actually quite nice chocolate Indian icecream; we lit candles and some incense (to drown out the smell of mould - hello Tonsai!); and the mood was set so we, er, slept...

The next few days were spent exploring and walking on the misty mountainsides. We have passes to attend Dalai Lama teachings over the next few days, and we've signed up to be English tutors for the Tibetan Refugee Community. So we'll be here for another week at least. It's not as pretty as Vashisht, but pretty in a populated way. If Khao San is Sideshow Alley, this is Khao San with soul, but better.

Things to remember when you're travelling:

Don't take your electricals over 2000 metres.
The ipod is a magic box, and we need it.
Anyone who tells you you don't need the things you're travelling with is probably going home (or is at home) in a few weeks, to the things that you're carrying. What the hell do they know?
Israelis are better than everyone... Just go with it, it saves a lot of fuss.
Don't use DHL.
The pass is never around the next bend.
There's always a way through, despite what the map says, you just have to find it (or make it).
Never trust a guide who is a good cook.
If you're stuck on a road that is so congested that neither cars or people can move, someone will always start pushing, cars will always start honking and you will get hit by the first car that moves.
Gulab Jamen is made in heaven.
Indian wine is made in hell. They haven't quite worked out how to combine grape juice, alcohol, water and flavour in the same mouthful. You taste each bit at different times when you swallow.
Yaks run with their tails in the air. HEHEHEHEHE!
The Himalayas are one giant sandcastle. When it rains, well, see sandcastle on the seashore at high tide.
Leh is a mud-brick town. This was their first ever monsoon. Can you guess what happened?
Roads are only temporary.
The difference between a high budget room and a low budget room is the transparency. You can see pipes, electrical wires, bracing, leftover construction material, mould, insects etc. in a low budget room.
Low budget rooms are scary in India.
Cheap rooms are down-right horrific.
Shared bathrooms should be outlawed. There must be something in the UN charter about these places.
Open toilets are a great opportunity to sample the local food - with your boots. But they're more hygenic than shared bathrooms in hotels.
Always wear sturdy boots when travelling in India.
India is great - just ignore the bad bits.