Leh

I open the large bedroom window, and lean out into another perfect day.  A vista of elegant poplar trees, behind which the rugged low mountains of the Himalayas rise, greets me.  Barren peaks, reddish brown and rocky, dotted with crisp white gompas.  The air is thin, clean and quiet.  A silent flurry of white seeds drifts through the air.  Soft summer snow.  The gentle moan of a cow sounds from a field nearby.  And the occasional distant beep of a horn reminds us that we are, despite appearances, still in India.

We arrived in Leh, the small capital town of Ladahk, which sits 3500 m up in the Himalayas, two days ago.  Having flown in our, well, my, body didn’t have time to acclimatise properly, so for two days I had been experiencing headaches, shortness of breath and mild confusion.  I had been convinced I was in Thailand.   

On our way out, the tiny smiling Ladakhi lady who runs her home as a guest house stops us with a beaming grin.  She is a reminder of old Ladahk, before the tourists arrived and local life was abandoned for quick gain.  Dressed in a thick red smock, tied around the waist with a cord.  Traditional Ladakhi dress, that only the old wear now.  

‘Jullay, jullay.  Tomorrow Dalai Lama come.  You want to see?’  She asks.

‘Sure, what time, and where?’  I reply.

‘7.30, on road.  I wake you.’

Our guest house is a couple of kilometres away from the town centre.  We have to walk down a small hill to get to the Changspa road which takes us there.  In front of us, as we walk, snow-capped, 6000 metre giants rise from the green valley and prod the clear blue skyline.  The sun casts ripples of relief and shadow across the mountains, making them seem almost fluid.  More poplar trees line the road and the Shanti stupor sits high above us to our left.  The place is a kingdom of mountains.  We are in their court, sat in the natural throne of a Himalayan valley, the skyline a crown of white peaks, circling the lush green vales. 

Along the Changspa road, a military police jeep stops next to us.  From the driver’s side a uniformed man leans out with a plastic bag.  Shaking it at us he urges us to take what is inside.  Apricots.  Small, soft, sweet apricots.  Taking one each, he shakes it again demanding that we take a few more each.  After a smiling thanks, he drives off.  A little further on we stop to fill up our water bottles in one of the local shops.  A sun creased old man smiles a toothless grin.

‘Jullay!’  He says.

‘Jullay.’  I reply, taking the cap off my bottle and filling it from the water dispenser.

Once it is full, I hand over 10 rupees to the old man.

‘Jullay.’  He says.

‘Jullay.’  I reply.

‘Jullay.’  He says again as we leave.

‘Jullay.’  I say.

The word ‘jullay’ is Ladakhi for ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and it is possible to hold an entire conversation with this single word.

The street continues, lined with yet more poplars and buildings, small white crumbling squares.  As we head further into town, the guest houses, restaurants, pashmina shops and tour operators build to a crescendo.  Dreadlocked Isreali’s saunter along the streets, looking too cool for convention.  The repetitive rumble of Royal Enfield vibrate with a deep growl along the streets.  All mounted by aviator wearing tourists, Indian and Western alike, living a fleeting dream of dude-ishness, before they return to the starched suits of an un-cool corporate coolie.

Sitting in one of many of the roof top cafes, views of the mountains ever present, and sipping on a sweet jasmine tea, we get talking to a few others who we probe for trekking advice.  Before we leave the girl tells us that the Dalai Lama is in town tomorrow.  At one of the stupas.  The Shanti stupa?  Something like that.

At the end of the Changspa road, the town opens up.  Hefty looking bulls sidle alongside the ever beeping cars.  Men with trolleys of oil barrels filled with water are dragged down the hills at break-neck speed by their cargo.  There are yet more pashmina shops and souvenir shops with honest slogans, proclaiming that there is ‘more junk inside’.  Every other rooftop is a restaurant with wifi that never works and the blandest pizzas known to man.  Shoe fixers sit on curbs with sharp thick needles sewing together local bought trekking shoes that have broken, and women point tubes of henna at me as I pass them. 

The fortress of a palace, a smaller version of the Potala in Tibet, looms large over the town.  A tall edifice, looking more military than regal, staggered up the side of a Himalaya.  It is possible that the Buddhists were feeling a little defensive around the time it was built in the C15th, with the constant threat of Islam, which razed many of the 2000 gompas and stupas that were nestled into the mountains in the region.  Things are a little more tolerant now, and there is a small Islamic community that live in the predominantly Buddhist city, with a pretty mosque, from which one of the most beautiful calls to prayer I have ever heard is played five times a day. 

Next to the mosque a small side road takes us into the mud bricked old city.  Narrow streets wiggle through the renovations being made to the long neglected buildings.  The pashmina sellers are gone.  Replaced by women with  knitted socks sat on steps.  One of the roads leads us up a breathy hill to the palace, which is also being renovated.  Whether it is decaying at a quicker rate than the renovations are occurring is debatable.  Another Archaeological Society of India project.  If they do actually finish, I am sure it will resemble a plaster-of-paris rendition.  It may be better to let it crumble.  There are only two rooms where any of the ambience is left.  Faded paintings of Buddhist demons scrawl colourfully along the walls, and simple geometric representations of flowers repeated along the borders.  Pictures of the Dalai Lama, with his characteristic cheeky smile, hang above the doors.  Other than that the palace is a maze of interconnecting featureless rooms.  But the views from the roof are, of course, spectacular.  The town stretches out, and beyond the polo ground the mountains rise again.  The real royalty of the area, sitting higher and more sublime than any human family could ever do.

Over the other side of town, the Shanti stupor, shines its whiteness at us.  A while later, at the bottom of the stupa, stomachs primed with typical Ladahki fare, we look up at the steep, steep steps flanked by cairns that rise up to the white domed Buddhist monument built to promote world peace.  The Dalai Lama blessed it sometime in the 1980’s. 

We take the first step.  And then a second.  Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh….My breathing becomes laboured.  Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve….And stop.  My lungs are burning.  We are forced to stop around twenty times, with heaving, searing, lungs, before we make it to the top, finally. 

The sound of a mellow drum beats with a soft rhythm, and the low hum of a chant reaches us.  The monks are holding their evening puja in a small room opposite the stupa.  We follow the intonation, and enter the room, sitting on the floor, letting the calm of the surroundings settle upon our souls.  Feeling a little lighter we leave the room, and go and look at the view that pervades to the horizon.  From the elevation of a demi-god, we look across the valley.  Breathless.  Speechless.  Awe-stunned.  A silver river runs through the centre, green grows and spreads from its origin.  Further from river, the green valley gives way to the rocky hills, the harsh, but exquisite, barren landscape that Ladahk is famous for.  Depending on the light they can take on shades of red, brown, yellow and grey.  Beyond them rise their bigger siblings, the 6153 m, glacier topped, Stok Kangri and her marginally smaller brothers and sisters.  A tear pricks at my eye.  I am not sure I have been anywhere quite so, so, pah, words fail me.  There is no single word that can stir the emotions with the same intensity of this panorama.  The only thing to do is sit and stare.  The cares slip away. 

A while later a monk and a couple of foreigners sit near us.  We over hear the monk telling them that the Dalai Lama is in town tomorrow.  To visit a stupor.  Sounds like Shanti stupor, but I am not sure.  The imminent arrival is big news in Ladahk. 

A soft knock rouses us from a happy slumber.  The room is bright, even with my eyes closed, the open curtains and east facing room, ensuring sun streams vibrantly into our room.  The picture from our window lit up in morning wonder.   Another gentle knock.

‘Hello.’ Alex calls out. 

‘Dalai Lama coming.’  The guest house owner answers.

It is cold in the morning, the sun is bright, but cool.  Wrapped up in woollen ponchos and thick socks, we leave the guesthouse.  On the road outside the young granddaughter of the guest house owners gives us white scarves to greet the Dalai Lama in prayer.  Old women and men, wrapped in identical Ladahki dress, hobble and shuffle their way to vantage points in which to greet the Dalai Lama.  Others swing scented coals in metal baskets up and down the road.  Tourists with obtrusive camera lenses, poke them at the locals.  A thick furred dog wanders disrespectfully into the cleared road, followed by a nonchalant cow.  Both are shooed with good humour from the scene.  We wait at the bottom of the Shanti stupa.  For a long time.  Almost two hours.  Police come along and check the road a few times.  Someone chalks lines along the sides, to contain the patient people.  The people mill around, unperturbed by the lateness of the Lama, catching up on gossip.  And then….there he is.  And there he went.  The familiar smile, whizzed past in a black 4x4.  We walk back to the guest house, accompanying the owners.

‘I thought he was going to the Shanti stupor.’  I say to the woman.

‘Hee hee!  No.  The Sankar stupor.’  She replies.

I laugh.

Alex and I get back to the room, and sit on the window sill, staring into the peace.

‘What do you want to do with the rest of the day?’  I ask.

 

‘Mountain bike down the Khardung La.’

The Khardung La, 5602 m above sea level.   The highest motor-able pass in the world.             

‘Splendid idea.’

We head off to find a tour agency that will drive us to the pass so we can tear down it at insane speeds on mountain bikes, back into Leh, surrounded by the panorama of the mountain gods.  

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Pokhara

This is the second of Nepal’s two cities.  Outside the main locals town, and accessed along a bumpy, potholed road, flanked by soft green roadside where fat, glossy cows munch contentedly, is a tourist town.  A modest, calm, town sat aside a large clean lake, sunk in the hills, and overlooked by a protective arc of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.  The central lakeside is unashamedly touristy, bars, restaurants, hiking gear shops, adventure sports agents and souvenir shops vie for the visitors attention and outside the main drag of a few of hundred metres, the requests to spend dwindles, and the road becomes quieter, greener, lusher, calmer; and quite possibly close to what heaven is meant to look like.  At the north end of the lake, the road departs from the lakeside, and is replaced with a vibrant green carpet of gentle grass that is soft enough to lie upon.  Wooden hut cafes sit unobtrusively back from the gentle slope to the lake offering views across and beyond the tranquil mirror still waters.  Plump cows and goats, with lush, intact, coats share the space with chubby dogs and smiling people.  Men in wooden canoes paddle with unrushed ease across the lake, spreading their simple fishing nets behind them as they cruise the calm waters.  Across the other side of the lake are undulating hills, bursting with trees, each one clamouring for a bit more space as the terrain creeps serenely upwards.   

Each afternoon since I have arrived, the calm surface of the lake is broken by the thump of marble sized raindrops that pound down from the skies, accompanied by bright electric streaks that disappear behind the hills illuminating them in bright splendour, and the comforting growl of thunder as it rumbles around the valleys.  In the morning the clouds, having been dissolved by the previous afternoon’s downpour, are gone, and the white peaks of the Himalayas can be seen sitting ethereally, regally, god like in the sky.   When the sun shines, it is a warm sun that glows, and a gentle breeze skips lightly across the skin.  There is a calm in the air here that sits peacefully in the ears and mutes the stress within the soul.

And like Darjeeling, there is none of the hassle I have become accustomed to in India.  In every sense.  In addition to the wonderful temperament of the inhabitants here, the sense of apathy has gone.  All the rooms in the guest houses are spotlessly clean, not a single spore, nor a creeping grime line can be seen anywhere.  There is solar heating in most places.  Efforts are made to reduce electricity use (aside from the regular, but irregularly timed, power cuts).  Places boast of their commitment to women’s empowerment, donations of profit to orphanages, and considered treatment of the environment.  The place I have secured a room for the next month has used mud brick in the walls to keep rooms cool in summer and warm in winter, along with using through flows of air to cool rooms instead of fans and has solar heated water.  I have exquisite views of the lake, and the other side of the hills, a balcony, a beautiful room , immaculate bathroom, lovely gardens and when the electricity is out it is quiet, so, so quiet, all for £5 a night.  The Nepalese don’t seem to have a hand glued to the horn like the Indians do, neither do they feel the need to taint all things beautiful with a heavy scattering of plastic.  

However with this serenity comes a price.  Hippies.  Dreadlocked, morose looking fools, smoking way too much dope and taking themselves far too seriously.  When the electricity is on the thump of Goan trance music beats an obtrusive rhythm through the tranquillity.  Fortunately there is an 11 o’clock curfew that means it doesn’t go on for any longer than that, along with regular power outages which offer solace from the shit music that no one even seems to be enjoying.  For the younger hippies there are plenty of warnings of what their deluded, dope induced ramblings will come to if they don’t start thinking about what they are saying, in the form of seriously mentally unstable, toothless, shaggy looking twats.   It seems to me, after some study, that the young hippy starts with an uneducated search for meaning in their life, and instead of reading, learning and thinking about their perspectives, they make it up as they go along and feed ignorance off each other.  A few examples I have heard are, ‘the planet has DNA, and it is mutating at the moment to make seriously bad changes’, ‘drawing shapes and colouring them in can unblock past traumas’, ‘there are sadus that are able to sustain life for 12 years without eating’, along with the ever inane ‘the universe will give you what you want, just ask’, and ‘I’m an old soul’.   This is all obviously quite irritating to listen to, especially when challenges to their world view are received with accusations that I am closed and not open to the universe.  But the really worrying things is what happens when these bizarre mumblings about ‘life, the universe and everything’ are left to manifest and connect all the crazy neurons in the head.  They turn into people who believe they are ‘Shiva, the Buddha and Christ’ reincarnate, that they have the ability to control the forces of nature, that they have understood the mathematics of the universe and know its end, that they are ‘like the Buddha, but less arrogant’ insofar as they won’t tell people how to live their lives, but will just smile at them.  Some of these delusions are so well constructed and insanely far-fetched it is genuinely worrying.  Deeply twisted fantasies about their lives and journeys within it.  What is even sadder, is that in the 3 weeks I was there, I never heard much laughter.  People were so engrossed in their own sense of importance, they forgot to have fun.  Maybe this is the key to staying ‘sane’, laughing at your insanity.

But, aside from the hippies, this place feels like Shangri-La.  There is nothing else I can think I want from a place………..except maybe a loud speaker and a troupe of rational thinking, fun loving, mischief makers to poke fun at the delusional until they start to laugh at themselves and remember what fun is.

Darjeeling

Oh Darjeeling, I think I love you.  With your ambience of easy going nonchalance, unassuming, unaggressive inhabitants and quiet winding roads that snake steeply up your lush green hills.  With your delicious tea, tasty momo’s and warm, cosy, and ever lively Joey’s pub.  With your enforced gentle pace, as to walk up these steep hills must be done slowly, and cool climate that means visitors have to wrap up snugly to maintain warmth.  All of this is what makes me love you after 5 months in India.  I have been here for 3 days now and not a single child has run up to me demanding 10 rupees, sweets, or photos.  Nor a single tout with patience testing relentlessness tried to get me on a trek or other sight-seeing tour.  Nor a single shop keeper tried to get me into their shop.  Nor have a single pair of eyes, telling of the growing erection in their pants, looked me up and down with disrespectful lust.  Nor a single taxi pulled up and asked where I am going.  Nor any beggars insistently and persistently tugged on my clothes demanding money.  Nor been asked for exorbitant prices on anything I have wanted to buy, even from the street vendors.  Nor a single photo been asked of me.  Nor a single mosquito nibbled upon me.  Nor is there plastic bags and bottles strewn with ignorant abandon.  People seem to care about their environment here.  Ahhhhhh, thank you Darjeeling.

Here the women wear make up, tight clothes, and I have even seen a pair of legs, clad in fish net stockings, displayed proudly under a short denim skirt.  Here the women smoke and drink, in public, with no shame, and no-one spits at them or leers with intimidating disapproval.  Things seem a bit more ‘liberated’ here with regard to the treatment of women.  I wonder if it is the Buddhist influence, from the influx of Nepalese and Tibetans.  They always seem a bit more chilled out and accepting of people.  To me Buddisht countries always appear less judgemental, maybe it is the absence of a God, telling people how to behave that results in this easy going attitude.   

Since arriving in Darjeeling we have sat in a thick, cold cloud, and are very grateful for it.  I can’t tell you about the vistas or the countryside, as I can’t see it.   After much moving around, we are very pleased to have an excuse not to ‘do’ anything in particular.  We are sleeping late, mooching up and down the slow winding hills once awake, stopping frequently in tea shops to drink the delicious golden local tea on offer, seeking out the perfect momo in the little Tibetan run snack bars, and winding the day up in the snuggly warmth of Joey’s pub for a rum and coke, sharing stories and advice with other travellers.  In fact, this is the easiest place I have found to meet other travellers.  Of a similar ilk.  Even easier than the touristy destinations of Goa and Varkala, which were a mine field of pretentious, hair flicking druggy/yoga/ashram darlings ready to bore me to death with their ignorant ramblings about getting battered/spirituality.  There is a wonderful little travelling community here, which seems to have occurred completely by accident.  And is really nice to encounter given that this hasn’t really happened in the 5 months we have been away.  Maybe it is unusual for here too, and there has just been a freak influx of like-minded people to drink the cold away with.

We are staying on the top of one of the hills, which was fun to walk up with our backpacks, being completely put to shame by the unexpected steeliness of the locals that, with no exaggeration, are able to carry four large suitcases up these intense inclines, using a sling wrapped around their foreheads.  But once the clouds clear it will be worth it.  The room we have has a shabby charm to it and ceiling to floor windows along one side, that once the cloud lifts, I am confident will reveal a masterful example of one of nature’s greatest works of art – the Himalaya’s.  We are here for another week, before I fly to Nepal and Alex to Singapore, so hopefully the sky will part at some point.  If not ho-hum, it’s been bloody lovely to sit in what is the most charming hill station I have made my way to so far.  And given the time I am to spend in the shadow of these mighty mountains, it would be amazing if the next few months went by without a glimpse of their majesty.  But we were lucky, and Darjeeling offered us some spectacualr scenary on our last day.  Finally, here is the awesome veiw from our balcony of the 3rd highest peak in the world.