It has been two months now since I left India, and I am back in the United States once again, living the life of a graduate student. I was unable to update my website in Ladakh due to slow internet connection and general lack of interest in sitting in internet cafes, however, there are still a few stories left in me. These stories, I think, will not progress in a linear fashion but rather unfold as I recall them ...
Any tale about Ladakh, however, must begin with the ridiculous journey one must make to get there. From the mountain town of Manali, Leh (the capital of Ladakh) is only about 436km as the crow flies. The highway speed in Quebec, for example, is 110kph - so it is very possible that on a paved road in a faraway land, one might be able to traverse such a distance in about four hours. For example.
The road between Manali and Leh is not the worst road in the world. I know this because I traveled this highway with an Israeli girl who actually has been on the worst road in the world (true), which apparently is somewhere in Bolivia. It has some outrageous name, like "Avenida del Muerte" or something like that. Regardless, I would posit this road, which runs directly through (and over) (and around) the northwestern Himalayan range, as one of the ten worst in the world, although I haven't been to Bolivia.
The road is only open about three and a half months each year, somewhere between June and September, as the snow-covered passes are only motorable when the snow clears during the warm summer months. Warm at 21,000 feet is of course freezing cold, but that is another matter entirely.
Depending on the weather, the 436km journey takes roughly 24 hours via local bus, spread out over two days. Although the road is a disaster, apparently the scenery is breathtaking. I wouldn't know, however, as I choose to take a jeep into Leh, which does the whole go in one run with one driver. Nineteen hours in an old Landrover, with eleven other people. I spent nineteen hours trying unsuccessfully to get slightly less uncomfortable, to no avail. But, moving too far ahead.
The jeep adventure begins at 2am, when the Landrover is due to set out. I was staying at a guesthouse in Vaishist on top of a hill, which had a set of uneven stone steps carved into the earth leading to up to it from the hot springs. As I was packing at 1.30am, I realized a friend had accidently left with my flashlight, and instead a second bottle of sunblock appeared in my bag. It was raining, and very dark outside, and I am blind as a bat, so I was quite unnerved to take the steps in the dark with the full weight of my rucksack. Not too many other options, though, at 2am, so down I went. On the third step, of course, I stumbled over a broken stone. My ankle buckled under the extra 20 kilos of my pack, and was gashed open against the rock. At first it was quite numb, and too dark to see the blood. I was so glad simply to find myself upright and not tumbling down the hill like a schmuck that I didn't feel any pain at first. Somehow I managed to bump into two Enlgish girls on the road at 2am, who not only happened to be medical students but also carried iodine and bandages in their pockets. They surveyed my gash and cleaned me up.
At the bottom of the hill, the Landrover lumbered up the road, full save for myself. There are three rows of seats in the jeep: the front, which has two passengers and the driver; and the middle and back rows, which both seat four passengers. If you line up four normal-sized adults shoulder to shoulder, the cumulative width is greater than the width of the car. The sardine situation is less than ideal, but this is simply how it is. More people, higher profit yield, I suppose. As the driver climbed to the roof to secure my rucksack, slight havoc broke out among the passengers in the jeep.
An Israeli woman and a French man began a very animated and terribly abusive argument in broken English over the seat arrangement in the middle row: apparently, they had both been sold the same seat through different agencies, and they were both freaking out over who had the right to the window. Maya: Why like this? I only bought the jeep ticket because they told me I had the windowseat! I cannot spend twenty hours in the middle! Take me back to my guesthouse ... ! Frederic: Zees is not my pwoblem - it is a pwoblem avec votre agence! Mon pied is tres mal, I cannot sit in zee middle! I will not! Not my pwoblem!
To my great chagrin, I was seated in between the two of them. I had one hour of sleep in me, my foot was beginning to throb, I had the prospect of endless hours in a jeep with no shocks ahead of me, and these two were ready to exchange blows. I lost my temper, and went completely New York on them: All right, you two - you need to figure this out right now and then fermez les bouches, because you are irritating the hell out of me. If you keep it up, you are going to have three pissed off people in this jeep instead of two - so what can we do to solve this?
As I sat there ranting, under the light of the streetlamp I realized that I knew the Israeli woman from Bhagsu - we had eaten breakfast at the same restaurant for weeks. We laughed as we recongized each other, and the two other Frenchies in the front seat started to console Frederic. We set off nearing 3am, and we were all too exhausted to continue arguing. Maya stayed in the middle, Frederic kept the window, and I fell asleep on his shoulder.
Driving in India is often quite civilized, if you discount the means of transportation, the lack of toilets, and the conditions of the roads. By civilized, I mean that one stops for chai about every three to four hours, if only for fifteen minutes. At every chai dhaba, there would inevitably be a few more tourist jeeps, and we would mingle together and grumble sympathetically. At the first chai stop, I found that I could put almost no pressure at all on my ankle without doubling over in intense pain. By the second chai stop, I became convinced that my ankle was broken. Not a good thing. I started asking around at other jeeps if there were any physicians among the travelers, looking for a diagnosis of sorts. My anxiety increased - but I thought, at the very least, I'll have an entire day of barely walking because of the drive, so perhaps it will be better in the morning ...
On a nineteen hour car ride, there is not much to do but review one's thoughts and listen to the four Indian men behind me belt out a constant stream of Hindi pop. One of them was actually a falsetto, and sang the women's line the entire time. I began to review my maladies. At that moment I had: a semi-debilitating case of giardia, a kidney infection, a cold, and now, a fractured left ankle and an increasingly sore right quad, worn out by compensating for the ankle. I considered jumping off a cliff. Then I realized that that would require standing up and exerting myself, and even that idea became too much of a chore. Better to just wait it out.
Toward midday, the mood in the jeep lightened as Frederic discovered I spoke some French and proceeded to jabber on for five or six hours. I didn't really listen, but nodded enthusiastically and added a few pertinent mais ouis and ah bons to pass the time. Fourteen hours into the trip, I asked a Ladakhi woman on the road how much further to Leh. Five more hours, she replied. I closed my eyes, hung my head, and hoped to God that the Ladakhi word for one was five.
An Israeli woman and a French man began a very animated and terribly abusive argument in broken English over the seat arrangement in the middle row: apparently, they had both been sold the same seat through different agencies, and they were both freaking out over who had the right to the window. Maya: Why like this? I only bought the jeep ticket because they told me I had the windowseat! I cannot spend twenty hours in the middle! Take me back to my guesthouse ... ! Frederic: Zees is not my pwoblem - it is a pwoblem avec votre agence! Mon pied is tres mal, I cannot sit in zee middle! I will not! Not my pwoblem!
To my great chagrin, I was seated in between the two of them. I had one hour of sleep in me, my foot was beginning to throb, I had the prospect of endless hours in a jeep with no shocks ahead of me, and these two were ready to exchange blows. I lost my temper, and went completely New York on them: All right, you two - you need to figure this out right now and then fermez les bouches, because you are irritating the hell out of me. If you keep it up, you are going to have three pissed off people in this jeep instead of two - so what can we do to solve this?
As I sat there ranting, under the light of the streetlamp I realized that I knew the Israeli woman from Bhagsu - we had eaten breakfast at the same restaurant for weeks. We laughed as we recongized each other, and the two other Frenchies in the front seat started to console Frederic. We set off nearing 3am, and we were all too exhausted to continue arguing. Maya stayed in the middle, Frederic kept the window, and I fell asleep on his shoulder.
Driving in India is often quite civilized, if you discount the means of transportation, the lack of toilets, and the conditions of the roads. By civilized, I mean that one stops for chai about every three to four hours, if only for fifteen minutes. At every chai dhaba, there would inevitably be a few more tourist jeeps, and we would mingle together and grumble sympathetically. At the first chai stop, I found that I could put almost no pressure at all on my ankle without doubling over in intense pain. By the second chai stop, I became convinced that my ankle was broken. Not a good thing. I started asking around at other jeeps if there were any physicians among the travelers, looking for a diagnosis of sorts. My anxiety increased - but I thought, at the very least, I'll have an entire day of barely walking because of the drive, so perhaps it will be better in the morning ...
On a nineteen hour car ride, there is not much to do but review one's thoughts and listen to the four Indian men behind me belt out a constant stream of Hindi pop. One of them was actually a falsetto, and sang the women's line the entire time. I began to review my maladies. At that moment I had: a semi-debilitating case of giardia, a kidney infection, a cold, and now, a fractured left ankle and an increasingly sore right quad, worn out by compensating for the ankle. I considered jumping off a cliff. Then I realized that that would require standing up and exerting myself, and even that idea became too much of a chore. Better to just wait it out.
Toward midday, the mood in the jeep lightened as Frederic discovered I spoke some French and proceeded to jabber on for five or six hours. I didn't really listen, but nodded enthusiastically and added a few pertinent mais ouis and ah bons to pass the time. Fourteen hours into the trip, I asked a Ladakhi woman on the road how much further to Leh. Five more hours, she replied. I closed my eyes, hung my head, and hoped to God that the Ladakhi word for one was five.
