Ladakh: Barren yet abundant

Driving a few kilometers out of the town from Leh on to the NH1 towards Srinagar, you are forced to ask yourself a question – how can barren, dry, vast stretches of mountains with not even a speck of grass on them look so beautiful? That is a question that reverberates all through as you breathe, touch and feel Ladakh. The answer is not immediate; the beauty itself is not immediate. Yes, there is snow (slightly unusual for this time of the year) on top of many peaks, but it is not so much the snow as the empty tracts of mountain land that appeal to the eye. They stand, always at a distance of a long sloping ridge and gradually exercise their pull. It is only after a few moments that you realize you are seeing a natural marvel. That barren dry lands can be as beautiful as the bountiful green ones. The peaks of Ladakh stand silent and in isolation, but are a pleasing sight for eyes that have grown accustomed to watching real estate jungles and ghastly unbridled construction on the denuded slopes of India’s other famous hill stations. In Ladakh, you almost wish that you would see nothing, that at every turn you would be greeted by even more emptiness. In Ladakh, you will always feel a sense of space.

I arrive in Leh escaping the blasting heat of Delhi on the 10^th of June (yes, this blog was a little late in coming). For those of you not adventurous enough to drive all the way from Manali to Leh, the only alternative left to reach here is through a flight. A word of advice on that – get your tickets booked at least a month in advance or be prepared to pay through your nose like me. For some strange reason, only three airlines (IA, Jet and Kingfisher) fly to Leh which leads to rates being driven up artificially. And although the lady at the check in counter at Delhi airport told me that the flight was ‘overbooked’ (what the devil is that supposed to mean? Is it a blueline bus that it is overfull?? ), I have heard from others who have travelled that often flights do carry empty seats. Thankfully, the same scarcity does not extend to lodging in Leh which has a multitude of hotels belonging to different categories. The rate for each category is fixed and that provides the assurance that you are not being ripped off with a bad deal. A more advisable thing may be to book a customized travel package that takes away the headache of finding a hotel and trying to arrange a transport. In many ways, Leh is a delightful break from other Indian tourism sectors. It provides mental relaxation from the dreadful activities of haggling for taxi and lodging rates. The Leh taxi union supplies cabs to all hotels with fixed rates and reasonably good drivers. Booking an entire package that has an itinerary for each day can save you the headache of arranging transport for each day. Either way, you can be assured that you won’t be ripped off.

It is unusually wet for this time of the year for Ladakh. My driver, Zakir, who drove me around for the entire duration of my 6 day stay, tells me that it hardly used to rain in the summer months. In Ladakh, the only precipitation is snow. Rains are unknown in this dry desert. The only greenery that you will see shall exist in the periphery of the rivers – Indus on one side and Zanskar on the other. The habitation and agriculture is also centered around these water sources. The only two things that exist anywhere away from the water sources are Buddhist monasteries and army cantonments.

It is difficult to miss the influence of either. Ladakh had a largely Tibetan population in history which was Buddhist to begin with but has now starting converting towards Islam. I was a little surprised to see two mosques bang in the middle of Leh’s central market. A substantial portion of the population is still Buddhist and the influence of its culture over the last many centuries in visible in the multitude of monasteries built on hilltops dotted in Leh’s periphery. A Japanese monk in fact was so moved by the town’s beauty that he got a Shanti Stupa built on a small rising just at the edge of Leh. Today, the balcony of the stupa provides a complete view of the town and the mountains beyond. Most of the Buddhist monasteries were built in the medieval centuries which is a remarkable effort given the fact that the region remains buried under snow for almost 3-4 months of the year making any kind of physical labor near to impossible. In a sense, Ladakh is a pilgrimage site for the devout Buddhist with its multitude of monasteries dotted all around. This is confirmed by an old American rabbi, whom I bump into at the market on the second day of my trip. The rabbi and his wife are on a Buddhist expedition, seeking to explore the various sites in the region. We chat up a bit and he is kind enough to let me explore his I-pad. He is exploring religion and I technology.

The unseasonable rainfall means that the upper reaches have received snow and as we drive towards Pangong Lake on the fifth day of our trip, we start seeing patches of snow on the hills just outside of Leh. Pangong is a 13 mile long fresh water lake with a third of its area located in China. The five hour drive to the lake from Leh is long and tiring and requires one to cross the Chagla Pass, which the Border Roads Organization (BRO) claims is the third highest in the world. As we cross, the pass is covered with about a foot of snow. A BRO truck with migrant laborers from Bihar and Jharkhand has had a rear wheel stuck in the snow and the entire traffic gets held up for half an hour. The migrants, unsuitably clad for snowy and conditions, are asked to jump off the back of the truck to give it a push. Many of them dive straight into the snow lying on the side of the road. There is much consternation among them and amusement among the tourists watching it all happen.

It is a partly cloudy afternoon as we finally reach Pangong, which means that the color of the water oscillates between green and blue. The lake is a bit of a pit stop where you can either stay for an hour, frolic a bit in the cold waters and then head back or you can choose to spend a night in the lakeside camps (consisting of Swiss tents mainly). The only source of refreshment is a small stove lighted by a ladakhi under one of those Swiss tents where you can heat yourself up with some tea or coffee or even sample some Maggi. You would be advised to carry your food when driving along Ladakh; like the topography the stomachs can get pretty barren as one swings up and down the mountains.

The Army is essentially the lifeline of the area and unlike the Kashmir valley, olive green is not a hated color here. Many of the locals in fact derive their incomes by plying jobs for the army during the harsh winter months when no one else sets foot in the area. My driver is one of those – he drives officers around the many cantonments in the area during winter and thus avoids having to move out from Leh to lower altitudes, something that I heard many inhabitants are forced to do. The Army also controls the airfield, which is operated by the Air Force and is the one transportation route that connects Ladakh to the rest of the country during all seasons. At many places, the olive greens are also traffic managers, Khardungla Pass being an example. Khardungla is claimed by the BRO to be the highest motorable pass in the world at about 18000 feet. Like Changla, Khardungla too was under snow as we approached it. The pass lies on the road that leads towards the ecologically beautiful Nubra Valley (a famous tourist stop) and the world (in)famous Siachen glacier. The narrow road passing through Khardungla can experience quite a traffic jam, as we witness on our drive, with half the vehicles driving through towards Nubra and half wanting to turn around and go back to Leh. It is the jawans managing Khardungla that co-ordinate the traffic, somehow able to halt the returning vehicles and letting the passing ones through. Since we are returning back to Leh, that gives us about an hour at the pass which I use to feed myself (Maggi) and try and climb through the snow to the board that proclaims Khardungla’s feat of being the highest motorable road.

The next day I am back at the airport for my overpriced return flight back to Delhi. Because you are flying out of a security sensitive zone, you are required to personally identify your baggage before it gets loaded on the aircraft. I would think that it would be more prudent to do this exercise also for those who land into the area, but no such thing happens on the flights into Leh. Despite the table top runway apprehensions (and Ladakh is a short runway, not really a ‘table top’) the flight takes off smoothly and lands in just under an hour in Delhi, which greets us with 40C hot air. By the time I am home after a ride in a rickety prepaid airport cab, the coolness of Ladakh has worn off. The air conditioner has been switched on. Somehow I don’t crave the cold of Ladakh after being back home, I just crave the emptiness.

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