My travel diaries
Thursday 30 August, 2007 - Skarchen, Ladakh, India
7 o'clock breakfast in preparation for a 7.30 start up to the Khardung La, allegedly the highest motorable road in the world, which snakes its way around rocky mountainsides all the way up to the pass at 5400m. I tried to get up there when I was in Leh two years ago, but had to turn around at an army checkpoint about halfway up when we met a large army convoy of several dozen trucks coming the other way. On the way back down again I fell asleep in the front passenger seat of our vehicle only to be woken up in memorable fashion a few minutes later when an Icelandic lady I was sharing the vehicle with screamed in my ear from the back seat behind me. I opened my eyes immediately to see a big colourful Tata truck with a benevolent picture of the Dalai Lama staring out from the driver's window haring towards us just a few metres away. Avoiding the precipice to our right, our driver swerved into the cliff face to our left and just managed to squeeze into a small gap between the lorry and solid rock before continuing nonchalantly on his way. I think I remained wide awake for the rest of the journey back to Leh.
At breakfast I tell my companions about the rock shaped like a frog I remember seeing on the way up last time.
"Have you been watching too much daytime TV since you quit working?" asks Steve.
I share a jeep with Peter, John and Bonny and point it out to them as we drive past. Not only is it shaped like a frog, but someone's painted it green and drawn eyes and spots on it. It unmistakably looks like a frog. When we get out at the first checkpoint, though, it turns out the others weren't paying attention and missed it. They all think I'm bonkers.
The road has been surfaced to well past 4500m, apparently because the Dalai Lama, who lives just down the road (well, only a couple of days' journey away) in Dharamsala, visited some villages on the other side of the pass a few weeks ago.
"It's difficult to see him approving of that," says Steve. "He's so wise." After driving over the pass he apparently flew back home by helicopter.
We get to the Khardung La at 5400m and get out for a walk around. A big sign proclaims the highest motorable road in the world, and another advertises the highest souvenir shop in the world. We are in a region of superlatives here in Ladakh: Leh apparently has the highest golf course in the world too, though in this desert region I imagine there are more bunkers than fairway. It reminds me of when I was a child going to school in a place called Cottingham, a suburb of Hull with some 30,000 inhabitants, which local people insisted on calling the "biggest village in England" by virtue of a single open field on the main road into the city centre.
More soberly, there is also a memorial here to 18 Indian soldiers who lost their lives building the road. While Tata trucks can usually be avoided, the danger from rockfall on a road like this is considerable and constant.
The road the other side of the Khardung La meanders down to another army checkpoint before passing through an irrigated valley and round several hairpins before emerging spectacularly high above the wide, shaley Shyok River. It finally crawls down to the river bed and reaches the broad confluence with the Nubra River. An excursion down this latter valley would eventually find you in the heart of the Karakoram mountains in Pakistan, right beside the giants of K2, the Gasherbrums and Broad Peak. We continue along the Shyok, however, and arrive less dramatically but just as pleasantly in the village of Hundur, where we have lunch on the lawn of a splendidly situated guesthouse in the middle of a flat valley with dry, rocky mountains all around.
Here Nic and Matthew appear to be plotting something controversial, which turns out to be whether Nic should use his Camelbak on the trail, of which John and Bonny disapprove on the grounds that its trailing drinking tube can pick up dirt on its nozzle when one puts ones pack down during a rest break, leading to minor ailments and possible bouts of the squitters.
My subversive streak is piqued by this conversation, and I decide to pitch in and stir things up a bit.
"But you've got to," I say. "You've brought it all this way - you can't not use it. Where are your balls?"
"Looking very small," the big man replies. "It's cold up here."
We begin our trek straight from our lunch stop, walking first through the village before striking off up another river valley which soon narrows to a gorge. The scenery is very impressive, though every once in a while I look up to the cliffs above us and see a precariously balanced rock towering over my head. They're trying to build a road through here, but it seems a hopeless task given that rockfall and landslides must be routine.
As we climb gently from 3100m to 3600m, John, Ulla, Peter and I leave the rest of the group far behind, and we frequently stop and wait for them to catch up. Nic is wearing shorts, which I assume are actually just an ordinary pair of long trousers that reach to the ankles on most people. After a while the path climbs above the river and at times clings spectacularly to the side of a cliff face a hundred feet or more above the river.
We reach our campsite at a place called Skarchen at 5.30, but then have to wait well over an hour for the horses to catch us up with the tents and all our bags. Nic is given a tent to himself so he can sleep diagonally. The alternative, I suggest, is for him to sleep with his feet sticking out of the tent. This reminds me of my tentmate Geoff on Muztag Ata's story of the Black Climber of Elbrus. I ask Ulla, who has climbed Elbrus, whether she ever heard the same story while she was on the mountain.
"I'm glad I didn't know about that," she replies after I tell her the story. "At one campsite I heard a mad Russian talking gibberish outside my tent and wished he would go away."
"That must have been him!" I reply.
Some porters turn up with our tents at 7.30, and when it becomes clear the horses won't be arriving any time soon, we go for a lie down inside them. Simon and I lie in ours and talk about Vodafone, whom he works for. At about 10.30, by which time it's pitch black outside, our bags start arriving in batches, but by porter rather than horse. Half a dozen horses have arrived in camp, but the rest are nowhere to be seen. I unpack my sleeping bag and try to get some sleep, but I keep getting woken up by the cook arriving at the door of our tent, first with soup, then hot water and then, at about 11.30pm, pasta in cheese sauce. This would be great service, but not at this moment in time, when sleep is more welcome. Thinking this will be the last interruption, I decline the pasta, only to be woken again much later when he brings bananas. I actually quite fancy a banana, so this time I accept, but by now I'm wide awake. It's well past midnight before I finally settle down for a full night's rest.
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Next
Message board >>