“All great things are tailoredand many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. " (Winston Churchill)
As always, the early morning walk through town, along the hardly awake streets, shows a completely different side of the city.
Most shops and restaurants and agencies are still closed, hardly any traffic, a few sleepy travellers shuffling through the empty alleyways. You can even hear the screeching of magpies and other ravens, usually barely perceptible through the blaring horns.
I'm on my way to the agency that organized the trip, with a stomach thirsty for coffee and I actually find a small restaurant that is already open. Then I sit outside at a small table, hardly a person far and wide, a strong Black Coffee in front of me, a cool breeze on my sparse hair, the prospect of a wonderful day ... What more could I ask for.
The driver accelerates
Before departure I talk to the boss of the agency asking him about the past season but he waves me off. "Why? Less Tourists?" No, he says, many tourists, but the level has dropped massively. He answers my questioning face with a disparaging gesture. "Too many Indian tourists!"
Oops, that hurts. As a real Ladakhi he is apparently not very fond of his fellow countrymen from the south. The crowds of mobile phone and selfiestick-armed tourists are actually a surprise of the rather negative kind. Obviously, it's common practice among the fast growing and wealthy middle class to take a short trip to Ladakh.
In the mini-van two Indians are sitting expectantly. A friendly pretty lady named Anu, living in London, and a young man from Gujarat with the encouraging name Siddhart. I hope Buddha is pleased with his namesake from Ahmedabad. Later, a German lady, Christine, joins us, and then the driver accelerates.
Off to the Nubra Valley
Then off to the Nubra Valley, translated valley of the flower garden, and, as we will see later, this can be taken literally. The second highest motorable pass in the world, the Khardung La, leads over 5370 meters into the fertile valley.
The first kilometres are nothing unusual. Below us stretches the Indus valley, the impenetrable silhouette of Leh, covered with a yellow haze, the upper houses and meadows leaning against the mountains. But the road is rising quickly, curve after curve. The already desert-like environment seems to become even more repellent. Below us, the ribbon of the road cuts into the mountain slopes like a huge scar. Leh has long faded away below us, only far away a spot of green, like a toy village.
We are approaching a world in which nothing seems to live. A strange feeling creeps in.
Checkpoint
We climb and climb, countless serpentines, we cross the 4000 meter border, lonely side valleys emerge from the light fog, snow-covered peaks, most of the above 6000 meters stretch their peaks and caps into the blue-grey sky.
Then the first checkpoint, South Point, according to my iPhone app exactly 4657 meters above sea level. Checking of the passport and the permit. Foreigners need an additional permit for certain regions in Ladakh, which is easy to get (except for Chinese: Chin had zero chance for this; apparently the old conflicts between India and China are still alive).
We stretch our legs, breathe in the ever thinner air, pull up the collar. It's getting colder. A sharp wind blows around our faces, bringing tears to our eyes. We escape back into the heated interior of the van.
A repellent world
And then it really gets going. At some point the line between asphalt and dirt road is reached. Now there is no need to tell the driver to slow down, because now the road is a real challenge.
The Toyota van struggles metre by metre towards the top of the pass, towards a foggy gap between the high mountains that is still far away. The driver knows his job: in slalom style, he skilfully bypasses the deepest holes, knows in advance where to expect an oncoming car and where to find the best places to pass other vehicles.
We now believe to be in another world, there is something uncanny around us. Our metaphysical second nature comes up, finds this strange world frightening, repulsive. It seems to want to communicate that we are in a place that is not desirable, that we should leave quickly.
It has become quiet in the van. All eyes are on the outside. Into the cold, forbidding world, into whose interior we keep pushing forward.
There is a lot of traffic, but since the road is only single-lane, the evasive maneuvers become more frequent. I am sitting at the window, next to me a precipice that seems to get steeper and deeper, and occasionally I get a slight additional breather if the vehicle scrapes the last centimetres when taking evasive action.
The planned trip over the Leh-Manali Highway is pushing itself into consciousness. Is this a first taste? It appears so.
It is not only a challenge for the nerves, but also for the stomach: one is thrown around so much that not even the cramped grip on the handles is of any use anymore. Breathing feels a little different now that we are approaching the 5000 meter limit.
The conversations in the car have fallen silent, everybody is looking ahead, towards the next bend, the next ditch, the next truck. The view out of the side window, into the yawning abyss, is better left alone, otherwise your breath will become even more nervous.
But shortly before the pass summit a traffic jam. It is hard to imagine that a traffic jam could form at this altitude, but as usual, reality is more imaginative than imagination.
Khardung La pass - 5369 meters above sea level
And then we arrive at the top of the pass, my app shows 5369 meters and it is snowing.
It's freezing cold. Of course we get out, take a few swaying steps, take a deep breath, take photos, and are a bit proud to be here (although the actual performance is caused by a little technical miracle from Japan and a competent driver; we just sat in the car in amazement) ,
There are signs everywhere, proudly pointing to the "highest motorable pass in the world" (which is not true, it is only the second highest, but of course the Indians don't want to know about that).
When I think about it, up here we are just over 500 meters below the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, which is the highest mountain in Africa. However, in contrast to Kilimanjaro, where we reached the summit only after days of laborious hiking, here we let ourselves be driven up quite comfortably. Somehow crazy.
However, the weather is similar to that on Kibo. It tears through marrow and leg, and after some time you feel a certain shortness of breath. Not surprisingly! We stand higher than most people will ever be in their whole life.
On the highest pass in the world, the cars empty their passengers into the thin air. Excited voices, oh and ah, cameras are pulled out to capture the unique moment, the proud evidence for the astonished world.
However, all you need to get here is money, a powerful vehicle and an experienced driver. The own contribution is negligibly small.
That is absolutely secondary in this glorious moment. And once again it shows how much man is capable of denial.
As grand as it is scary
In the landscape surrounding us, nature shows itself with pomp and splendour. One looks down with an inner shudder into the snowy valleys, up the mountain peaks covered by cloud curtains, one instinctively feels the threat, the power, the warning. The sky is made of lead, grey and darker than any known sky.
Cold and kind of depressing
The grey drizzly weather intensifies the depressing impression of the surroundings. In the midst of hundreds of fluttering prayer flags, poor tin huts stand, on whose thin roofs the first snow lies. I am sure that some poor bastards from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh are working here for a miserable wage at over 5000 meters in this miserable weather.
Somehow hidden, but enthroned just above the abyss, there is a row of toilet houses. I have encountered some bad things in this respect on my travels, especially in India, but this one tops it all (I will forego a more detailed description for the benefit of the readers).
Anyway, even with a warm wool cap, the icy wind blows through the clothes, and we take refuge in the warm vehicle to start the drive down into the valley, into the Nubra Valley, where we hope for more pleasant temperatures.
The ride down is, so to speak, congruent with the ride up the pass, so the same torture for drivers, cars and passengers. But the architecture of the road is a masterpiece. A look back shows the deep incision, cut across an almost vertical wall, and just barely recognizable against the now blue sky the transmitter mast at the top of the pass.
Yaks in the snow flurry
And there, unexpectedly and surprisingly, a yak and another one. The shaggy creatures make a serene impression, bent over the ground to explore what little it has to offer. And just as unexpected a sudden snow flurry out of the just blue sky, but the yaks are well protected against all attacks of the weather, which in these latitudes can change every few minutes.
You want to hug them, these wonderful creatures.
The alluvial land of the Shyok
The transition to the paved road is only a short pleasure, because now the driver pushes the accelerator pedal, which is almost more of a risk than driving along the abyss due to the winding road and the constant oncoming traffic.
Below us there are the vast alluvial deposits of the Shyok, an Indus river that rises in the Karakoram. It is feared by the people of the Nubra Valley for its immense violence: it regularly floods the banks, destroying houses and fields. The road now runs parallel to it, we follow it over winding roads, admire the almost forgotten greenery, the small streams bubbling between poplars and juniper trees.
The Nubra Valley has always been located at the caravan route between Leh and Central Asia. Precious materials such as wool, borax, salt and gold were exchanged for saffron and vegetables. A remnant from these times are the two-humped camels, of which there are still about 90 in Nubra Valley. Although they are unemployed, the Ladakhis have discovered a new business model by Camel rides over the sand dunes at Dogs .
And that's exactly where we want to go.
Camel ride over the sand dunes
I am always a bit sceptical about these sometimes terrible and embarrassing offers for tourists, but riding on a camel for half an hour has its special charm. Already from a distance, a numerous crowd of mostly Indian tourists can be seen from afar.
From the parking lot one crosses the river over a swaying wooden footbridge (which already causes the first outbreaks of sweat among the Indian tourists) and thus reaching the starting point, where the camels are surrounded by a large number of tourists. A milky haze hovers over the plain, decorating the slopes and mountain tops with a hazy veil.
Wonderful animals
So it's gonna take a while until it's our turn. In the meantime we admire these patient and incredibly beautiful animals. We are dealing with bactrian camels, ideal for riding, especially for the not very agile looking tourists, who are waiting here in large flocks to start riding.
The original area of distribution of the Bactrian camels stretched approximately from central Kazakhstan to southern Mongolia and northwestern China to the Yellow River. Domestication of the animals began in the third millennium BC, and today they are widespread in large parts of Asia as pack animals and farm animals - the total population is estimated at 2,5 million specimens. They can be found from Anatolia to Manchuria. Northwards, the Bactrian camel is distributed as far as Omsk in Western Siberia, which lies at about 55 degrees north latitude.
The free-living populations were reduced more and more by hunting. In the 19th Century, they became extinct in the west of their range, and since the 1920 years, population numbers in the east have also declined significantly. In the year 2003, IUCN estimates that only about 950 wild bactrian camels lived in three separate populations: in the Taklamakan Desert and in the Lop-Nor Basin in the Chinese Xinjiang and in the Mongolian part of the Gobi Desert.
Bactrian camels are adapted to dry habitats. In the winter months they prefer to stay along rivers and in the summer months they migrate to dry steppes and semi-deserts. Remarkable are the temperature fluctuations in their habitat, which can reach -30 °C to +40 °C. (Copyright Wikipedia).
Lawrence of Arabia - again
And then, after a long wait, the time has come.
Ascending is not the problem (at most for plump Indian boys who can barely lift their legs), but the moment after the camel gets up. You're first thrown forward, then backwards (or vice versa?), and woe if you don't hold on to it.
A number of camels are tied together, in front a young man walking, the rope of the animal in front (mine) in his hand. It is somehow an uplifting moment as you swing and glide across the sand, the movements are very gentle but you can feel the strength of the animals. In any case, I feel like Lawrence of Arabia, but instead of the dignified proud Bedouins I am accompanied by noisy Indians holding up their sticks and shooting a few million selfies ...
All around us a strange landscape. This is what it might look somewhere in the Sahara …
Evening in the Nubra Valley
And then our adventure is over. We say goodbye to our shaggy friends, who we have grown fond of in a short time, and make our way home to the hotel. The evening slowly descends, time to end the exciting day.
Dogs
In the village of Hundar, where our guesthouse is located, a thousand flowers of all colours are blooming, the trees are heavily laden with apricots and apples. Our hotel is situated in the middle of a large garden. We sit in the evening sun, reviewing the day.
Later a last, somewhat tired walk through the village. A couple of boys eye us attentively, they are the only sign of life in the quiet evening …
And here the journey continues ...
