In Ladakh one is constantly caught up in a feeling.
It seems as if you have fallen out of time, this is called a dischrony. For a moment, you've landed in a time that's long gone (a feeling I'm familiar with from Burma), But the present makes itself felt. Monks, dressed in robes, same as thousand years ago, in the hand a cell phone. For them, this asynchronous world is no problem, I, on the other hand, occasionally feel a sense of being split, as if I had fallen out of my own time and landed in something that is no more.
Let's see if these strange feelings are still occurring today – or especially today –, because today I'm going on a trip to the most famous monasteries and for a change I'll have my own driver (whose name I can't remember for the best of intentions) with a minibus.
Drive with panoramic view
At the beginning everything is fine. I'm sitting in front with the most splendid panorama. We drive along the Indus for some time, which already has passed 800 kilometers and gives a rather powerful and dangerous impression. Along the river there's some greenery, some trees, sometimes even meadows, but around it a lonely desert.
Extended bare hills abruptly change into steep slopes, the colours change from minute to minute, from dark brown to ochre to yellow, then again to greyest grey and darkest black. On the horizon, the six-thousand-metre Stok Kangri stretches its snow-capped head into the clouds.
"After Whiskey Drive is risky"
Every few kilometres, the drivers are made aware of the special dangers on the road. There are large, from afar visible boards with funny slogans, the writing is clear and unmistakable. The driver just shrugs his shoulders when I laughingly draw his attention to it.
“Nobody cares about it,” he claims. When I remark that well over 100 people die in road traffic in India every year, he just grimaces. “Nobody cares,” he repeats stubbornly.
And the slogans are really funny. Just imagine: somewhere in a dusty office in the province of Jammu/Kashmir, dignified old (or even dynamic young) Indians sit, making up sayings and laughing their heads off.
"Life is short, don't make it shorter!"
Or just - "After whiskey, drive is risky!"
I should have written down the slogans, but unfortunately only a few have remained in my memory.
It's been a long time since I've seen anything like this in Kashmir. I can still remember "Be gentile on my curves", but the best of all remains for all eternity "Death lays its icy Hands on Speed-Kings". Once more - such a thing exists - like so many others - only in India!
Now it's getting uncomfortable
And then, after half an hour, it's over with the comfortable ride, now it gets really intense. For the first time the road leads down into a valley, eaten into the rocks by the Indus (which doesn't upset the driver, but maltreats the floor under my feet).
So to speak a first acid test for the planned journey from Leh to Manali on one of the most dangerous highways in the world. I am warned.
The Waste Land
The area corresponds to a deserted lunar landscape, a devastated, dead world. That reminds me of the famous poem The Waste Land from TS Eliot. Part 1 The Burial of the Dead begins as follows:
Once in a lifetime, I'd like to be able to write a single sentence like this.
Breeding Lilacs out of the dead land.
Just unbelievable. And incredibly beautiful ... Every word a treasure.
The traffic is surprisingly heavy, truck after truck on the way from Srinagar to Leh.
Apart from the danger of the road (no crash barriers, hundreds of meters straight down, oncoming vehicles), the view is spectacular. and as always in moments like this, it is best to surrender to the situation and lean back in your seat and enjoy the spectacle.
Strategic Route for the Indian Army
The road runs from Leh to Srinagar in Kashmir and is therefore a strategic route for the Indian Army.
Which is also noticeable quite quickly: endlessly long columns of Indian army vehicles block the road for kilometers; even the overtaking skills of my driver, which should not be underestimated, can do little here, on the contrary: at a sharp bend shortly after a bridge, the traffic collapses completely.
An oncoming military convoy is blocking the way with a breakdown vehicle, and so we just wait, completely relaxed, in the Indian way, for the onward journey. You talk to the soldiers, as long as they speak English, and think a few things about it. What poor bastards who have to do service in this wasteland!
The Moon Valley
At some point we continue and over a hundred existing bridges and those under construction, after ten thousand curves we reach the Moon Valley and immediately after that the first destination, the Lamayuru monastery.
The Moon Valley owes its name to very peculiar looking rock formations, strangely rounded white cones and ridges that are totally different from the surroundings.
Lamayuru Monastery, like most others, is located on a high cliff to which you have to drive up numerous narrow curves. Surprisingly, we are almost the only visitors on this grey day, which gives us the opportunity to inspect the interior of the Gompa, the real name for the monasteries.
From now on, it is therefore necessary to take off your shoes every few moments, to walk through the rooms in respectful silence and to forget the language because of the incredible beauty of the treasures kept here.
Not unlike the Catholic Church, the monasteries also seem to have a keen sense of wealth. The driver explains to me that entire forests (of which there are not too many) belong to the monasteries. I don't know if that's still the case, but the land belonging to the monasteries was leased to landless peasants and a horrendous rent was collected accordingly.
Sounds pretty familiar to us, doesn't it?
Insight into daily life
It is always a conflicting feeling for someone from the rich West to experience the poor living environments of other countries. There is a feeling of shame, but also of hopelessness, helplessness in the daily toil of these people. You don't know anything else, you are used to it, but is that enough to retreat to the comforting certainty of your own life? Of course not. And every reasonably responsible traveler will at least take away the dull feeling of their own failure.
But nevertheless, the insight into people's daily lives is not only depressing. The houses are built simply and cheaply, from clay and stones and everything that the barren environment makes available. The houses resemble sometimes decaying ruins, roofs or walls are missing or collapsed. But life is there, even if it is not visible at the moment, I would like to take a look inside the houses, but I would feel like an intruder. But we are intruders anyway. We are in places where we actually have no business. We are no better than zoo-goers standing with amazed eyes in front of the cages of the wild animals.
Two tough old ladies
But there is a narrow passage leading down to the houses. You feel like you're in the Middle Ages. This is how I imagine the dirty, stinking alleys of the villages and towns of medieval Europe. And in certain impoverished areas of mountain valleys it still looks like that.
But then I meet two dignified old ladies. They sit on the cold ground, leaning against the wall, prayer beads in their hands. One of the two is wearing dark sunglasses, his face twisted into a mocking grin on the preamp. We exchange greetings, the universally valid way to establish communication. But it stays that way. We look at each other, smile, knowing that the two worlds are very close and yet very far.
The foaming Indus and Momos
Anyway, we have reached the furthest point in Lamayuru, so we drive back again, once again along the foaming waves of the Indus (which joins somewhere with the Zanskar River and then takes the road towards Kashmir and then south through Pakistan).
In the meantime it is noon, the hunger is coming and my driver stops in front of an inconspicuous building where he thinks that the best momos in all of Ladakh should be. Well, why not? The fact that the filling is made of goat meat is a surprise that I have to digest first. I remember Mui Ne and a goat dish that drove me out of the restaurant pretty quickly. But it tastes good, and the very shy girl who serves us the food gets a few compliments that make it blush.
Alchi
Alchi, another monastery, for once not located on a cliff, but in the middle of the village.
Actually it' s a sad sight, because many of the paintings are massively damaged by incoming water, by air pollution, by carelessness. It is no longer in operation, only a few monks from a nearby monastery take care of some administration, i.e. collecting the entrance fee.
Actually an Indian institution is responsible for the preservation, but one does not notice much of it. One of the walls covered with really extraordinary paintings has been repainted by some dilletant with missing skill, but this has gone massively messed up. Too bad. That's the way to let ancient works of art decay or be destroyed (the IS or the Taliban are not always needed for this).
Likir
Likir, the last monastery on our trip, located in a side valley, turns out to be a special treat. Here you can see the life, here are numerous monks who go to great lengths to preserve this monastery. And the view from the top pinnacle of the surroundings is breathtaking.
We approach the monastery slowly and leisurely, from far away we see the contours of the multi-storey building, the golden glitter of the huge Buddha. And all around, once more, grey, brown, gloomy rocks powerful in their mortal presence.
The view into the valley indicates the direction that I will follow the day after tomorrow on the first day of the trek. It still looks wonderful and pleasant and tempting. Let's see if it stays that way ...
A collection of divine splendor
But then the inside – a collection of sublime Tibetan art that stuns the eye. One thinks one has to whisper, carefully and silently puts one foot in front of the other, stops, marvels, bewildered.
In view of the threat of climate catastrophe, a controversial view is gaining momentum. Does humanity deserve to survive, or would it be better if it disappeared never to be seen again, as if it had never existed? There are not only Mozart and Beethoven, Picasso and Jackson Pollock, James Joyce and Tolstoy and all the others who have left mankind something that elevates it above everything else. Those who have left mankind a testimony that man – as John Steinbeck put it in „East of Eden“ – is more significant than a star.
Also these works of art here in these remote monasteries, created by inconspicuous monks a long time ago, bear witness to the fact that man in all his misery is more than the present seems to show.
The Buddha on the Roof
But it is not only the interior that provides insights into the special significance of the monastery. On the roof (or is it the top floor?) a huge Buddha is sitting, painted golden, with a dark-blue hair crown as I have never seen before. His view from the half-closed eyes lies as usual in the distance, in a future life in Nirvana without the eternal rebirth. One almost envies him …
Tired and exhausted
The battery is empty, the head is full, the heart is overflowing with splendour. It's time to go home and breathe a sigh of relief. We have become calm, the driver knows the behaviour of his customers when the energy is exhausted. The way is long, but no longer tedious, only a rolling of the kilometres, every now and then a view of other monasteries high up on the hills …
P.S. Matching Song: Bang Gang - Sacred Things
And here the journey continues ...
