Any Idiot can run, but it takes a special kind of Idiot to run a Marathon. Today the Leh Ultra Marathon is taking place, one of the worst things imaginable (but everything is relative, see the section after next). The Leh Ultra Marathon The start is in the Nubra Valley on the other side of the Khardung Pass at a good 4500 meters, ...
Baby Trek 3 - Stone and Rock and Silence
It's early in Hemis Shukpachen. I imagine that I smell freshly baked bread, even though I know that there will be all sorts of delicacies for breakfast, but definitely not freshly baked bread. The morning is beautiful. The flowers on the roof smell fresh and green. A bird whistles somewhere. Beep beep beep. …
Baby Trek 1 – Dead mute World
This morning the sky is a sea of the bluest blue. A very welcome greeting on this special morning (which is actually not that special at all, after all it's just the first stage of the baby trek). Nevertheless, I am immediately wide awake because, despite the baby, I have a strenuous task ahead of me. At least we are high enough...
Ladakh – Digital Blackout
Do you ever think about a possible scenario that describes a complete collapse of the Internet? Barely. As it turns out, this sandbox game can be tested as a live experiment in Ladakh. And as a note: In his latest novel “The Second Sleep”, Thomas Harris described in great detail how the dangers of a global collapse of the Internet infrastructure...
Leh - Once upon a time there was a Royal Palace
Incredible 150 meters. This is the height difference that you have to climb up the hill to the royal palace and the old castle ruins. So an incredible 150 meter difference in altitude. The dark-skinned receptionist at the hotel, probably a South Indian, has round eyes as he explains the matter to me. If you believe him, this corresponds to nothing more and nothing less than one...
Leh – Breathless
The first impression after a 10-hour sleep – the headache is gone. In the morning, after a somewhat strange sleep, interrupted by unfamiliar noises from outside (are they sleepless birds? unknown animals?), I wake up with a heavy head. From my room window I hope in vain to be able to see high mountains and desert-like slopes, but...
Ladakh - Flight to Leh
Will it be the fulfillment of a dream? Or is it more of a nightmare? Actually, the infinity of the mountains in Nepal was originally a little closer to me, but postponed is not lifted. I'm on my way east, once again towards India, but this time to the north. To Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas. The weather …