Hey there friends family and even random followers who may exist. Get prepared, because this a jam packed post: religion, nature, potential danger, some uncried tears, and more! Today was my first day ever of real mountain trekking. I had my concerns going into this, but was also looking forward to trying something new.
Having finished a simple breakfast at the homestay, at 8:30 AM we piled into a van and headed off on a short road trip to Liker Monastery. As seems to be the norm in Ladakh, the landscape along the road was simply majestic. The plan was to begin our day with a visit to Liker monastery and then begin the actual physical trek from that point.
To a certain extent, just as if you’ve seen one traditional Catholic cathedral, you’ve pretty much seen them all, much the same can be said for Tibetan influenced Buddhist monasteries. Of course there are many differences which would be obvious to an expert or even just a very discriminating viewer, still, you pretty much know what you are going to see. However, as it had been several months since I had seen a Buddhist monastery, seeing this one was much appreciated, especially since Thinlas demonstrated that she is not only a high quality experienced trekking guide, but also a very more than adequate general guide of this particular monastery.
Further expounding on how valuable Thinlas was as a cultural guide, while I find guided tours with more than 4-6 participants to be pretty much a waste of time, an engaging guide can make otherwise meaningless sites come alive. So, if you have the money, and you are a small group, just pay for the guide. It really is worth it. I’ll admit that many times, even in the past couple of years, I have decided that I don’t really care enough to get a guide, but every time I’ve had one when I’ve been with a small group, I’ve definitely greatly benefited from the additional support.
Finally at 10:45 AM we set off on a proper trek. Starting out, while the ground was a little uneven at times, it was mostly flat. This was easy enough to handle. The terrain, while starkly beautiful as always, was for the most part unchanging; although, we did see a couple of isolated homes. Physically, everyone’s primary concern was to be protected from the Sun, and to a lesser degree from the pleasant but brisk air, which at times was dusty enough to warrant face coverings.
Especially as we started to go into the peaks, with what seemed to be a never ending cycle of going up and down relatively steep terrain, I could see the nearby road devoid of cars and wondered if that might actually be the wisest option. However, I also figured that unnecessary ups and downs might be the whole point of trekking. I suppose many people feel a sense of accomplishment . . . “Just did one more peak!” I unfortunately did not really feel this, but for the most part was doing alright.
Then we hit a couple of particularly slippery, at least for me and to a lesser degree for Dorothée, spots and I started to question (in a very tiny voice in my head) whether or not all of this really made sense. The prospect of unnecessarily tumbling or even just sliding down the side of a rocky peak in an uncontrolled fashion didn’t seem all that fun. However, I did still recognise that I was in a relatively safe situation all things considered. A bit later on Betsy gave me a tip on how to handle those slippery situations when descending, and it was both physically and mentally much better after that.
Unfortunately, it was also at that time that I started to get the first twinges of a muscle cramps in my right quadricep. I suspect that these first ones were brought on by the initial mental tension and associated unnecessary physical strain of the slippery descents before Betsy had given me the tips. So I figured, now that we have that out of the way, I’ll be fine. Up and down we continued.
Then we came to a partially collapsed bridge over a small stream. I was reminded of some of my tourism in Guatemala in the early 2000’s as a large group of us hiked all the way up to the crater of an active volcano where one of the guide’s brothers had been killed two weeks earlier as rock from an eruption had hit and killed him. However, Thinlas tested the bridge, and pronounced it safe as long as we would go over one at a time. Seeing my hesitancy and also recognising that I weighed at least 50% more than anyone else, she suggested that I cross without my pack and that she would make two trips, one with my pack and the other with hers. This seemed to work fine, and I had to admit that even though it was halfway collapsed, the other side seemed very stable although at a strange angle.
Once across we opened our tiffins and had what was the most appreciated meal I’ve had in a very long time. Three pieces of thick Ladakhi flat bread, a serving of boiled (I think) mustard greens, a hard boiled egg, a boiled potato, and a banana. I was feeling alright, but my body wanted a longer rest before continuing. When I went to put on my pack, my hat and straps got tangled, and I started to get a minor cramp in my left, mid back. However, with Betsy’s help I got it straightened out and we were off again.
I was clearly lagging behind the others. Within a very short time, my body started to rebel more actively, and I got a rather severe, but not crisis level cramp in my mid left back. This was when I started to question whether or not I could continue. As luck would have it, this was not the best time to question, since at this point, one way or another I was still going to have to get to a road. Still, Betsy kindly stayed back with me awhile while I worked through the cramp. While waiting, we were treated to a visit by a rock lizard about 30 cm long, something I wouldn’t have seen had I still been walking. Finally, my back calmed down and I thought okay, this will work out.
Now I was still walking a bit behind the others, but for obvious reasons, Thinlas was walking near me. While this was going on, I started to get a cramp in my left hamstring. I wasn’t checking the time while walking so I’m not sure of the exact timing of events. I was walking slowly, my feet felt perfectly fine, the pack on my back was not at all uncomfortable nor heavy feeling, but my muscles seemed to be shutting down, as intermittent cramps started to now be felt across my left hamstring, right quadricep, left mid back and then most oddly, my right forearm. At this point they were intermittent twinges, but seemed to cycle through in a random yet recurring fashion.
Throughout the trip I had drunk plenty of water, already more than two liters, not counting all I had drunk in the morning. Certainly I had drunk much more than anyone else. So I don’t think a lack of water was to blame. Still, as we once again reached a point where a road crossed, I told Thinlas I was sorry, but I just couldn’t go down and up again. Should we somehow call a car or what should be done? Unfortunately, I thought I was finished.
Thinlas offered up a plan. She thought that if we were to stay on the road, I would be alright, or at any rate at least able to finish the walk for the day. There was a bit less than 2-3 km left if on the road. I told her that this was much appreciated, but I was clearly holding up everyone else, so should I simply go back to Leh, or what else did she think might be a viable plan? I was open to many options, but I didn’t think I could continue with the status quo, especially since future days were planned on being even more challenging, a couple days with 10-13 hours of planned trekking, much of it over more challenging terrain than had been encountered already. She then suggested that it might be possible to arrange for a car to take me to the next two scheduled homestays, and that I would even find nice ways to entertain myself with good things to see while waiting for the others to arrive from their treks, but after that I would probably need to decide to either return to Leh or whatever else I thought best, since they would be going to places no longer easily accessible by car.
After a bit, the others returned to the off-road trek, and Thinlas continued with me on the road until we reached Tashi Chosfail homestay in Yangthang village at 5:20 PM.
The homestay was pleasantly quaint and the hosts were incredibly welcoming. Had I not had the pall of knowing that this was both my first and last day of “the trek”, I would have found it to be wholly delightful. Pictures do a better job of describing than any of my inadequate words. Certainly I’m thankful I was able to get here.
Once we had all left our things in the sleeping area, we adjourned to the kitchen for several hours where we were constantly plied with two types of tea and a local type of homemade bread, permitted to help (in an admittedly small but still enjoyable way) with the preparation of dinner, and even watch the evening news (which we somehow convinced ourselves that we partially understood even though it was all in Ladakhi and then Urdu. Not having phone nor internet service, much less anything like a daily newspaper, the nightly news takes on an important function which has been lost for most of the rest of us. The food served was delicious, warming, and filling. Even though neither of our hosts really spoke much English nor even Hindi, they both managed to be incredibly welcoming. I think though that unless you speak either Ladakhi or Urdu, this is probably not the best place to come without a multilingual guide.
The hosts manage all of the cooking and cleaning without any regular running water, but they maintain a very tidy, clean and most importantly extremely welcoming homestay. The food is good and despite initial appearances, the beds are comfortable. They even have a friendly, if rather insistent cat.
The only possible issue of concern/warning is about the toilet arrangements. Unsurprisingly, being a Ladakhi countryside home, they only have traditional composting toilets. These seem to be the norm throughout Ladakh. Certainly for low population areas, these seem to be excellent options. It would be good if the model could also be adopted to areas with a larger population density. The problem is that like many toilets found throughout Asia, these are squat toilets. This is fine if you know how and are physically able to use them, but many people who were not raised with the same either don’t know how to nor physically, without assistance, can’t use them.
This could be easily remedied by having some sort of a simple wooden raised seating arrangement over the top of the hole. It could even be something portable which could easily be placed and removed as needed. If you were being particularly fancy, I’m sure some sort of a portable, collapsible raised seat could be made, but it probably makes more sense to just have a solid wooden construction which can be easily placed and removed as needed. At this particular homestay, since they have two toilets that I noticed, maybe they could just permanently convert one of them to have a raised seat. I realise this sounds petty, but I assure you it is not if you have to go but can’t figure it out or are physically not able to do do. Still, this is probably something which only affects a minority of visitors. Certainly almost all visitors from anywhere in Asia would be fine with the arrangements.
Forgive me for the whole toilet interlude, but I think it’s relevant for many of you. As a minimum, it’s something useful to know. Moving on, after dinner there was a bit more light social time with of course more offers to have tea. That having been said, it didn’t take much prompting from Thinlas to move us towards the bedrooms. We were all tired, and Dorothée, Thinlas and Betsy were planning on being up by 7:00 AM at the latest. Songnam, Dorothée’s porter, was going to stay behind with me as there was a problem with her shoes, so Thinlas thought it would be better to have Songnam stay back while Thinlas would solve two problems at once: transport me to the next homestay and get Songnam better shoes before she caused more manage to her feet.
As was becoming a familiar pattern, Dorothée took three heavy blankets and I reluctantly allowed a second to be thrust upon me, but then immediately left it unused on the extra bed once we all turned in at 9:00 PM. Hearkening back to the toilet issue, we discovered that there was a flush type western style toilet in the bedroom building, but no running water. So maybe the plan is to eventually have that up and running for the guests who can’t handle the traditional toilet system. Oddly, we also discovered that the washroom (no toilet in there), also without running water was huge! Maybe Ladakhi people bathe as a family? I don’t know, and didn’t want to ask as it seemed like a potentially touchy subject.
So anyways, we were all in our bedrooms by 9:05 PM. Happily, I found the mattress to be surprisingly comfortable; although I did need to sleep diagonal to comfortably accommodate my 1.8 meter (6 foot) frame. The one blanket was way more than enough, and I slept comfortably through the night.
Even though my “trek” is over, I still have several days left in Ladakh, and I’m looking forward to what each new day will bring. See you soon!
Travels with Jay 