Random Tangents: August 2007

up the first pass

ascending the first pass..

stephan (swiss) and marzena

Me, Christophe and Alex

ours is the lovely neon green tent in the background... despite it's colour, it actually was probably the best tent - spacious and didn't leak!

note our beloved donkeys to the left. they were the only animals loyal enough to not try to make a break for freedom...

you'd think she was the canadian...

but no.. Alexandra is actually dutch! she did have the most stylish outfits of all of us, that's for sure

Christophe, the absolutely hilarious French man, and me, at the beginning of our trek

colourful field

apparently canola??

rumtse... the start of our trek

Marzana and I signed up for a 9 day trek - it turned out that one person would be joining our trek one day late, so we ended up spending the first day in Rumtse. A bit bizarre to be camped next to the main road.. but other than a drive by procession of a famous Buddhist lama, it was pretty quiet. we hiked up the opposite hill, and got hailed on. Climate change is definitely affecting ladakh - apparently you used to be able to count on blue skies in July and August, and we had ridiculously variable weather - snow, hail, rain, sun.. often all in one day.

More pics from our crazy bike ride..

More prayer flags, I don't think I'll ever get enough..

Painting a stupa, as we rode by

The view from the top of the monastery of the surrounding fields

Thikse gompa (monastery). Sadly overun with tourists since it is only 17 km from Leh (all downhill, should you choose to bike.. but give you bike to a restaurant to look after while you hike up the hill). This means that if you go to the early morning prayer session (puja) there may be more white people than monks, many of whom have horrible camera etiquette. Cameras are NOT allowed inside temples in Bhutan, so I did take the opportunity to grab a shot of this two story Buddha (this is the top story)

I met a great polish girl on the crazy jeep ride from Manali to Leh... Marzana (pronounced "majana"). We rented bicycles for the day, and had a ridiculous adventure involving having my bike lock stolen at one point, and our tires flattened (crazy kids??) at another point..

Marz in front of the stupas at the Shey castle (old capital of Leh)

getting to ladakh!!

so it was a rather last minute decision to go to ladakh.. luckily i ended up at my friend Amy's house in Delhi, and she had all the guide books, and her wonderful husband Ed helped me arrange a bus to Manali. Turns out it's the epicenter of hippy westerner and Indian tourism, so within half an hour of arriving and seeing the hordes of tourists, I decided I may as well make my way directly to Ladakh.. As I was going to investigate the possibility of a bus the next day, a young guy stopped me and asked if I was looking for a way to Leh... Turns out he organizes jeeps to go every morning, leaving at 2 a.m., so that you can make the whole trip in one day. We were supposed to arrive by 6 p.m., but (apparently not uncommonly) there was a landslide, so we had a 3 hour delay while we waited for it to be cleared.

we were actually squashed into the jeep, 10 of us in all! 2 in the front seat, 4 of us in the middle row, and four people in the back (facing sideways!). I was very glad to be in the middle row, although there was a very large indian guy besides me, so we didn't have very much room.

But the view made up for it! o la la, what an epic road! curves and curves and curves - one of the highest road passes in the world, well over 5000 m..

taj mahal trip

The good thing about being in Paro is that every visitor to Bhutan ends up coming here on their way in and out of the country (if you fly). Back in May I met the Canadian High Commissioner to India, who is in charge of Bhutan as well, and Dilani, one of the Canadians who works in the Canadian Embassy in the political department. She invited me to stay with her on my way back from ladakh, and I had the most delightful time... She has an incredible apartment (we keep our dipolomatic staff well housed, I have to say... beautiful to see a real toilet again, let alone a hot shower!), and we went to the Taj Mahal for the day.

All I can say is that despite the crowds (apparently not nearly as many as in some seasons, when the line for the tickets stretches around the block - we just walked up to the window..), the Taj lives up to the rumours of its beauty. I particularly fell in love with the lines - of the script in the marble, of the different arches..