La La Ladakh

Author's note: there are no photos loaded to illustrate this post because of Ladakh's woeful lack of internet capacity. See point 3 of this article. Sorry about that.

Simon: What are you going to write about Ladakh?

Me: I just can’t get my head round this place.

The reason I can’t work out my reaction to Ladakh, and its main city Leh, is because of its weird juxtapositions.

Peace and war

Ladakh is where the nuclear-armed forces of India, Pakistan and China stare each other down over a disputed border. The uneasy truce often descends into stone throwing, armed incursions and threats of annihilation. 

Last seen in Lhasa

Canggu nunnery: nuns prepare mantras

We got a couple of extra days in Lhasa because we didn't complete the Kailash kora - I think we put the time to good use. 

We wind through the back alleys to Ramoche Temple, a tantric university where lamas come to learn to lead chanting, to sing internal complex tonal harmonies and manage the rituals of their own monasteries. 

Gear failure No. 1: lungs

Kailash: worth the effort

I had thought I might write a post or two about the inevitable gear failures that always happen. (I’ve already bitched on endlessly about how my boot soles peel at inopportune moments.)

I hadn’t anticipated that the first bit of equipment to fail would be my respiratory system. 

Yup, sadly Altitude Sickness scotched my intentions to hike the kora around Mount Kailash. I got as far as the first valley but, as elderly fat Hindu ladies in bedroom slippers sprinted past me, my oxygen levels plummeted, I started to cough, my legs stopped working and we all turned round and came back.

Peak Practice - at Everest Base Camp, Tibet

Interested in getting to Everest Base Camp? Don't want to hike for days to Namche Bazaar? Don't like dodgy mountain hygiene or the risk of avalanches? Like to sip a hot drink in comfort while viewing the Mother of Mountains?

At the end of the bus route

Biggest travel tip ever: if you can get into Tibet (ok, it’s a big IF), get a comfy car, drive along good roads to Rongbuk Monastery, stay in the guest house which serves great lemon/ginger/honey tea, and take the shuttle bus to Everest Base Camp. Look down the valley. 

In good weather, there is Everest/Quomolunga looking as if it is 10 minutes stroll beyond the glacier moraine. 

High plains drifting - across western Tibet

The pass overlooking the holy lake 

Leaving Lhasa we head west in our 7 seater van down to Xigatse, Gyantse and Sakya. The roads are good, and the public toilets plentiful even if they are only a concrete slab with 4 to 5 slits to squat over and a low wall between each. Communal, but the smell and lack of facilities doesn't encourage lingering to chat.

We enter tourist country. The famously fierce flock protecting dogs that keep the sheep safe from wolves and snow leopards now pose for photos with dyed yak hair extensions and sloppy tongues. 

A sense of devotion - moments in Lhasa

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Lhasa is a flat modern Chinese city. Creamy mid-rise apartment buildings; giant malls under construction; long straight highways run into the city streets that are organised by traffic lights and lane markings. All drivers ignore the rules.

The Potala is almost too big to comprehend.

We slip into the remaining Tibetan quarter of rendered row houses and shops, laneways and courts, tiled roofs, white wash walls and hopper windows with painted black window surrounds under fluttering pleated window curtains. And over the next few days in Lhasa and beyond we gain a sense of the city and valleys as home to ancient culture and still living religious fervour and devotion.

The middle kora around the Jokhang Temple

In the still-beating Tibetan heart of Lhasa, there are three koras (ritual circuits around spiritual places): inside the 7th century Jokhang Temple; the middle kora around the walls of the Jokhang in the old Barkor market; and circling the entire city in the outer kora.