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ortho158
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# Posted: 15 Jun 06 17:54
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I recently uploaded quite a number of pics from an old trip in India, and I decided to write the story behind it. Here it is.
Foreword: we made the trip to Kashmir and Ladakh in 1981, and many things have changed in 25 years. I don't think that Ladakh is very different today, because it is very remote and difficult to access. But Kashmir has definitely become a dangerous place. And that's a pity.
Srinagar is not a colorful city, and certainly not at this period of the year (July). This is monsoon time in most of India and it influences the weather here. Sightseeing is rather limited, but we don't care, as we like to walk in the streets and see how people live.
Our hotel is a houseboat, on the Dal lake. And it compensates very largely for the drabness of Srinagar. The lake itself is very beautiful and peaceful. The houseboat, made of sandalwood, is luxurious. It's more a house than a boat: there are four bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, and the quarters for the personnel. No, there is no swimming pool. The drawback is that it sits right in the middle of the lake, and that there is a huge queue of shikaras (gondola-like boats) with vendors trying to sell their wares (fruit,drugs, carpets, ...). One of them is a tailor with furcoats.We try to tell him
that we have no rupees, but it's not a good excuse: he also accepts dollars, Belgian francs, credit cards, traveller's checks, Eurocheques, ... He even proposes to give us the coat, and that we send him the money when we are back home. Now, he looks for a glint of interest in the eyes of the ladies.The first one to succumb is Josette, although she hates people wearing fur; but he just explained that he also makes coats in sheep- and rabbit-skin. She chooses the type of coat she likes, and she tries it on. It does not fit well, but this is not important as he will make a brand new one for her, which will be ready when we come back here in a week. Now the price. He asks 600$. I offer 200. He said that I must be joking, and then he screams and weeps: how can he support his family of many wives (he is Muslim) and children with such a low price .... After 20
minutes of haggling, we settle for 270$, plus the cheap, plastic digital watch of Josette. We are all happy, and then he turns to one of the other ladies, who had watched the whole scene. She shows her favorite coat, and asks the price. It's 600$! And it starts all over again.
We leave for Ladakh. There are two ways to get there: either by plane, or by road. The weather conditions in Ladakh being very unpredictable, it's generally impossible, or not advisable, to fly there. So, we take the road: a dirt road, 400 km long, very narrow, full of hairpin bends. So narrow that it is only possible to pass a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, in the bends. Our bus itself is very short: otherwise, it would be impossible to manoeuvre.
The road goes through two passes, which are under meters of snow, except during the summer months. It is also used by the Indian army to bring supplies, during these 3 months, to cover the rest of the year, to their thousands of soldiers stationed in Ladakh (because of their conflicts with the neighbouring Pakistan and China).It takes two days to arrive in Ladakh, but it's worthwile: the scenery is incredible. There are very few villages: Drass (which is said to be the coldest inhabited place on earth, because it is surrounded by glaciers) and Kargil. We spend a memorabe night here: the fleas must be very happy to taste European blood. The highest point on the road is the Fotula pass,
4107 m high. When the bus stops, I run out to take pictures; but I am very quickly out of breath, because of the lack of oxygen here.
There is a striking contrast between Kashmir and Ladakh. Kashmir is very fertile; Ladakh is a desert. With the exception of a narrow band of land along the Indus river, there are no trees, no grass, only rocks. Kashmir is predominantly Muslim, and Ladakh is Buddhist. Muslims pratice polygamy, and Ladakhi pratice polyandry: a woman marries all the brothers of a single family. This is for economical reasons: this way, they don't have to divide the land belonging to the family.
Leh is the main city of Ladakh. It is dominated by a palace, now abandoned. Apart from a generator running two hours a day, there is no electricity. And there is no drinking water (but we knew that, and we brought sanitizing tablets which we put in water coming right from the Indus).
Our hotel, which looks like a motel, has reasonable comfort. Although there is no running water, we have a shower. Hotel personnel fetch water from the Indus nearby, and pour it in tanks on the roof. It is very unwise to take a shower at noon: Leh being situated at 3500m above sea level, the sunrays heat the water surprisingly quickly, and you would be badly burned. The food is OK, but it's better not be be too difficult: the first night, we had soup with some very small pieces of meat: 1 per person; we also had a nice lunch with noodles and fried flies ...
There are a lot of monasteries (gompas) to visit in Ladakh. Some are really huge, but they are inhabited by very few monks. Buddhism here is a mix of religion, magic, sorcery and superstition.
Back to Srinagar, where our tailor found us, despite the fact the we had now another houseboat. We ended our visit by boat trip on the Dal lake and the Jellum river, which made us retrospectively happy that we did not swim in the lake: there are apparently no sewers in Srinagar ...
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Doina Logofatu
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# Posted: 15 Jun 06 21:51
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wow...very nice story, I like your pictures, I saw them already..
Great this "another world"!
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drora
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# Posted: 15 Jun 06 22:45
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i loved them - now i love the story too:)
all the best
drora
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Hermine O.
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# Posted: 16 Jun 06 13:04
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Great story, beautiful pictures!!! Very nice to share it!
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Bernadette
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# Posted: 16 Jun 06 19:49
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Bonjour Alain
I like your pictures, all of them tell a story. But this is far more better when you tell us this story. Bravo! How was the temperature? because is this is as hot than in south India, it's a performance to try a fur coat......I remember I had saw a magnifique cashmere pull over, soft, light, , the pull over of my dream s,in Madras but it was in April and with 40° and wet weather, .... you have to deserve it........
Thanks again to share this story with us.
All the best
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nonkel duvel
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# Posted: 16 Jun 06 23:28
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Great story, Alain !
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Matthias Petzold
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# Posted: 17 Jun 06 09:23
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Thank you for the beautiful story. Must be really a adventure !!!
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ortho158
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# Posted: 17 Jun 06 09:45
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@ Bernadette:
Monsoon does not go as far as the Himalaya, so that the weather was hot, but dry. In fact, it even snows very little in Leh, because the air is so dry. In the summer, it is very advisable to wear a hat, because the sun is very hot. I was not careful, and had a serious sunstroke. I fainted during lunch, but I recovered quickly enough, so that I did not miss the visit to the "queen" of Ladakh. The visit had been arranged by the (Ladakhi) wife of our Belgian guide. The queen lives in a palace/museum outside Leh, and has a regular job: she is member of the Parliament in new Delhi.
In Kashmir, monsoon does inluence the climate. In the summer, the sky is frequently overcast, but it did not rain, nor was it too humid.
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ortho158
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# Posted: 18 Jun 06 09:55
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There was also a memorable moment when we were on the road to Leh ...
We heard the guide telling the driver to brake by going into a lower gear, in order not to put too much strain on the brakes themselves. And he added :"remember last year!". We wanted to know what had happended last year, and he told us, reluctantly, that a bus has missed a bend, and fell off the road: 2 dead and the rest injured.
We also saw the driver opening his door quite often, and throwing something away: it was rice grains, an offering to the gods of the road ...
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amélie
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# Posted: 26 Jun 06 21:54 - Edited by: amélie
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I'm a bit late to add a comment, but thank you for the excellent story. I like the scanned-25-years-old pictures, they have a special texture and colors.
I hope you have a lot of other trips like that one.
I've been to Ladakh two years ago on a short vacation, and unlike you, I think a lot of things have changed in Ladakh in 25 years.
First, it’s easier (and probably safer than 25 years ago) to go there by plane, it’s just one hour from Delhi. Flying above the Himalayas is very impressive, but the descent towards the – quite narrow - Indus valley is also scary, and you’re really hoping that the plane has a good and experienced pilot.
So the plane is much faster, and probably safer than going by road – still unadvisable through Kashmir, but possible on the east from Manali. The big inconvenient of the plane is when you arrive in Leh, at 3500 m, without any progressive adaptation to altitude. You literally spend the first to days acclimatizing, walking as less as possible and very slowly. Just climbing the two stairs going to my hotel room I could feel my heart beating in my mouth and I was out of breath.
Tourism has greatly developed in Ladakh and, given the situation in Kashmir, a lot of Kashmiri come to Leh and open shops during the summertime. When I was there (July 2004), it looked like a third of the people were tourists (and half of those French), a third were Ladakhi and a third were Kashimiri. Plus a lot of Tibetan refugees and a lot of soldiers (“building the roads” “developing the country” and “guarding the frontier” as a lot of publicities painted on the roads proclaims).
So now in Leh, you have electricity most of the time (at least in the tourist quarters), running water in most places (even if in our first hotel they heated the water on a fire every morning, and if in popular sectors “running water” means a single tap for the whole building).
A small dam was built on the Indus above Leh, but in most places, especially in villages and monasteries, electricity is provided by small solar panels (which, when you think about it, is certainly the best way to get energy in an isolated, dry, deserted, in altitude and with 300 sunny days per year region).
You can also find a lot of restaurants in Leh, sometimes the same restaurant can propose “Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Continental, Italian, Couscous etc” food. Despite all this new animation in Leh, you still can see women selling their production on the sidewalks, but they don't wear their nice hats anymore.
Life in the villages has probably changed less than in Leh, with the agriculture still very traditional, as well as the social life. I was really impressed by the Ladakhi’s clever use and preservation of water. The green patches of fields and orchards are look quite beautiful from the mountains. The houses and monasteries, tall and painted in white, are also very photogenic.
(from Elsbeth Pilz)
(from Deevus)
(from Frans Mollenbrok)
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amélie
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# Posted: 26 Jun 06 22:07
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sorry for the long post, I've also forgotten to write that there is a very insteresting book about the consequences of development in Ladakh, even if I don't agree with all its conclusions and interpretations :
Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Quand le développement crée la pauvreté, l'exemple du Ladakh, Fayard, 2002 (sorry, but I can't remember the original title)
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ortho158
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# Posted: 26 Jun 06 22:30
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@Amélie: thank you for your update on the situation in Ladakh. I've seen other pics in Woophy, showing that things changed a lot. For example, there is still a traffic jam on the road to Leh, but the road is now surfaced.
 by Indiaz
And if you look at the pictures of Jailsamer, you will find two that are quite similar, except that the most recent one has wind turbines next to the cenotaphs. Ugh....
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zerega
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# Posted: 27 Jun 06 14:24
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This discussion adds to the recently posted time thread, which suggested to store and display the decade of the image it was taken in.
With, hopefully, woophy lasting for decades and more people uploading their vintage jewels, it could be very interesting to make time journeys in a particular region like in this thread.
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