Upcountry in Manali

Blowing off our guidebook's warnings about kidnappings, disappearances, and other sundry dangers hiking near the cannabis plantations above Manali we set out with a nice couple from Australia and our host at the Rockway Cottage. The day was overcast at first but the clouds burned off and gave way to some magnificent views, and I was lucky enough to spot a white monkey. (Later that night we came across a giant banana slug: that makes at least two ways that Old Manali is like a slice of Santa Cruz transported to the subcontinent.)


The final destination (Heidi is inexplicably missing)

Elizabeth marveling at an 18-inch porcupine quill (we didn't take pictures of the similarly oversized bhang plants growing wild)

The landscape was lush and the trail slippery

The UCSC mascot, like Bugs, must have taken a left at Albuquoique

Tom, Claire, Bodi, and Elizabeth on a comfy rock

Enjoying a rare treat...fresh (safe) fruit!

Nice light on a massive tree with, ho hum, another 6,000 meter peak in the distance

Aerial shots from the ground

Images from the ride from Leh to Manali:

My 4 a.m. silhouette; if you look closely maybe you can see the icicle on my chin

Dawn breaks at 16,000-some-odd feet

Occasionally our driver got tired of all these damn switchbacks and drove straight down from one to another

Pit stop on the moon... no trees, no bushes, and certainly no actual toilets (by "actual" I mean with a hole and behind some kind of screen) ... fortunately some of the rocks were 3 feet tall or so...

Paratha, spicy pickle, and egg, aka best breakfast ever

The road probably continues around the corner


Terraces across a deep valley

A glacier pours down in slow motion

Driving to heights that seem like our mini-bus should have a pressurized cabin

Abrupt changes after Rohtang Pass -- mud and traffic -- as we descend thousands of feet to Manali

Certainly a memorable ride. And one that makes tomorrow night's 10-hour bus ride to Dharamsala seem (fingers crossed) like a mere hop.

Goats do roam...

When these little house goats catch on they're going to go like wildfire!

Pugs of the world, you've been put on notice!

Full Value: Leh to Manali Road

Two words: Dog rough.

A few years back I gave up picking up hitchhikers and since I was no longer doing it, I assumed others had abandoned the practice as well. This, I was to find out, has not gone away in Ladakh. At quarter till midnight our mini-bus driver pulled the side of the road and took on an additional two passengers -- bleary-eyed men with oddly-shaped ski masks. That this was done just outside a military checkpoint made it all the more surreal.

The road, well, let's revel in hyperbole for a moment. It ranges from bad-but-not-disastrous to holy-crap-we're driving-in-dry-riverbed to aiiiee-we're-going-off-the-roooo-oh-it's-a-"shortcut."

At a bit past 3 a.m. or so we surmounted Tanglang La Pass which, at 5,360 meters (17,585 feet), is the second highest motorable pass in the world, a feat that was marked with little more than an unceremonious beep of the horn. The hitchhiker who was now in deep sleep on the floor beneath my seat appeared less than impressed. (Elizabeth, too, appeared to be sleeping -- or else in silent, eyes-closed avoidance of the state of the road.) Had I been handed a snow shovel, a pound of hashish, or a chicken to carry, I wouldn't have blinked.

At about 5 a.m. we pulled into a large, dirty parking lot with loads of diesel buses and cargo trucks idling as drivers stepped inside dusty tents for chai and paan, a vile Indian chewing "treat" that's similar to Skoal. Fires started up in trashcans and the sun began to rise on many miles of icy moonscape. (And Elizabeth realized that the one advantage of darkness -- for her and the other two women on the bus, any shadowy area was a bathroom -- had now disappeared....)

Having neglected to pack a sleeping bag, I took a tip from Douglas Adams' intergalactic vagabond Ford Prefect and whipped out my pack towel. At a scant one ounce it provided a slim measure of protection from the arctic winds that blew in with paan spittle from the front window (though Elizabeth blocked most of that). My friend on the floor looked to have the right idea.

Here it's worth noting that this leg of travel was an act of choice. Like the fellas in the parking lot of Say Anything, we were choosing it. We had, of course, been warned. Tales abound of hippie-trail backpackers, road warriors, and gung-ho Aussies brought to their knees by bum-numbing seats, invisible parasites, and the menacing tone lent to 'no toilet 100 km.' The lyrics to Sonic Youth's "Tom Violence" played like an incessant drone: "I left home for experience..." Choice makes fools of us all.

But on the real, daybreak transformed both the terrain and our state of mind. Deep into the More Plains I was awestruck by the change in color. Dull browns had given way to pleasant yellow ground cover, deep gorges cut by icy rivers, and lengthy expanses that would find parallels in the American Southwest (but here they were anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 feet higher). Here, there truly can be solace in open spaces.

A few more hours on and we pulled over amid massive snow-covered peaks and a roadside dhaba -- food stand/tent cafe/low cost bivouac -- that served a fabulous breakfast of chapati topped with plain omelette and mango pickle for 40Rs. Plus tea, of course. And for the adventurous, Old Monk rum, but Elizabeth told me I didn't couldn't have it because many curves lay ahead and she had the window seat. Then we found some taller rocks on the vast plain for our bathroom stops, and climbed back on the bus.

After rerouting off an unstable bridge and into what seemed like a glacial moraine we passed through Darcha which boasted a mesmerizing collection of high-terraced fields, waterfalls, and intrepid sheep. Only once did I count a vehicle that'd given way to the brutal tug of gravity, its carcass hardly identifiable. I thought it better not to point it out to the others nor dwell to long on it. Instead I chose to invest trust in our driver, who had not once taken the opportunity to text friends back home or argue with military road-hogs. (Elizabeth says she saw him texting, but she's just bitter about that paan-spit.)

By 5 p.m. we were cresting the rise at Rohtang Pass, whose name means, according to our guidebook, "piles of dead bodies." We experienced it less gruesomely as the site of herds of Indian honeymooners, saris set aloft by a chilly mountain breeze. From here it's a scant 51 kilometers to Manali but in the mountains, no one can ever quite go as the crow flies. We were caught in a traffic jam that extended deep into the foggy abyss below, but we distracted ourselves watching para-gliders launching nearby as a troop of men set up impromptu roadside grills and served corn on the cob. You've got to admire the DIY spirit that this nation of one billion inspires.

At 6:30 p.m., a precise 18 hours after setting off from Leh, we arrived in Manali, a town we are fast discovering is a favorite among Israeli youth, fresh off compulsory national service, in search of cheap drugs and down-at-heel digs.

In all, the ride proved itself memorable in every sense. My clothes were filthy with pyrite dust and my knees continue to ache even after arriving, but I've never been gone as high into the mountains, let alone by car, and the views were some of the most extraordinary either of us has ever seen. This was also one of the few times I've been so ready to sleep I'd pay any amount no matter what for a room, but lucky for us, the eats and sheets come cheap in Manali and our senses are returning to normal.

And now it's time to go watch the local production of the Ramayana...

Traveling Tintin style

One of the best afternoons we had in Ladakh was when we went from Shey to Leh on a very crowded bus.

Surprising, maybe. But not if you take the "on" literally: we rode on top of the bus.

Up there were Marty, me, two German guys, and an older and impressively adventurous woman from Hong Kong. And a lot of big canvas bags. It felt very daring, especially because we don't know the regulation height that arborists use here...



Yes, the landscape is tilting sideways, definitely, not the bus


The landscape we were riding through, as seen from a ruined fort in Shey; of course, the low-hanging tree limbs aren't visible from here

Grinning while gripping the side rail and whatever was in those canvas bags

Apart from surviving that, one of the other high points for me was finding a rooftop cafe (Cafe Jeevan) that had a large collection of Tintin books. Tintin, of course, is the intrepid Belgian reporter whose cartoon exploits have been translated into dozens of languages. I think I actually own the entire oeuvre, so when we'd go to this cafe, I'd pick one out for Marty and one out for me, making sure to give Marty the books in the right order -- no sequels first!

Eventually we figured out that the cafe also had espresso. Good thing it didn't have beer; we'd never have left.

OK, for Tintin riding on top of a bus might be tame, since he often seems to find himself on a plane wing or at the very least on top of a train -- but you can only take the cartoon hero lifestyle so far.

Bridge over the River Zanskar

For perspective, this trolley was probably 60% bailing wire and the distance across was close to 300 feet. To recalibrate your reference point for cold one might try wading into the Zanskar, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Below, our first video post. Check out the brave face of Indiana Stampe!

For more about some of the most remote terrain in world, read Michel Peissel's classic travel narrative Zanskar or check out his wiki

Harvest Song

The words to this song are "lhamo khyong, lhamo khyong...yale khyong, lahamo-le" which translates as "make it easy...take it easy." First a woman sang (with a beautiful voice, we thought), then the others responded. They're cutting barley. Almost everywhere we've seen more than one or two people doing field work the men and women doing it are singing.

Yak Butter Tea and Life on the Solar Clock

We got back yesterday from a 3-day trek from the village of Zingchen to the village of Chiling, over Ganda La, a pass that is 4,900 meters high (that'd be 16,076 feet, thank you Internet). Definitely the highest I've ever been without overhead bins or plastic tray tables.

On Friday, we'd gone to a small, new organization in town that is run by women, with women guides, and hired one to set out the next day. We chose a trek from homestay to homestay, rather than camping. Homestays offer a source of income to local people and, it turns out, are administered by the wildlife department; snow leopards and wolves sometimes eat people's sheep and so villagers would like to kill them, but homestays offset that loss and get the villagers to let the already very rare predators survive.

Early Saturday morning, we got a ride in a truck to the trailhead, the entrance of the Hemis National Park.We bounced over an apparently untravelled, skid-prone road made of oversized gravel, many meters (or feet) above the Indus river.

Turns out the Indus river divides the Indian and Eurasian continental plates (you know, the ones crashing together to make the Himalayas). I just didn't want to fall between them. I have a healthy respect for geology. And gravity.


Looking down (way down) at the Indus

Fortunately, we made it to the trail. I didn't even drop the camera out the window while taking pictures between truck lurches.


A sure sign you're hiking in the Himalayas


With our diminutive and very capable guide, Kuntzen


Definitely the best part of this is the drawings of animals. If you click on it you can see better -- but at this size I think you can see the pictures of the majestic snowcocks. We didn't see any of those but we did see so many chukkars that Kuntzen and I agreed that instead of calling this place "The Snow Leopard Kingdom" perhaps it should be called "The Chukkar Republic"


Tea tents, also known as parachute tents, mostly run by women. They provide a source of rare and welcome income for local women -- and a very welcome source of milk tea for trekkers


"Tea tea tea!" as Kuntzen said, and biscuits


One of a couple of sightings of blue sheep -- neither are they blue, nor do they look like sheep. Discuss.


A particularly decorative stone on one of many mani walls (walls with carved stones covering the top -- most of the stones say "om mani padme hum")


Our first homestay, the one-house village of Yurutse


It's barley-cutting season; people stack the barley in neat squares to dry


Uphill from the homestay -- the landscape is positively littered with shrines


Our lovely little room


The rather less lovely guardian?, decoration? at our door
(its eyes are pieces of blue plastic bags -- isn't that nice?)


Fortunately there's more to a sheep than its head


The beautiful Ladakhi stove, dotted, even, with turquoise. Wood or yak dung burns behind the door on the right, and a bellows behind it (made again from a sheep) helps fan the flames.
The cat sleeps behind the door on the left. Talk about nine lives.


Making momos! This was also where we got to try yak butter tea


The next day, slowly trudging our way up to the pass, beneath the imposing Stok range


They grow the marmots even fatter here -- they waddle along the ground like little bears


Made it to over 16,000 feet! Time for peanuts below the prayer flags

Coming down from the pass, we saw a lot of raptors -- still need to grab a bird book to sort them out. I'm hoping this one was a golden eagle -- it was enormous -- but I don't really know.


Massive mystery raptor


Night two's homestay, in the teeming three-family village of Shingo


Enjoying the late-summer light after rinsing our feet of enormous amounts of dust


Another cozy room -- no sheep-head to lull us to sleep this time, though


Third day, on the way out along the Markha river -- the jagged Zanskar mountain range ahead of us

At the end, after a relaxing day of meandering down streams and stopping in at tea tents, we had to cross the Zanskar river. To do this, it turned out we needed what was -- I don't know how else to put it -- the craziest transportation mode I've ever used. The "trolley" was a small wooden box, big enough for one or two people, attached by some loops of wire to wheels over a cable.First you free-fall to the middle, then you get pulled across, using some extremely shaggy blue ropes.


The surprise ending to our trek


Since nothing broke, it was REALLY fun

[Posted by Elizabeth, not Marty -- ignore what Blogspot says...]