Alchi - The place to do nothing

"Till Mulbek you can see the Muslim influence", said our guide. "From there on it is Buddhist country". We were starting from Kargil. We cross the river and Mulbek was the first stop in the day. We were to climb two high passes and pass through some moonscapes before we would land in the quaint and quite village of Alchi.

At Mulbek we stopped to look at the rock carving of the future Buddha. I think the future Buddha is known by the name of Maitreya. Seemed a lot like Lord Shiva statue. Very close in style of the Hindu statues that you see. A couple of small shops are present near the rock carving. As usual, irrespective of where we stop, irrespective of when we have eaten, Rajani and Harini need to buy something from a shop when they see one. That is their strategy for keeping the economy healthy. So we bought some stuff here as well and started from Mulbek.

There were two passes on the way that we needed to cross, Namika La and Fotu La. Unlike other high altitude passes, these passes were dry and there was no snow anywhere around. A pass is supposed to help you cross from one side of the mountain range to another but at the passes that I have been earlier I have not been able to see both the sides clearly. In both these passes, you can stand besides the board which tells you the height of the pass (this is mandatory :) and you can see the ranges on both sides. The curving roads and the absolute lack of traffic of any sort heightens the sense of isolation. It is a lovely feeling , being there on the pass, with the wind blowing and absolute silence all around. Gayathri and I got down and took a few snaps. The kids were bored by the routine and sat in the car. There was a TV transmission tower on one of these passes.

From there we started for Lamayuru. You can see the Lamayuru monastery from a distance and it offers a lovely view. Most of the monasteries in Ladakh are built on the edge of the mountains. If you were to step out of any windows it is surely 'moksha' for you. The external facade of these monasteries is not very striking. They look like normal mud houses built on the ledge of some mountain. The exact location of these monasteries, which makes you feel that it can topple down anytime, and the fact that it is not one building but a cluster of buildings which gives them the grandeur when you view them from a distance. We reached the monastery and as usual, the inside was very colorful and attractive. The view from the monastery was lovely as could be expected. Ranjani and Harini did the thing of spinning the wheel. They were liking this. We had our lunch at a hotel adjoining the monastery. Though the service was slow the food was good.

Our stomachs now full, we started for Alchi. Lamayuru is famous for its moonscapes. This comes after you cross the monastery and proceed towards Alchi. A short distance after the monastery we saw many rock faces. It looks as if someone has carved faces of people on the rocks but in truth these are carved by the natural elements. There were many such 'modern art' pieces on the mountains there. Next came the moonscape. This is a large area, which is a part of these mountains, which are supposed to look like the surface of the moon. The color of this area differs from the adjoining mountains. It is very creamish in color and the surface is definitely strange to look at. As in many cases, no photograph can convey this strangeness. You need to be there to experience it.

We pass the moonscape and then starts the most fascinating and the frustrating part of that day's journey. The fascinating part first. As we drive along we start seeing mountains of different colors !! Looks like there are some mineral deposits in the rocks which give them color. Some of them give the mountain a reddish glow, while some give it a greenish tinge. Depending on how the light strikes them, you get to see different shades. Now we are passing through a passage between mountains, not exactly a valley. The whole atmosphere suddenly changes. There is absolute silence. Nothing except the sound of our vehicle. No evidence that any life form exists on this planet. It is as if we have come to a totally uninhabited planet without having to take a spaceship!! Gayathri echoes my thoughts, "Wow. This is so lonely. As if no one exists." Experiences like this are something worth dying for. Especially to city folks like me.

Then comes the frustrating part of the journey. When at a distance we can see the turn we need to take to reach Alchi, we notice a convoy in front of us. We are on a mountain road were passing a vehicle is difficult and the rule here is that if there is a convoy in front of you, you will not pass it, for security reasons. It seems that some minister is going to Ladakh that day and for some strange reason he requires a posse of armed guards in multiple guards to guard him in one of the safest places. So we crawl behind this cars, frustrated that we cannot move faster. The scenery is wonderful but the inability to pass a slow moving vehicle in front of you can give you an headache. Blame it on too much highway riding, if you will. Luckily for us this is not a Kerala highway where it is dusty and hot and you cannot pass !! The weather is cool and the scenery around is lovely so that saves the day and the headache. Finally we turn right while the convoy heads straight. The right turn gets us off the mountain and into vast space very typical of Ladakh. As few turns later, we enter the Alchi village.

Alchi is really small. There are very few houses and the monastery. We get to the hotel were we are to stay. They are still not fully ready. They don't anticipate the tourist rush till the first week of June so everything is still being done up. We dump our luggage and walk to the monastery. It is a lovely monstery and is well known in this part of Ladakh. There are some very old paintings, supposed to be done by Kashmiri painters. We speak with the monk there for some time and then come out. Gayathri and kids get back to the room while I walk around for some more time. The village ends after I cross a few houses!! I see some wonderful birds and there is quite a bit of greenery around. Looks like they cultivate peas here. At a distance I notice some ruined buildings. Must have been old forts or an old monastery which is in a state of disrepair. Alchi is a very small village but a very quite and peaceful one. I can imagine many people coming here to soothe their nerves. If you want to do absolutely nothing, Alchi is a very place to do it. I would highly recommend you to get to Alchi in case you are planning a Ladakh trip.

The next day would lead us to the highest motorable pass in the world.

Nubra Valley - The Silk route beckons

"It can also be the highest traffic jam in the world", warned a travel magazine of Kardungla. Kardungla is more famous as the highest motorable road in the world at 18,000+ feet. Luckily we did not get stuck there but the potential exists. Before that, as the saying goes, "Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start".

We left Alchi after breakfast and headed for the Likir monastery. The vastness of Ladakh is probably best experienced during the drive from Alchi to Leh. From the highway connecting Alchi to Ladakh we took a left turn to go to the Likir monstery. The land is vast in front of you and at a great distance away are the mountains. The vastness of this land is accentuated by the fact that there are no man made structures anywhere around. Nor is there any greenery. It is just barren land and barren mountains all around.

Likir has a nice golden Buddha outside the monastery. The Buddha is peacfully sitting in a chair. The whole ambiance and luckily for us, the weather as well, was one of calm. You can see vast distances every side you turned and in the mountains ahead, cows were tiny dots. Nothing else appears on the landscape and the eternal Ladhaki silence envelopes you. I took in the scene for quite sometime before entering the monastery.

We left Likir and drove towards Leh. The land seems even more vast now and you can see kilometers of road ahead of you. "This is where the shot the song in a Hindi movie", said our guide. The sky a deep blue and the clouds so white that they hurt your eye, hovering above brown mountains. Marvels of God. These are areas which give amateur photographers like me a nightmare. There is no way that you can capture the grandeur of what lay in front of you. No lens and sensor can match the combination of your eye and brain. As you approach Leh, you see the Ladakh Range of mountains on one side and the Zanskar range on the other side. The Indus runs with you for some time.

Our destination was not Leh but the Nubra Valley. So we went briefly into Leh to buy a pair of batteries and were on our way to an important tourist destination within Ladakh. The Kardungla Pass. Actually I should be saying, Kardungla, since La means a pass but everyone, including the board there, says Kardungla Pass !!! It has the distinction of being the hightest motorable pass in the world. Add to any other highest thing that you want, like the 'Highest Traffic Jam in the World', 'Highest Tea Shop in the world', 'Highest Hotel in the world', 'Highest Urinal in the world'. Hey, wait a sec. The last one is not true. There is no urinal out there !!! Anyway, you get the drift don't you.

As you go past Leh and get into the mountains for the Kardungla climb, you get an amazing view of the Ladakh range. So many snow capped mountains and they give you an idea of how high you are climbing. Up ahead you can see the road on the mountain and way way up the Kardungla. The road appears on the snowy landscape as if someone has parted the white hair on an old man. On the razor sharp slope of one of the mountains, we saw a mountain goat standing fearlessly on a ledge. It merged so well with the mountain that it took the expert eye of our driver to spot it. We made the mandatory stop at Kardungla and took pictures besides the board proclaiming that this was the "Highest ..". you know what !! This board must be the maximum photographed board. My guess is even Monalisa may not have been photographed so much !! The guys who wrote out the board must be feeling very proud !!

As we descended from Kardungla into North Pulu, we started seeing the marmots. These cute guys kept appearing once in a while to the delight of all of us. In one area, we saw 4 to 5 of them. All the them scurried into their burrows. We thought it was the noise of our vehicle till we saw the eagle swoop down and sit on one of the stones above a burrow. He (or she) was obviously searching for lunch. The eagle sat calmly on the rock and was not fazed by the noise of our vehicle. As it always happens, you have the wrong lens fitted on your camera when you need it !! I had the 28 - 70mm lens on my camera, when I desperately needed a 300mm. I took one shot of the eagle and then hurriedly took out the 300mm lens from the bag, took off the smaller lens from the camera, simultaneously started fitting the 300mm lens and praying that no vehicle came from behind us to disturb the eagle. Maybe I was too preoccupied with fitting the 300mm lens that I didn't pray hard enough. Just as I finished fitting the 300mm lens a car came from behind us, honking gloriously !! So now I had my 300mm lens pointing at lot of stones !! The eagle never came back but we saw a lot of marmots running all over the place. We crossed that and saw an amazing frozen lake with a couple of rare ducks in it. We were too hungry that we did not stop there but promised ourselves that we would stop on our way back.

We had our packed lunch at North Pulu and Gayathri started complaining as soon as we started from here. This was definitely due to the height. I asked her to take a Saridon and told her that we will be OK once we drop by another 1000 ft or so. North Pulu was at 15,000 ft and it was quite cold out there. We proceeded from here towards our destination, Tigar village. The landscape kept changing along the way and we reached our destination by evening. The rest of the day was for rest !!! Pardon the bad pun. (In case you didn't notice :))

From North Pulu, you slowly descend into the Nubra Valley. Two rivers, Nubra and Shyok, meet here. If you take the left road, you will go to Diskit and Hunger. The right road leads to Sumur and Panamic and all the way to the Siachen glacier. This is an arid area with the small towns providing whatever little greenery they can. In the distance is the mighty Karakoram range. On one side Pakistan and one the other China. You are really at the edge of your country here.

We pass through a small village road and arrive at our destination, 'The Silk Route Cottages'. The season hasn't started yet and there is barely any staff there. A small mud road runs behind this resort and that was the original Silk Route. Inside the cottage we sees some photographs taken during the early part of the 20th century of people who walked the Silk Route. With some leather wrapped around their legs, rugs across their shoulders and mules carrying their load, these people have braved this harsh landscape in order to trade. Unthinkable for people like us who cannot step out without a jacket over the sweater and a monkey cap over the scarf. Hats off to these doughty people.

The next day we started after breakfast to the Diskit monastery. On the way I saw a huge sandy tract of land in the middle of which a bus, dwarfed by the immense expanse, was traveling slowly. I pointed it to the driver. He said we would also pass that way. It was an amazing sight. We crossed that place and arrived at Diskit monastery. After seeing the monastery, we left for Hunder.

Hunder is a strange place. I mean it is a mini desert. Ladakh itself is called a high altitude desert but Hunder really is a desert. It is a large area where you have sand dunes, and, listen carefully, camels !! Yup. This area has Bactrian camels, which were supposed to have got here during the Silk route days. It is really a funny feeling seeing sand dunes at this altitude and in the evening you can see dust storms here. The bactrian camels are domesticated and form the livelihood of many people here. These double humped camels take tourist for a ride on the sand dunes. All four of us took the ride. Each on one camel, ofcourse. You get the most scared when the camel gets up. These fellows are very sturdy and you feel quite safe sitting on them. Nearby these sand dunes is a forest of thorn buck. We played on the sand dunes for some time and when you take your slippers off, your feet burn !! We got back to our cottage, had lunch and visited the Panamic hot springs. This is till where you can go in this part of India. Beyond this is the military area. 70Kms away is one more highest in the world. The highest battleground, Siachen. It is when you see these mighty mountains do you crave for a world without borders. I mean, what sense does it make to have such natural beauty and have no one except few soldiers from each country see it !!! Nature not only tells you about the insignificance of man, it also tells you about the foolishness of man. On way back to our cottage from Panamic, we stopped near a small hill. A trek up the hill takes you to a nice little lake. This has holy significance to the Tibeteans and you can see the common sight of stone over stone over stone all along the way to the lake.

The next day we started for Leh and as we had planned stopped at the frozen lake. A couple of ducks were still around and a few marmots kept popping out of their burrows. We got out of our Qualis and slowly walked towards the lake, trying not to make any sound so that we can shoot the ducks. With our cameras. Our guide made a small noise and the ducks immediately took wing !!! I took a couple of snaps of Gayathri. The kids just refused to get out of the car. We kept seeing the marmots, got to Kardungla and with a bit of breathlessness made our way to Leh, for a well deserved evening of rest.