The land of high passes

Julay! I’m writing from Leh, in Ladakh, the land of the high passes. And very high it is too. At approximately 13,000ft high, up on the Tibetan plateau, it‘s inflicting a mild sort of attitude lethargy on me but, regardless of that, is a haven of Buddhist peace and tranquility in comparison to the heaving chaos that lies beneath the mountains.

You’ll also probably be interested to hear that what I just said to you means ‘hello‘. It also means ‘please‘. And ‘thank you‘. And also ‘you’re welcome‘. I’m basically nearly fluent in Ladakhi and I’ve only been here two nights.

The bus trip here was a 20-hour journey of epic proportions. We passed through mountains so giant they’re hard for the eye to comprehend - the highest pass being Taglang-la, which, at 17,500ft, is the second highest motorable road in the world. And didn’t my stomach know it.



I spent the best part of two hours trying not to empty its contents all over the side of the bus, followed by a weird sort of hallucinatory sleep that I kept trying to resist because I thought I was falling into a coma. Fortunately the descent was prompt, which saved me from almost certain death. Phew.

The bulk of the journey passed by in an ecstatic, juddering and sleepless stupor. Every twenty minutes the landscape changed so vastly it was if we were entering new worlds.



The alpine mountain scenery of Manali slowly morphed into rocky, jagged terrain as we ascended Rohtang-la, with snow-tipped peaks hanging above and furious rivers running through the valleys beneath the track.



From here we weaved our way towards the snowy tips - while navigating various unexpected and dangerous waterfall obstacles - into glacier territory, at which point most people were hanging out of the bus windows with cameras precariously attached to their hands.



Unfortunately we couldn’t convince the driver to do photography stops - we could barely even convince him to do toilet stops. “Toilet toilet toilet, all the time toilet,” he moaned, while furiously chewing paan and spitting out of the window, making angry red splotches on the winding track.

Gradually the frozen lakes and snow drifts metamorphosed into smooth, russet-coloured mountains, with blistering and dusty desert plateaus in between, which essentially is where I find myself now, lazily contemplating the daunting mountain in front of me, on the top of which is a “dazzling Buddhist stupa with stupendous views across Leh”, according to Lonely Planet.

Stuff the possibility of acute mountain sickness, who can resist that?

Getting up close and personal with Buddhism

So now I must write about the journey and not the destination because, as Gandhi says, this is the bit that matters.

So there I was, on the bus from Dharamsala to Manali, with a friendly American to the left of me and a monk in front of me. I must have paid my penance in dreadful bus journeys, I thought to myself, this is like bliss!

So for about two hours we travelled along like this. The monk did not recline his seat an inch - so I sat there, ipod on, head on my special red fluffy pillow, and I had space for my legs and everything!

And while I sat there all comfortable and that, I got to thinking. The fact that this monk hadn’t reclined his chair an inch told me that he was a happy man. This Buddhism lark must really work! If I did Vipassana would I then be able to just sit there, all upright, and sleep like a baby - no insomnia - and be proud of the fact that I hadn’t reclined my seat and that the person behind me was also comfortable. What an admirable man!

(In India the bus seats recline so far that the person behind can no longer put their legs down, like a normal person, and can only sit in an upright foetal position - imagine someone giving birth and you are getting close)

So on the bus went, and on Damian Rice went, and on my philosophising went… until suddenly, BANG, and OUCH! The monk’s seat flew backwards and flew backwards and flew backwards, so far, until it almost hit the edge of my seat, where he stayed, more reclined than anyone else in the entire bus, and happily snoring away like a pig in shit until the end of the journey (which was about 15 hours).

So for 15 hours I had my legs either side of the seat, with his shaven Buddhist head between my legs.

There are so many lessons to be learnt here, I don't know where to start.