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?

Blood, sex or money

I seem to spend my time in India being assaulted. If I’m not being pestered by rancid smells of faeces, it’s the begging children, screeching horns, bellowing voices, fighting dogs, perverted eyes and drunk saddhu drug dealers (I know! Let's import some, I'm sure they'd catch on like wildfire).

I also appear to be the sole benefactor to the Manali mosquito community. Every square inch of my body is covered in bites and they’re showing no signs of abating, with at least eight fresh ones acquired every evening. And nobody else seems to have a single one. As the nice man in the jewellery shop said while looking at my tits: “Mmmm you must have sweeeeet blood.”

Indeed. It’s just a good job there’s no malaria here or I would undoubtedly be in hospital by now.

On a less irritable note, the sun is shining and the road to Leh is now open again after a series of landslides, collapsing bridges and “some other natural disasters, madam”.

The camera, however, has still not arrived but I’ve decided to bite the bullet and go to Leh tonight anyway, leaving it in the safe hands of Manali post office.

I’m sure when the post master shrugged and did a careful Indian head wobble in response to my question of whether it will be safe, he actually meant to say: “Yes madam, of course.”

So I’ll take his word for it.

Here, have some pictures, of which the first is merely the view from my balcony of an evening:







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Let sleeping dogs lie...

Life has slowed down to a pace almost beyond imaginable. I’m currently top of the improvers’ list in a course named How To Relax And Amuse Oneself For Hours.

This mainly consists of reading books (from start to finish, no less!), café hopping, rain dodging and watching India go by in its amusing way while waiting for the arrival of my intrepid camera.

(Which, by the way, is now unnecessary as the other one has had amiraculous recovery.)

Still no dreadlocks though, I’m happy to report.

The most difficult decision I’m facing each day is what to eat. Chinese, Tibetan, Israeli, Mexican, Continental, Italian, South Indian, North Indian, English - the array of cuisines is simply dazzling, but the end result probably more similar than the locals care to admit.



This morning I opted for an English Breakfast, Madam - toast, beans, eggs and hash brown. Sound familiar? Well it wasn’t. Cumin, turmeric, peppers, onions and chilli all made an appearance in one form or another and, while I certainly enjoy boiled potatoes, yes sir I do, I probably wouldn‘t eat them on toast for breakfast.

I ate all this while watching a particularly amusing game of Indian road roulette, whereby hoards of creaking tuk-tuks chug painfully to the top of the hill, before switching off the engines and juddering down the other side like out-of-control runaway trains, horns screeching as all manner of animals and people scatter into roadside ditches like confused ants.



Apart from the sleeping dogs, of course, which usually just continue snoring in the middle of the road as the vehicles slalom dangerously between them.

Nothing wakes the dogs. Every few metres there’s another one: mangy and flea-bitten, dozing in a doorway; napping on a rock next to the roaring river; asleep on a pillar in the middle of a construction site.



They only awake at night, whereupon they gather underneath my bedroom window and conduct howling wrestling matches.

Talking of strange animals, there appears to be a glut of them in Manali. So far I’ve encountered two absurdly decorated yaks, a sheep that wakes me up each morning with a ’Laaauuura’ sounding baa; and a crazy myxomatosis-eyed rabbit giant.

And when I say giant, I mean giant: as big and as white as a polar bear - or perhaps just a little smaller.

For the meagre sum of 20 rupees the equally-as-crazy-eyed owner will let you hold him. Personally I would pay 20 pounds to never even have to see it again.

Impotent in Manali

All you impotent men out there: I have new-found sympathy. I now know how it feels to have an impressive looking bit of equipment that‘s about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

But would an impotent men ever go to a whore house? No sir, no he wouldn‘t, because that would be hell, wouldn't it?

Well that’s basically where I am right now. Sat in Manali, watching the River Beas tumble down the mountain through jagged, snow-covered peaks and evergreen firs, meandering through traditional wood and stone houses, with a stupid black box that looks like a camera, talks like a camera, but acts like an ornament.

If I was anywhere near Adana, I would take the stupid black box back to Murat the Mullah with his stupid pointy fingers and nose, and demand he fix it for free, and that he does it properly this time. But I’m not. So instead I have to wait here for a week while my trusty replacement crosses oceans and mountains to be with me, before I undertake the mammoth and teeth-shattering 18-hour bus trip to Leh.

It’s not so bad. I have a £2-a-night bedroom with clean, white sheets and a balcony, a myriad of relaxing riverside cafes and even some riverside entertainment. Although by entertainment I actually mean Manali’s form of child cruelty, which comprises equipping your child with a small metal hoop, a hat with a metre-long tassle on the top, a burlap sack and a begging bowl and making it do insane tricks in front of tourists, like a circus monkey.

If this is what they do with double-jointed kids, I’m very glad I wasn’t born in Manali.

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.

It's all about the journey is it, Gandhi?

It’s a funny old thing, this travelling lark. According to Gandhi it’s not the destination but the journey that counts.

Good job, really - if I wasn’t getting touched up on buses and scammed on rickshaws there wouldn’t be much to write about.

“So today I went to a café and read my book and then I ate some food and then I walked up a hill and then I skyped my boyfriend and then I sat on my own for a while, bored, and watched a cow take a shit in the road.”

Surely not! Surely it’s meant to go something like this: “So today I roamed exotic lands wearing Indian silk harem pants and incense-scented beads, and then I frolicked in the ocean with skin the colour of a brazil nut: fulfilled; enlightened; joyful; free!”

Only I’m nowhere near the ocean - I‘m in the Himalayas. And the only thing that’s en-lightened is my hair.

These serious travellers - y‘know, the ones with the dreadlocks and those blasé facial expressions - they must be pretty dedicated folk, highly practised in the art of How To Do Absolutely Nothing Except Stare At A Mountain For Days On End.



Perhaps that’s why they always end up festering in groups on a hill somewhere, near sacred monuments, spinning silly bits of wood with fire on top and trying to outdo each other with outlandish trousers and ginormous hair.

Fortunately for you I’m off on a 12-hour bus journey to Manali tomorrow, which will no doubt give me something more interesting to write. Maybe I’ll get touched up again! Or perhaps I’ll break my leg. I’ll be wearing sensible trousers though, don’t you worry.

It’s also the Dalai Lama’s birthday tomorrow - what this quite means I haven’t yet been able to figure out.

“Dalai Lama birthday tomorrow Madam so maybe big party in the town. But Dalai Lama maybe not here my friend, so if he not in McCleod then no party and we do nothing. We see. Shanti shanti.”

That’s that sorted then.