To the Himalayas!

Sleepy. Early breakfast and relief that Ravi indeed has a spare room for us to store our extra gear (especially my heavy medical supplies to be saved for Nepal). Breakfast = carbs and hard-boiled eggs again. Can’t wait to get camping and eat better than this hotel stuff.

We get into the jeeps. I’m in a white one next to two southern gals and a Londoner in front. The drive is so incredible. Much like BC but the altitudes are overwhelming. I even wear out my camera batteries taking pictures from the car. There’s the monastery just outside of Leh where the golden Buddha is so large it won’t fit into one photo.

I accidentally woke up a sleeping monk in the Temple of Protectors and chased a cute little boy in junior monk’s robes into the shadows.

After that excursion, we stopped too many times. We went quite high and one resident was sick. We sat and ate our boxed lunched containing a boiled potato, chapati, dry orange cake, hard-boiled egg, pepper, mango juice and a chocolate wafer in the jeep with a view of the glacier. A-OK. We continued on while the ill doc and our team leader stayed behind. We stopped at a few check points, found big rocks to pee behind, and stopped at a lunch spot. I had already eaten most of mine, considering no one knew if/when we would be stopping. There was a lot of garbage strewn around this rest site, but an intrepid team member traversed the stream and started picking it up. Back on the road when the two lagging behind meet up with the rest.

Further on. Stopped at 17 600 ft to have a snow fight with scrapings from a glacier. Highlight of the trip! So breathless due to running around at this altitude; not very smart. More driving. Rocks and green. Big brown mountains. Beautiful.

Himank, the company (?) that maintains the roads in Northern India has posted funny road signs along the course of our journey: “Honey, I love you, but please slow down” “Better Mr. Late than late Mr” “Be gentle on my curves” etc. Must have been a lot of fun to come up with. Many of them are made funnier when they accidentally mix up the pun or misspell the key words.

We notices the sign for Tangste where there is a military hockey team. I’d love to skate right now but it isn’t really a possibility. The sky is clear and the sun is shining, but it is comfortably cooler than Leh. Pulling into out campsite, there are kids all around. One-floor stone houses are all that lay in this valley.

We try a little cricket match on a field dotted with embedded boulders that create obstacles for our toes. Running is not easy, partly due to the rocks, but more truly an effect of the thin air. Getting quickly bowled out may not be such a bad thing after all…

I’m exhausted and sick so I have a little nap to try and cure my headache. Dinner and relaxing around the campfire. Vengaboys tunes – the only cassette available- plays obtrusively as we try to drift to sleep. The wind is howling. I fear at various times in the night that our tent may take off and fly away. “ticka ticccka ttiickee” the skirt on the door flaps. I am elbow to elbow with one gal and my dental pal is on the far side of our nylon palace. Cozy.

The rain is soothing but also gets me bolt-upright many times, fearing that my gear will be soaked. In come our shoes and backpacks with the precious otoscopes, and other gadgets. My ipod was making crashy-noises in Leh but still working. Now, it makes the noises and gives an error message. Uh-oh. I really hope that if I plug it back in in Leh it will be okay. Shit. Hope I haven’t ruined it. So much for testing the limits of my luxury item. The aren’t lying when they say it doesn’t work well above 10 000 ft.

Sleep is on and off. Broken by music, rain, wind, congested nasal passages and peoples voices.

 Daybreak.