Ladhak is the beauty with little air

Ladhak is immensely beautiful. Naked, untouched, flawless….picture perfect. Scenes that I had imagined and had seen only in photo frames stood just in front of me. “It’s so well maintained’, was what I exclaimed when I first saw it at Leh Kushok Bakula Rimpochhe Airport airport. For those traveling first time must definitely look out of the flight windows for a life time Himalayan experience.

Never before had I seen the hills and the range of mountains to be so different, varied and yet so sync picture perfect. Probably, because I have all my life lived far away from the hills in the plains, amongst the maddening hordes of people and that this place was so dissimilar. Ladhak was simply so beautiful with its barren great mountainous range all around with very little green and no trees around.

The place is special very special …because of the sun shine in the blue sky with little cumulus clouds peeping out of the mountain peaks. There is very little or no vegetation and people cannot afford to plant trees too. “This would attract clouds and subsequent rains’, had explained one of colonel of the Indian army who had willingly played host to us. “ We are on the rain shadow side of the Himalayas and so it does not have adequate vegetation leading to the low level of oxygen. Rains would wash off the sandy and muddy mountains” It was then I realized that the persistent headache that we had developed was due to low oxygen and we had to be acclimatized first to the surrounding before venturing for more unquenchable mountain views.  

“You cannot take risks. People develop blood pressure and due to this unless you get used to this weather, it is difficult to stay here”. We were there for a week as guests with friends in the Indian army who promised to take us around. “Drink lots of water for better supply of oxygen to your body. Work and walk slowly” were the advices given before we planned our trip to the most exotic sites of Ladhak.

Leh is the biggest city of Ladakh and in first glance it appears it is one of those small hilly towns that would be immensely popular for its exotic location. But it has its own identity. A huge contingent of the Indian Army deployed on the India China border is headquartered in Leh. With low sex ratio still you would find women working as daily laborers with the Border Roads Organization (BRO) that builts beautiful roads on mountains.

The trip to Khardung La ie the Kardung pass was extremely exiting. Besides the meandering roads in the snow covered mountainous range, the low availability of oxygen makes it all the more difficult. But to overcome the simple uneasiness, drowsiness and nausea is the real challenge. Sleeping through the trip increases the discomfort but amazingly the local drivers are so well versed with the turnarounds, the avalanches, the muddy village paths that the fifty kilometer trip becomes a lifetime experience. Snow filled mountains of different colors, sizes, shapes would surround you and you are lead to the K Top said to be the highest motorable road on earth. All uneasiness would vanish as you lower height through the K top to North Pullu to Nubra valley that has got the double humped camels as the star attraction in midst of the grey sandy dunes.

Besides the Thiksey and Hemis Monastery, Shey and Leh Palace, Shanti stupa what more can be explored is another trip hundred and fifty kilometers up and down to Pangong Tso Lake, the brackish water  lake in the India China Border across Changla Pass. A young twenty nine year old Major of the Indian Army confessed when I complimented him about the place he lived. “It is beautiful with no air. Good to live here for vacation but hard on duty”. The high and lows of the roads leading to the lake for the four hour drive in low air area makes you believe that ‘nothing comes easy in life’. To really enjoy the beauty of this side of the Himalayas is adventures and the difficult path makes it all the more desirable.

China stands a few kilometers away across the blue divide of the Pangong  Tso (Lake). Even with minimal vegetation it is amazing to watch snow deer, yaks, Pashmina goats, wild horses grazing around in the very low dull green pastures. That makes the trip and ultimate adventure excursion. “Do they get adequate food”, I wondered. My driver cum guide Dorji explained, ‘You adapt with what is available”. Given said that this is worth mentionable that it could be the only place in India that I have seen the free sale of Oxygen cylinders for personal use. It’s so easy and handy for tourists available at all pharma shops as small perfume bottles. Also the deal is worth noticeable that if it is not used during high point trips it can be exchanged back in the shop once when you get back.

Only had Ladakh got a little more air, a little more electricity, little more water in the snow, life would have been much easier for the tourists and also for the people who really live in hard situations. Even in those hardships monasteries are built in the highest points above fifteen thousand feet and little monks in their maroon habits keep praying in the most difficult circumstances for a better world.