Leh, Spituk Gompta

Written by E on January 18th, 2011

Woke up to a very cold room and our breakfast room was not much better at 4 deg C.
Today was a day of acclimitization we hiked down to the Spituk Gompta where we had our prayer flags for the trip blessed and drank tea. Beautiful walk, cold and windy (more of minus 10 weather) but we overdressed for this.

More wandering about town for last minute supplies – chocolate, nuts and dried apricots.

The bad issue for the day is that there is an Internet cafe that has a virus and overwrote two of my memory cards, so possibly all of the shot to date are gone! I’ll try recover these at home but it’s a good idea to lock them before inserting them in a foreign computer. Well, apparently I can see the images in the camera so all is not lost, I just can’t share them now.
We looked at the satellite phone and it’s likely this will be my last post for the trek, not sure we can send out email from it to post message.

 

Flight to Leh

Written by E on January 18th, 2011

The flight yesterday (was it only yesterday?) was memorable and impressive. From my notes, yesterday’s report:

Starting off, I left the hotel at 4AM and fortunately the driver ignored the information on my travel papers — we would have gone to the wrong terminal at an airport where this makes a difference.
The people on the flight were sparse and easily classified into two groups locals and winter hikers, with gear, backpacks, I stuck up a conversation with 3 French guys coming from Singapore and we’ll likely run into each other in town but hopefully not on the river. Some of the other trekkers on the flight seemed disorganized with the idea that they would make plans locally. except the town, even with 90000 inhabitants is basically hibernating!
As we approach Leh the day rises and we begin to see the mountains on both sides of the plane. The actual approach to the airport is a slow bank against the sides of the mountains that leaves the impression that we are turning with only hundred of feet separating us from the broken landscape!
we flew over a frozen river on a large plain but I don’t know if this is part of the Zanskar, our destination. Once landed I pulled out the heavy jacket and we walked out to the tarmac: -13 deg C had said the pilot. Hey, that isn’t that cold at 3460m of altitude. I’ll change my opinion significantly over the day, several times.
Luke recognized me and we quickly got my stuff on top of the jeep and we were quickly joined by Martin, Arabella and Irene. A quick drive to the hotel, where we relaxed, had tea, breakfast and made introductions. Rob, the final member of the team joined us, having arrived the day before.
All through this we can see our breath, it only 5 deg C inside, with the heater running. It’s cold.
We walked up to the market and I felt the altitude, the effort had me breathing heavy, heart beating fast and light headed for the first hours. By evening I’ll be feeling better somewhat, but the first hours are rough!
We quickly headed to an important task – finding boots for 3 of our trek members for the ice. With the local boot seller these will be cobbled together from thick rubber boots and home-made foam inserts to make them fits well and provide insulation. It’s an enterprise that will take a couple of hours and require another trip to the boot seller.
Our wandering about has included small purchases, a group picture, language books, postcards but a lot of the shops are closed for the winter. This place must have huge crowds in summer.
We also visited the Polo Grounds where Luke explained a bit of the surroundings, history and the recent mud slide last summer that caused a lot of damage including the destruction of the new bus terminal.
Lunch was in town in a small local place – what must be the only restaurant in India that does not serve tea, only hot water. All of this on a light day as we try to acclimatize – I’m sure we will all go to sleep early.
As speaking of that, the comfort in the rooms is highly limited — it less than 5 deg C in the room, even with the heater — a butane contraption that smells of gas, we’ll turn it off in the evening to not asphyxiate from CO poisoning. We’ll be using our sleeping bags tonight! No running water, we use buckets of semi-frozen water to run the toilets.

 

Leaving Delhi

Written by E on January 16th, 2011

4:30AM at the airport for the flight to Leh!
Just a quick update from yesterday, Siegfried caught up with me from his morning flight in and we headed off to The Imperial Hotel to have a superb breakfast and to see if we could arrange for his flight back. Another tuk-tuk ride got us to the the market in front of the Red Fort, we passed away many hours just wandering about and taking pictures in the park of people, the buildings.
Skipping lunch, we headed off to see Hunayun’s Tomb – a fantastic place to be for the sunset, large birds overhead, green parrots and a light that sets off the red of the building. Again we just passed the time taking photographs until the light was gone. Even the moon helped out to add to that backdrop.
Tuk-tuk, dinner at a restaurant that Siegfried remembered, even if he didn’t remember the name or the location, which meant we wandered about Connaught’s Place for a little while — for the next time, it is the United Coffee House. Excellent food and good location. Tuk- tuk, and early to bed for the flights out this morning for both of us.
I’ll miss Siegfried on the rest of the trek, but plans for next year need to be made!!

 

Delhi arrival

Written by E on January 15th, 2011

5 am, New Delhi
Elev 235 m At the hotel and it seems like the electricity has cut off and is now being run off a generator sitting right above my room.
No chance to sleep now.
Flight was uneventful except for the colorful passangers: a traveler with a fetish for collecting hundreds of travel tags on his bag, another with 7 passports pasted together, these are signs of what?
Changing money at the airport results in 2 inch thick bundle of bills, having mostly received small denomination for payment of the expedition fees.
Delhi is relatively empty on arrival at 2am except for trucks on the road marked “honk horn” and “save oil save India”.
The first impression on the drive in is the Soylent Green quality of the air, there is a thick yellow gritty fog everywhere that quickly gets to your eyes and throat, worse than Mexico City or Shanghai, and we drive through this while the driver kindly mentions a few sites invisible in the darkness.
In the hotel room, the news repeats the story of a stampede in the south of the country, far from here, that occurred during Sabarimala. The stampede left 109 pilgrims dead and about as many injured. Incomprehensible until it is explained that the huge crowd thought that an elephant was loose and chasing them. Apparently this was kicked-off by a small traffic accident. I wonder, seeing this senseless tragedy, if it is being reported back in Europe.
Canetti and Crowd and Power.
On other channels cricket and M TV blare away.
Time to try to sleep a few hours with this noise.

Morning, GPS: 28*38′ 77*13′ Well, the generator finally stopped and I got a couple of hours sleep.
Siegfried just called, he’s landed but some of his luggage with equipment is missing. He’s heading over and we’ll see if it reaches us. The adventure begins before the adventure.
More bad news: Siegfried must return tomorrow for personal reasons, his voyage is delayed for a year unfortunately. I’ll continue on my own.
This is a shame, I was looking forward to travelling with him!


 

Chadar – Packing List and Gadgets

Written by E on January 13th, 2011

Gadgets
More gadgets, got to love them!
I just purchased a digital voice recorder.
I think it will help me on various ideas — first to play amateur ethnologue if I attempt to record sounds from my trips or surroundings. Second, I like the idea of recording myself (even if I am not the first fan of my own recorded voice) in order to improve on my pronunciation. Third I might be interested in doing a podcast here or there, although it isn’t very likely right now.

And speaking of gadgets, for the trek, I need to review my material list. Here goes!

Packing List
For the Chadar, as it does get very cold, gear is very important, and we have been discussing and preparing for day temperatures that average minus 8-15ºC and at night temperature drops to around minus 15-20ºC, although it can be colder. And we will hate the cold when packing up in the morning.

So the packing list has served to feed our discussion and also avoid leaving behind that essential piece of kit. However, for the actual trek we are limited to 15 kgs as the porters need to carry our stuff.

Leh (around 0°C) – we need hat, down jacket, gloves, thick socks for walking barefoot in monasteries!

Chadar Trek – we will need to prepare for walking on ice in sub-zero temps, tricky ice and wading, scrambling on rocks, nights that can go to -25°C.

Day Pack
Day Pack – Deuter 45+10 liter
Change Jacket
Water
Snacks or Energy bars
Extra Socks, Gloves
GPS and batteries
Recorder

Camera Pack
Camera and lenses, memory cards, several batteries in a humidity proof bag against the body so that the temperature does not affect them too much.

Duffel Bag (15 kg limit!) – The limit is actually a good thing, if not I’d bring the kitchen sink!

Sleeping bag – Glacier 1000 (sleep zone to -22°C), bringing also a Lafuma light 600 (zone to 0°C) as a possible cover/insert.
Silk Liner
Thermarest sleeping pad – ProLite (might be thin, but it is the one I used on a bike trip and like)
An aluminum thermal isolator pad

underpants (2 x 400g, 1 x 200g) and undershirts (2x400g, 1x260g, 1x 200)
Boots – Hiking boots and Neos Overshoes with cleats
Fleece top
Warm hat, Balaclava
5 x Socks various types
Shell Drylite Loft pants for the camp
Trek pants
Camp down booties
Down Jacket
Thermal top
Night wear top
Day wear shirt x2
Underwear
Sun hat
2 or 3 x 1 liter water bottles and insulator bags
Pee bottle – for the tent at night, you don’t really want to know.
Gloves – Triples and another change pair
Trekking Towel
Sunglasses
Toiletries and odds and ends
Toilet paper
Extra passport photos
Books
Lip care
Torch
Water purification drops
Moisturizer
Vitamin tablet and nose salve