that long winding road

Eating Out in Shimla

2010-11-24T19:46:00.002+05:30

and turf wars in the parking lot.

Foot In The Mouth

2010-11-23T21:48:00.005+05:30

Slow chat in my favorite tailor shop in Manju ( which deals mainly in framing thankas ) while I wait for my new Macbook case ( which raises the first laughs : just like a pecha case ) . The one guy makes a joke that I don't get, and gets both a great laugh and a loud slap across the arm .
"Yoru're supposed to be peaceful , not like Khampas"
Hilarity ensues , of course ( I had no idea ) all three come from Kham.

Common interests

2010-11-23T21:28:00.001+05:30

From Leh

2010-11-22T00:14:00.000+05:30

Loong time since I set foot on the airport in Leh ( last time it still was just Leh Airport , not the Kushok Bakula.) Bigger, and with supporting wooden pillars painted in Ladakhi style.At least the airport buses haven´t changed much... It has become much more a part of a Kashmir though, as in long repeated security checks : at the second level the apples I got as a parting gift are deemed to dangerous to carried on to the plane(...?!), as well as the external Ipod battery . The kerosene burner is spotted immediately on the X-ray check , but I´m not made to open the pack after I´ve pointed out that it has been aired dry for 24 hours , and that I hardly would have packed the fuel bottle without a cap otherwise.
I do my now regular routine of becoming the group photographer for some young Ladakhis , first in Leh and after arriving in Delhi. Plane filled with Ladakhis in traditional and latest teen fashion ,Sikhs , some southern Indians .. and one other angrezi. Ladkhis giggling and holding on to one another as the first rolling walkway in their life starts.
The ticket office for the HRTC buses : pure Terry Gilliam stuff.We are around fifteen people hanging around the birdcage sized window , waiting for it to open, with the constant din of two angle grinders cutting thru stone just behind us.

Voyage Of the Blue Bag

2010-11-19T14:04:00.013+05:30

In reverse : flight from Stockholm to Istanbul, arriving less than forty hours from Haga Sofia in Istanbul to Manali with a night bus in the Himalayan foothills, waiting out for the road to be cleared after more than a half meter of snow in Rothang pass and two hundred vehicles stranded,waiting for the car for an hour in Vashisht outside the the Shiva shrine before being invited for coffee by the baba, arriving in Leh and finally in the Tibetan refugee camp Choglamsar. ( "Solja don" , the honorific term for take tea - first time I've heard that in real life )

Drat..

2010-11-18T21:16:00.000+05:30

Where did I put my down socks ?

Cold season in Ladakh comes in three different comfort zones : most rooms never get anywhere near warm in daytime , the south facing shelkhang room with large single pane glass windows quickly become about as cold as on the outside at night , but quickly heat up in the morning sun, and a few places , like the SECMOL campus , with solar heating it´s surreally warm long in to December : sleeping with a single blanket , and your hands on the outside.

When you start to have to sleep with the laptop in the sleeping bag it´s time to shift from sleeping in the shelkhang.

Severe Weather..

2010-11-15T03:12:00.001+05:30

Enduring the mind numbing cold in Skampuk , Nubra , on November 15th.

Ecumenic Cafe

2010-11-09T21:53:00.000+05:30

Ladakhs peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Buddhists at it´s best : four table tea stall in Leh with panorama views of the Kaba in Mecca and the Kyi Chu river in Lhasa , Tibet.

Warm Night...

2010-11-09T11:09:00.001+05:30

... and cold morning.Breakfast at SECMOL , after the first night with my hands outside the sleeping bag ( or in this case the blanket ). Tea with ngamphe/tsampa , and a quick trot to Phey , just catching the morning bus to Leh. On the dashboard : the 19th and 20th Bakula Rinpoche.

Oddly familiar

2009-10-10T17:49:00.002+05:30

I start to leave the cafe , buttoning up my jacket , and find myself being drawn to a table nearby with a not quite familiar object on the table : a conical piece of cucumber , adorned with jellybeans and other sweets .. and two small paper flags. Sort of a postmodernist torma.

Grasping for words I see the same puzzled expression mirrored from the other end , looking at my side buttoned wool jacket* " .... have you been to Mongolia ? "

Short but nice meeting with Altansukh Demberel , who had just set up his exhibition in the nearby art gallery.

-
* Honestly , this time I was going for normal , but in the end it was so much easier having a unchu sewn up in Manju ka Tilla , than slogging in to the center of Delhi finding a new fleece jacket .

Exotism 2.0

2009-07-19T22:09:00.002+05:30

Exotism 2.0

Momentary displacement : I wake up with a corner of the bhikkubag grating in to my face. Three narrow shafts of light . A black helmet floating under under white globes suspended from the roof. Right, that´s it , I´m back in the prison again.

Three hours later a mindgrating peppy wake up call erupts from a bed across the room. Bald guy in opposite bunk erupts in to a frantic Homer Simpson pantomine , flapping blankets, elusive cell phone and all ... and lands in perfect lotus position and holds it for twenty minutes. Books. Covers. Etc.

Later I sift through sound clips from Ladakh , sitting in one of the walled in pie formed walk yards that now is part of the youth hostel cafe.There is surreal shift between two different perspectives in the reshaped environment of the prison : prison culture puns ("captivating accomodation" "cellphones ") , and Beagle Boys outfits sold to the visitors , mixed with a museum of social history. This is also the end point of Swedens history of capital punishment in 1910. I guess that´s also exotic in a way. Interestingly enough it meant Sweden in actual practice preceded Tibet, but not in law : the death penalty was not banned in the Swedish constitution until 1921 , whereas the second major decision of the 13th Dalai Lama was the abolishment of the death penalty in 1913, and later a clause against cruel and unjust punishments. *

I´ve had a few of these alienated moments lately , seeing my life as it would be presented in a guide book . I guess one of the starting points was when I saw a recent edition of Lonely Planet Scandinavia , with a cover shot of the Northern Lights over the mountain hut in Låktatjåkkå : home ground turned in to post cards.

Came out of work Sunday , walked by Gammlia museum grounds , went to buy fresh bread : white cotton dresses swooshing over the wooden floor boards , naked feet with nail polish , the unleavened breads dancing in and out of the stone oven , paralell conversations over cellphones and IRL : picking up kids , teenager boys first girlfriend.... I guess this is our competing shot with the Non-German Bakeries.

Down the Kunzum La

2009-07-14T22:02:00.000+05:30

.. in nice company.

Dais

2009-07-11T19:25:00.000+05:30

The view from behind Dalai Lama´s throne at the new Sakya monastery in Kaza.

Waiting for Kundun

2009-07-10T16:24:00.003+05:30

Waiting for Dalai Lama to arrive for the teachings at the new Sera monastery in Kaza , July 10th.

always ask..

2009-07-06T21:34:00.005+05:30

Beginnings are worst times. Which of the eleven trails , all heading in about the right direction, is the right one ? Or just run it staright from the map ..
Asking gives me everything I need to know from an old lady plus an offer of second breakfast.

Going up I have moments of doubts : why leave the green valley for another rock strewn pass. Lokking down at my feet i just see rubble. Lifting my head I se the shocking transformations from greay to purple to pink. Big rhubarby leaves hanging from sheer sides , with growths I suddenly realize are to become the white , round leaves that comes out so beautiful onthe Himachali hats. The smell of not quite mint , not quite juniper I associate with Spiti. Big bees with jet black wings, thumb thick bodies and narrow bands of yellow.

Around 3900, after it has started to get really steep , I gett buffed by high winds which I take as a good sign : surely the pas must be really near. It comes out as not 3950 as on my map , but 3986 according to the GPS. At the time it felt important.

Nice lhatse with prayer flags ... that looks off in some way. Coming closer I see flags with triangular form, no images and names .. european names. After a short moment of disbelief the knife comes out .

Later i bring it up in Rizong monastery and gets a friendly tap on the shoulder " Don't worry , this is not a problem. " This is of course right in the religious perspective : nothing becomes undone by covering the lhatse , but does remain a problem for the communities involved , both travellers and Ladakhis.

City Walk

2009-06-30T21:16:00.001+05:30

Tanglang La

2009-06-27T20:33:00.000+05:30

June 27th , 2009

Boyle´s Law

2009-06-22T15:49:00.000+05:30

Chips bags are the unofficial altimeters in the Indian Himalayas, this time seen above Marhi (3300-ish ) , headung towards the Rothang La.

(Boyles´s law is the rule governing exploding shampoo bottles in Nepal , drinking champagne in deep mines and the care of patients with pneumothorax in airplanes : "For a fixed amount of an ideal gas kept at a fixed temperature, P [pressure] and V [volume] are inversely proportional (while one increases, the other decreases)" )

.

Food package

2009-06-22T12:54:00.006+05:30

I was walking down de road (actually , the narrow maze of alleys in Manju ka Tilla that put definite limits to your BMI and karma , or both ) the other day when I was blessed. It came in the form of a white polyethene bag being closed with a snapping move, handed over by one of the the guys in shorts and flipflops near the temple square.

" Here , you take this."
" ?..."
"It is a blessing."

I peer in to the mixed blessing , balloonish from the trapped air . The only thing I can make out is a two centiliter pack of Frooti Juice. No one else is being blessed at the moment , no clues in that way of how you actually handle white poly bag blessings.

Thanks is not the answer , shorts man clearly doesn't want the act polluted by gratitude : "You take it " is the only answer to my question. Move along.

Later , waiting for the bus to Manali, I break it open . First thing is a real blessing , a perfectly ripe sunwarm mango . One cut pole to pole with the knife , and a gentle tug makes a perfect bowl where the slices gently fall : that goes to the nun next to me. Less perfect deal with the kernel half : I've always been the messy one.

(Mundane matters : twentyfive minutes from the wheels hitting the ground at IGI airport in Delhi to loading my pack in the cab , ninety minutes to hitting the bed in Manju - including bucket shower. New glasses , a wool unchu for the cooler nights that probably won't come , bus out the next evening to Manali , some twelve hours. Sleeping in Vashisht, 2098 meters. )

Popology

2009-02-05T16:22:00.006+05:30

Stay with me now : this is the Tibetan rap band Namchak , playing together with vocal trio Ache Tsendep. The later have a thing for elaborate hats , both traditional and white cowboy model.

The lyrics .. seems to contain some longing references to Lithang , which would point to Tsanyang Gyatso , the Sixth. ( Edit : "white crane , borrow me your wings " - The Sixth talking of coming death , and home sickness )

On top of that there is a distinct Hindi accent breaking through in the body language , the famous head wobble going trans-himalayan.

The later may seem the fruit of my imagination , but Hindi and Nepali has been a part of the Lhasa street scene for a looong time. Bollywood films are a staple item in stalls around the Jokhang.

New and old friends

2008-10-13T00:18:00.003+05:30

Sendoff

2008-09-09T20:27:00.000+05:30

Last prayers today in Majnu ka Tilla for Dalai Lama´s elder brother , Thubten Jigme Norbu, who died in USA. Buttertea afterwards, always buttertea.

Norbu (also known as Taktser Rinpoche after their birth place ) wrote for many Westerners the first introduction to Tibetan self image , Tibet , it´s religion , history and people , together with anthropologist Colin Turnbull.

Soundclip

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Over the Rothang

2008-09-06T21:49:00.001+05:30

Some decent snowballing at the top. Beautiful weather. Two weeks later : a lot less idyllic.

Kibber

2008-09-03T15:31:00.002+05:30

Morning in Kibber. A mule train is being formed in front of the guest house , and the kids are singing a song of parting , and love : "If I had the money (i.e. the dowry) I would bring you with me.

The guesthouse has a coded ad saying chang served here : the low doorpost is padded with a piece of triple folded ground cover , nailed in place. Chang comes in to play in the evening , and more love songs : Kesang teaches us a drinking song where you present your dear one to the world.

Queue culture

2008-08-30T11:00:00.007+05:30

After giving up trying to buy a bus ticket in advance I turn to watching the pack of another traveller. This gives me an outside view of my past experiences.
Ticket windows strategies include the time honored Indian classic : push hard until you can grasp the bars of the window ... and pull.
The ederly woman from Kaza is wise beyond years , and refuses to go into any conflicts and aggrovation as long as the response behind the window is basically go away , I'm not selling any tickets (until it's clear that the bus has made it to Kaza). She turns her back on the window , plants her feet wide apart .. and slids down to sit while others make grand gestures. Once in a while I catch a glimpse of her ,and she gives off a wonderful pealing laughter. Nirit stands a short distance behind her , feet also solidly planted on the ground , pushing as relentlessly back as the guys behind her, and not only maintaining her position but (this is the point where I really get impressed ) also holding out for a good seat after a good fortyfive minutes of push and shove.
Later I take a jeep to Kee monastery. The drivers cell phone calls out for attention every few minutes , with a sad , melancholy tune that could have been a Swedish folk song as well. Some hours later I stand on the monastery roof , the only sound being a faint inkling sound from the dishes being washed in the kitchen , a truck boring through the darkness with a load of girders , and the slow flapping from the prayer flag pole.

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Scary tourists

2008-08-28T21:59:00.000+05:30

Goser scarecrows in Lalung, August 28th.

Only three

2008-08-24T00:40:00.003+05:30

Angmo and I turn towards each other at the same time :
"Excuse me , I took a photo without asking ..."
"I have only three apricots.."

The apricots are sweet and plum.

The only thing that is more fun than taking photographs is to turn over your camera to someone else.

Clean and polite ..

2008-08-22T22:06:00.000+05:30

Wash day

2008-08-21T23:38:00.003+05:30

The hill side of Ki Monastery , seen from above, is dotted with red stylised figures on the ground : wash day , the clothes are laid out on the ground and on top of the bushes to dry.The whole thing gives associations to an art installation , or a crime scene.

History happens to us

2008-08-14T10:43:00.005+05:30

Long but fun day in Shimla. Started with lightening my load by sending home a book parcel, nicest package in a long time , ended with a very short discussion on the price : " you decide, sir " .

Next stop ; Inner Line Permit.New office , clickety sound sound of printers, fans .. and a angrezi blowing of his head ( and any remaining respect ) : "I just want my ***** permit !. I have been wating for hours !"

The process totters on , delayed another half hour by a country too big : one of the students in a Spiti conservation project comes from the Republic of Macedonia , which is too long to enter on the computerised form.

In the end we are ushered in to a court like room , where the the Assistant District Manager presides behind a impressive pile of folders, and calls us up one by one, inquiring of our origins.

" Austria .. so you speak German in Austria too ? "

" Anna *** ... Macedonia. So you were a part Marshall Titos land. How many countries now , out of former Yugoslavia ? "

Anna counts them off m, one by one.

" Sad. If this would happen to India , that would mean thirty three countries - can you imagine that ? Impossible. "

" Well .. history happens to us. It was sad, but we move on . "

Interestingly enough , the example of Yougoslavia and the Soviet Republics was mentioned in the book I finished yesterday : Baba Phuntsog Wangyal , witness to Tibets history.

Wangyal is an interesting figure, a Tibetan communist that started in in ( literally) Chiang Kai-Sheks school and was thrown out after being inspired to Tibetan independence after reading ... Lenin.Later he became the translator between the Chines and the Tibetans at the forging of the the infamous Seventeen Point agreement. Political spine reflex translates this as collaborator , but he remained highly valued through his rocky carreer , from the sole Tibetan in the TAR goverbnment to eighteen years of imprisonment and torture. following shortly after Dalai Lama's escape to India. The foremost Western academic apologetic , Melvyn Goldstein, has recently published a bibliography on him , that seems to project a solid image of someone who from the start was committed to making Tibet a part of China - but his own words from the time seems to contradict this, pointing to the work of establishing a separate Tibetan nation , encompassing all of Tibet , not just the present TAR.

And his present stand seems to be the only politically survivable in present China : best for the Tibetans "under the present historical conditions " .. mentioning Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the next breath.

Chinese claims on Tibet have been dressed in terms of family ever since Mao welcomed Tibet "back" to the Motherland. Chauvinism comes out more clearly when Chinese cadres in Tibet are dubbed lao dai ge : bigger, elder brother. If this would be a marriage it was scripted by Lars Noren , and the point that the loyalist Wangyal makes is that only willing marriages survives .. , i.e. there has to a right to divorce.

After the ILP I went to Park Cafe to see Dhannajay : still in Delhi, but I got to know Dixit and Rakshim , big plus. Long nice chai , afterwards Dixit led me to a long search for a new burner for my stove. Lakka bazar afterwards for a new staff, and sharing the one tree available when the rains really got going.

(Soundclip , username and password in the dialog box

Photos to be posted later.

Manali

2008-08-12T12:16:00.000+05:30

Tsa tsa's drying in the Nyingmapa Gompa , Manali. Room next to the gompa , Rs 200. Momos Rs 30 next door.

Tingmo At Last

2008-08-09T11:52:00.005+05:30

Arrived in Majnu yesterday after midnight , and got out after a few hours sleep. Eerie , vacant feeling , nothing open : Olympic shutdown. New posters with detained/vanished in the March uprising.

I end up finishing Jiang Rongs Wolf Totem , a book that starts with his arrival as a Chinese cadre in Mongolia, presumably with a role to "enlighten" the people in the Chinese extreme periphery, and ends with the arrival of a huge sandstorm in Beijing , the inevitable consequence of the destruction/modernisation of the grasslands. Between that a long fascinating story of his tutors , the Mongolians who in turn are taught by the rulers of that realm : the wolves , who Jiang sees as the personification of what is missing in the Chinese society. This is a seeming parallell to Xin Rans Sky Burial : both books are descriptions of a Chinese traveling to the periphery in the sixties and being transformed by it. But Wolf Totem stands out in sharp contrast : this is a tale where you can feel the smell of wet wool and and hear the ice breaking under your raft. Sky Burial on the other hand is consitently lacking in that kind of detail and also in any real willingness to be changed : it is symptomatic that the the twin author/main character finds the names of the family she's living with too complicated , and renames them .

Train to Shimla tommorrow.

Mush

2008-05-13T00:03:00.004+05:30

Spring is advancing on the high ranges , slowly turning the top layers of snow into mush, meanwhile the big mass remains unmoved, a thin line being nibbled thru the snow by the machinery of the BRO : Srinagar to Leh , Leh to Manali.

One of the last to walk in to Lahaul on the road was Vishnu Maya , who ( I imagine) became involved in one of the oldest cnversations on the planet :

"not now "
"now dear , this is not something I can decide on..."
Yes , their daughter was born at the top of the Rothang La ("The Plain of Corpses") ,altitude 3978 meters, with the help ,sympathy and blankies of the others present on the trail.

Maybe this is the time for us all to turn in to mush.

(More on the Manali-Leh road status on High Road to.. )

Homeward bound

2007-10-23T22:11:00.001+05:30

----------------
Now playing: Ali Farka Touré - Instrumental
via FoxyTunes

Book post

2007-10-22T15:51:00.000+05:30

Last days rituals : slimming down my pack after a prelim weigh in at the train station before the flight, which involves sending books, maps etc. home by post. The most time consuming part of this is the making of a approved book post package : a sewn parcel with a inspection slit.

This years version was so-so , I'm thinking of bringing the makings of the parcel with me next time .

One last lap

2007-10-20T22:53:00.001+05:30

Morning in Boudnath , the semi-legal taxi should be waiting..no , not leaving without a last kora round the stupa.
Fall in to the rustling river of people , crowded at just after six in the morning.
On the second lap I come to a dead stop : everybody has stopped and turned their backs to chorten.
A dove hangs up there , trapped on a piece of wire from a kite that has tangled in the phone lines. An old Tibetan woman smacks her lips loudly ; not a sign of disapproval but of concern. Two monks start to throw a bundled upper robe to dislodge the dove , with great public support ...oooh! aaah ! .... and roaring laugh as a final high throw almost succeds ... and lands the robe on a high window ledge.
Finally the dove is freed , and lands in outstretched hands , but not in good form. Sadness and concern in a great circle of down turned faces.

Supplication

2007-10-15T19:09:00.000+05:30

Leaning out , backwards , and looking up in to the sky as in supplication the boy says something I can't make out from where I'm sitting. Response arrives from above , a wad of rupees in to his hand. New passengers.
We have just hit tarmac after some hours of .. not in class with Ladakh , but still tiring road work, and are starting to pick up speed. Roofs on all the other buses as well are crammed with people and goats : the Dasain festival is getting in to full swing.

Myself I'm looking forward to a bucket shower (last night in the trailhead latrine without light hardly counts), a new pair of pants and a wall plug for my camera : my one unstolen battery gave up i the Gosaikhund pass , and the days after that were practically all spent walking in plugless country , in rain and fog - little help from my solar charger.

Will up and backdate more tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just live here , in the moment.

Gosainkund

2007-10-10T14:28:00.000+05:30

Relatively easy walk up to Gosainkund after the acclimatisation night in Laurebina. Steep outside the trail with alpine flowers reminding me of home.

Somwhat relieved to find that Ben and the others did'nt suffer anything worse than a bad night : worst case scenarios for forced ascents to these altitudes are are daunting even with good medical backup , and unthinkable without. Gosainkund has in fact been the focus for a medical article I read before leaving , and up in the lodge I find the consent form for another study : " you have been selected for this study because you have been diagnosed with HAPE/HACE." Informed consent from persons suffering from a disease that by definition diminishes their mental capacity.. that must have been an interesting discussion in the ethical commitee.

Commotion

2007-10-05T18:21:00.001+05:30

As I start to walk out of the monastery guesthouse , I become convinced that the Nepali realitity (elections just postponed , Maoists destroying printing presses of the Kathmandu Post , and bandhs ) have washed in on the monastery grounds.
Loud voices , shouts .. and then i recongnise the handclaps , "the thunderbolt" - debate hour for the monks.

Just finished my extensive preparations before setting out for Langtang with Ben , a photographer I met first time in Manju ka Tilla. Iodine , sunblock and lit an oil lamp.

On seclusion , and photography

2007-10-01T16:56:00.001+05:30

I sit again , after the morning kora , in the New Orleans Cafe. The Boudha stupa shows just how heavy the rains have been , the whitewash being rinsed away from all nearly flat surfaces. The morning paper carries a story of of three villagers being killed in a flash flood near the border, an irregular event in early October. I'm still on a eating binge , after the ATM run (mostly on tsampa , tea & dried fruits) and generally being dhaba'd out. The New Orleans serves perfectly mellow potatoes , salads (something I normally don' touch on the subcontinent) and apple pies .. at a price. The kora revolves just outside the open doorway : monks , teens in jeans .. with iPods and malas, a prostrator with ironsoled flipflops as hand protection, and tourists of course. The doorway nags at the edge of my consciousness : I like sitting at the one table there , with my notebook and camera , but when I walk by it later I get to see it from the outside : the doorway becomes the frame for a shooting gallery for camera wielders.

Photography ... can't avoid the subject any longer. Source of many of my best experiences ... and equally the worst. It's easy to distance oneself from the
picture , and in some ways the the telling true tales of horror are related to the "real traveler " myth : content is to varying extent real , but the function is to boost the self image.

On the other hand , there are real issues. Two years ago in Ladakh , I went in to center court of a Ladakhi monastery - during services - to bring back (controlled words but face flaring like a Mahakala ) a tourist who used the altar as a support for his video camera.
Today the word hunting pack pops up in my mind as I see some groups shining up as groups of monks or Tibetan women comes in to range. A few makes the tactical choice of walking crosscurrent to the stream of kora walkers - something which requires some conscious effort , cuts you out of any blending or participatory experience ... but gives you the face shot.
The language in photography is propietary , exclusive : you take the shot , you shoot film (or chips) ... and then on the other hand digital photography has wrought a major change. When I first arrived here with a camera it was seen one of the obscure things that angrezis devoted themselves to . Today I meet people who take their right to their self image as granted : take a photo ... sure ... now show me . The way it should be, and often a source for joy . The Tibetan pilgrims from Nakchu and I had a lot more in common than one would think of first : places we both had been to , places we wanted to go to .. all unraveling as we went through a full 512 mb memory card.
And ,reactions to the blaring insensitivities aside, one must keep things in perspective : most people try to be nice . Seeing the odd crosscurrent walkers brings home one of two points : either their actions , or how few they actually are.
Responsibility is after all individual ... and includes the option of just standing in the way of the telephoto lens at the right moment.

Yesterday I had an other sudden flash of outside view of ourselves in the small garden of the New Orleans , eating organic vegetables and imported Italian pasta as the construction workers hang on bamboo poles above us , legs curled around the bamboo , tying together the scaffolding. We sat , not with elongated earlobes from the jewellery , but with sloping shoulders from our digital SLR:s , as in a modern day Kapilavastu court. GoreTex , the silk of today. To complete the irony one of the most common books found on the coffe tables is Siddharta - a book about a man who actually left his sheltered life and confronted himself with the realities of of living outside the court.

IndiaMike carried the same day a story on how a quarter of a billion of Indias citizens live on 14 rupees a day - which is a lot less than what we pay for the Darjeeling tea in the New Orleans.

Uniformed elephants

2007-09-28T20:51:00.000+05:30

...never get used to meeting them in the night.

border

2007-09-28T19:04:00.001+05:30

Crossing the Sonauli border in rain - the makings of a new tradition, after a chilly night on the night train to Gorakhpur, passengers bundling up like headed for the burning ghats. Then a jeep to Sonauli , quick switch to a Kathmandu bus with leaking roof and blaring Nepali duets all night.

ATM run , interrupted

2007-09-26T13:07:00.003+05:30

Step 1 : Jump off the bus at Kunzum La.

Proceed up to the prayerflags at the crest , at N 32.40939 / E 077.62674 (altitude 4662)

Drop down to Chandra Tal , at 4296 meters , after 15 klicks.

If you get rain and sleet in front of the ATM two days higher up the valley, choose another machine and walk back .

Losar

2007-09-19T19:07:00.000+05:30

Morning.The Rs 100 room has a faint reek of urine from the attached toilet, and the window has no latch and is held shut by a cinderblock.

... and I read of Alain de Botton fighting over a piece of dessert in Barbados with his girlfriend.
Travel , Botton tells us is both created by and undone by anticipation. We rush in to the plane , as in to a new relationship , with images of perfgect beaches .. and mar this by bringing in our own imperfections in to the picture.
We fight over a piece of creme brule' as the sun sets over Far Tortuga.

Many would say that this is a gloomy outlook , condemning us to lives of quiet despair in Teg & Clapham ,but Botton surprisingly brings in two prophets of gloom to refute this : Baudelaire and Edward Hopper. Both had the same yearning for the starting points : Baudelaire could wax on indefinitely about over modern boats and railways , and Hopper found many of his motives im waiting rooms, roadside diners and the like.

Anticipation may be wildly unrealistic in travel , as in romance, but in difference to the rest of the the dream industry it leads us to new places.
Thanks Joe in the next room , for lending me the book, thanks to the sister who gave it to him , and goodbye T. who came and went again in in the matter of a day.

As yoy may have guessed , Losar ( a three dhaba town with a police checkpost , altitude 4108 meters) is no obvious contender to Barbados. The small temple ( rather unceremoniously shut with shop-style steel shutters ) holds the reamins of Serkhong Rinpoche in a silver stupa , there are some rare photographs of Dalia Lamas tutors, and som good torma. There are nice walks. The dahbas makes the tired old Eastern Europe joke mandatory : never mind the menu , just tell me what you've got.
Imagine our surprise when we ( Joe , Neil & I ) as the only passengers remained in town after the bus left was told that no , no roooms .. you must reserve ahead.After getting rooms in the cinderblock palace ( to the considerable surprise of the other patron ) we had supper and turned in for the night.
Later : singing ! music ! (overdressed) women !
Next morning , we ask about the party ( feeling , of course , a bit miffed about being left out ) .
"No party "
"But the music , singing ... "
"Oh that .. that's the film team. "

Looking for the Lama

2007-09-17T12:48:00.002+05:30

Bookswap : I come out of Ki Gompa with the monasterys history (bilingual ) and leave a book by Gedun Chopel : Guide to the Sacred Places in India , a pilgrims handbook .. with train maps.

In the mid-70's a Swedish progrock band released a song which no one remembers for it's title, but with a refrain that still brings a whole generation to a standstill, in a variety of reactions .
All together now , in different shades of sentimentality , sobriety and defiance : " Who can you reeeally trust ? "

The title was looking for the Dalai Lama , and few if any reacted - in a time where anti-colonialism was a catchword - to the practice of taking a living Tibetan person and turning him in to a metaphorical tool for internal Western conflicts.

Tibet was at a safe distance , eight years before the supression of the Lhasa revolt and fourteen years before Dalai lama received the Nobel Peace Price. It was partly put there by the agenda of the Swedish left , who averted their eyes to anything but the Indochina war - and kept it averted after the defeat of the US.

The song was about looking for truths , and not leaders - a message that not only had bearing on the generation toting pictures of chairmens and party leaders , but remains valid in a present context , where many look for not the method of Buddhism but the prepared answers. Buddha in a box , retail price.

A long time after the melee of the 70's ( yes, sex was more fun before AIDS) reality will intrude on similar attempts at using the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile there is the real ongoing search for lamas : Tibetans looking for Gedun Choeki Nyima , the Panchen Lama abducted by the Chines government eleven years ago : a dress rehearsal for the grand event to come : the passing of the present Dali Lama. So far the the Panchen Lama rehearsal has not run smoothly . Two years ago I was in Shigatse and could see the Tibetans systematicaly ignoring the Chinese apppointed Panchen (Zuma Panchen , fake Panchen in Tibetan) : lots of pictures of the 9th and 10th , with fresh flowers fruits etc. - and two pictures of Zuma Panchen - with a naked shelf below.It is no coincidence that there has been no serious attempts to establish him in Tashilunpo monastery .
The 10th is obviously hugely popular , in spite of his long time in the People's Congress in Beijing . What Tibetans remember him for is coming back and saying that nothing of what had been gained was worth all the sufferings of the Tibetan people , and the famous letter before that. There is another level though , which links Spiti intimately in to this process : before the great speech and the letter , Panchen Lama made a religious ruling that effectively limited Chinese power. The ruling was that the next re-incarnation of Rinchen Zangpo , one of the most important figures in Tibetan religious history , would be found in the " Western Lands " , i.e. outside Chinese control. This is where he is found now , in the monastery of Ki. The Ki monastery monks have by tradition studied in Tashilunpo (shigatse) monastery , and this link was re-affirmed when the Rinchen Zangpo become head of the commitee to identify the present Panchen Lama. This game will continue : recently the Communist Party declared that all reincarnations are now subject to official state approval , and invalid before that point. Meanwhile the Ki monks will continue to go to Tashilunpo monastery - but now in south India . All major Tibetan monasteries now exist in two mirror versions , one in exile , one under Chinese control. Welcome to the twilight zone of Chinese religious politics..

Now we\re cooking

2007-09-16T11:06:00.000+05:30

The stove is in full swing now , amy-lais prayer wheel has also picked up speed ,Suchung and his wife are doing complex exercises with atta flour and another old woman has entered to run a load of butter tea through the butter churner : shlorp-shlorp-shlorp.
The TV sputters in to life now and then , ;pouring out bollywoodism, commercials and thrilling cricket results.
Meawhile I"ve landed in the bachelors corner , with a good buzz going from the arrak.

Somebody says something about the inji : I'm just past it , and join in the laughter with out understanding anything.

The 3D exercises with the atta flour turns out to be tingmo : not the big Princess-Leia-hairdo on steroids I'm used to from Manju ka tilla , but delicate , convoluted shapes - think Escher in bakery.

Dhankar

2007-09-15T17:35:00.000+05:30

Wake up to the sound of ... rain. Crazy.

Got out of the bus two klicks out of Sichiling, and had one of those what-am-I-doing-here moments as I stood alone and watched it going away. Next moment a jeep stops, and Sonam from Tabo pops out his head. As they prepare to go away , another jeep stops to talk with the other .. which turns out to be Kesang from Kaza. More two-hand handshakes.

Dhankar perched high on the ridge , some six hundred meters above : I set out feeling a bit queasy. Halfway up I meet Yechung Dolkar , who assumes responsiblity for my ariiving in a civilised hour.Despite my feeble attempts to say that no , you , don\t have to wait for me. Relentlessly she pushes me up the mountain , by just standing there and looking at me until I get moving again.

We part as we we come in to Dhankar Village , and a flight of swallows dive out of the trailside grove. I dive in to the first house with a welcome sign, and get a guestroom, and sit in the kitchen as the evening meal is prepared. I wind up with a toddler on my lap, as the men go slowly about making dinner. By the time the rest of the household appears, the dinner is finished.

Denial becomes impossible at this point and I start waltzing between the kitchen and the toilet.
Evening ends with a double dose of Cipro , and drinking hot honey wter brought up by Suchung-le. Nice chat over a fifteen minute candle stump.

next day , still a bit wobbly in the knees. Go up to Dhankar Gompa. The entrance hall to the dhukhang holds some interesting images of monasteries , and between them elaborate images of .... shoes , with comments. The two lay monks , teenagers in jeans and baseball caps , are unfortunately not in the same league as Sonam in Tabo : the monansteries are " in Tibet" , and all paintings are eight hundred years old.

Manning & Tabo

2007-09-11T19:20:00.001+05:30

Today's big project is to clean up my table. Or : the most important things are beyond words. So , in the spirit of Thomas manning : my table. Thanks to the solar panel on the roof there is a working writing light (see upper left corner). The folded Silva 12 V solar panel supplied nicely for my camera during the three day power out. The trombe (passive solar heating wall) of the monastery serai , where I stayed is incidentally the largest I've ever seen.

(Tabo Choskor , religious enclave, is the oldest working Buddhist monastery in original form in India, founded in 996. Also one of only three surviving examples of the Kashmiri Buddhist painters , that re-introduced Buddhism in to India with the Second Spreading together with the Great Translator - Lotsawa.

Thomas Manning succeeded where countless other westerners had failed in reaching Lhasa, and was unable to say anything about the the Potalas logic defying perspective or the countless art treasures .He went looking for a hat.)

Back to Kaza

2007-09-06T18:23:00.000+05:30

In to Spiti

2007-09-05T16:57:00.000+05:30

The bus rocks, swings and creaks like a ship in .... interesting weather .Some hours has gone by since leaving Kalpa luxuriously in afront seat of a Manali jeep. A ride that also came with good company and conversation from France.

The first glimpse of Spiti is a weather worn chorten , protected not only by by a crudely hammered multi colored tin roof from the BRO but also for some reason encircled by barbed wire.
Signs of life seems even sparser than when crossing in to Ladakh. Even the happy-go-lucky semi military sign painting squad from the BRO seems a bit taken by the environment : none of the usual streams of motherly advice , jokes and puns ("Darling , I want you , but not so fast" ) that I've come to take for granted from Ladakh. Just one single , sombre , litterary allusion : " Live and let live " , painted on a sharply descending rock curve.

A Buddhist cave adorned with prayer flags on the other side of the Sutlej river , with seeming impossible access, shoots by. Some khyang at a flat , narrow strip along the riverbed.
This time I've given up all attempts of poping out of the window and and holding on to my camera , let alone operating it. I,m hemmed in between two Kinnauri ladies one who switches to my window seat to dry retch out of the window.
On the other side sits a gelong and three nuns from Hango monastery. The nuns fret , in a nice way , with their one piece of finery : Himalchali hats with with dried white petals that catches the light like blades of fiber optics.

Afte the checkpost at Jangi ( where I technically becmes an illegal : " shall not resort to any photography, carry any maps not approved by the Defence Ministry. or or immaginaries.. " ) there is suddenly no one standing , and only two people in the two seats rows. A depp breathing spree ensues , which is dampened by the arrivall of new passengers and sacks at .

The road dips and bends ( " Horn Please " has been replaced by " It is an offence not to sound the horn at .. ") ; skirts precipices and shoots i to rock galleries in the usual way.

The canyons are different though : giant patterns of contrasting stone materials suddenly frozen , on smooth sides .Gargantuan coffeee and cream , and later licorice , Jackson Pollockses.

In a magic moment the bus descends steeply in to a sumdo :one canyon to the right , with a near perfect sugar cone reaching up to the golden evening light and the road cutting in to a rock gallery after crossing a Bailey bridge thick with prayer flags.

Didn't get the shot , but got apples instead , and a sense of sharing , from ne of the sacks on the floor instead.

Blam !

2007-09-04T09:50:00.000+05:30

Nothing beats the wake up call of a large monkey making a four point landindg on the tin roof outside your window.
Shimla . Again.

Since I\ve had problems diting & uploading photos ( no smoking on the buses is great , the stapling ban on on bank notes is a relief , but cyber wallahs going all legal seem like sense of order running amok ) : the sound track of my life here , so far .

Manju was the babel of languages , competing with the fans .. well , you've already had that part.

Sarahan, next stop after Shimla. At 4:30 in the morning a Kali worshipper fires up a sound system that would have been the object of envy of the cavallery officer in Apocalalypse Now . ( Yes , that one : " I love the smell of napalm in the morning " )
This is one of the reasons why animals hide under the ground , to no avail. The pylon that that carries the the loudspeakers that hammers the entire valley in to submission seemingly looms even higher after the fall of the "new" tower , and as I clamp my teeth on the pillow to stop ther resonance vibrations to Kali's greatest hits I start to wonder if it really was a a earthquake that brought it down.

Kalka was the the fluttter of the prayer flags otside my room , and again the loud voices arguing from the kitchen of the Shivalik: from now on I'll asuume that what sounds as the preamble to a knife fight in Bengali is merely a difference of opinion .

The sound scape right now in Nako , beyond the Inner Line , could pass for a long intro to some minimalist music. Soft hissing sound from the kerosene lamp during the power break , the door to the dining room creaking and swinging open to the strong winds outside.
During the day , in the the village , the Kinnauri women dominate the audio input , swinging from melodious chirping to to sudden laughs and sharp calls.
Speaking of women brings me to the unexpected sound of ckicking steps that awoke me today. They came up to my door , which then was nudged repeatedley.
Never ruled out the presence of high heeled women in my life , but I was mildly surprised that one would turn up at this point.
I then went went out of my room ( quick check in the mirror) , said hello and gently led the young calf out along the balcony , along the corridor an in to the street.

In Kaza

2007-09-03T18:34:00.001+05:30

If you lower it someone will come .Ground cover : just establish eye contact and throw it to someone.

Oh God ...

2007-08-31T18:42:00.000+05:30

..save me.

Spiti bound

2007-08-29T09:46:00.000+05:30

Leaving Shimla from the Rivoli bus stand , August 29th.

Rivoli bus stand , Shimla

2007-08-29T09:45:00.000+05:30

Escape from Manju ka Tilla

2007-08-28T10:02:00.000+05:30

Once again I sit down in the square in the front of the the two small temples , thinking this is .. well , not great , but it works. Then I put my hands on my knees , and afterwards the pants are not wet , but soaked. Time to get out of the monsoon.

On the night train to Kalka (camera bag under my head, backpack under my knees ) I pick up Kim Robinson's Escape from Kathmandu , a minor guesthouse libarary classic.

A standard theme in boks from Nepal and Tibet is time travel : moving in to another age on a commercial flight. The time travel picks up another dimension when the now in the book also represents another age.

It starts with a ... letter. Gather around my feet little ones , and I'll tell you of a fara away time when we sent pieces of paper to each other. I was there , and I also was in Nepal just before the book was written : a time of innocence when you could point the finger and laugh at the theatrical aspects of the royal power , before the long dirty war between the government and the Maoists.Timewarp has moved Nepal ahead of my home in some respects : there is a lot more software produced in Kathmandu than in Stockholm , and Nepal today has stripped the king of ceremonial powers beyond our constitution : our king can't be brought to court.

At the same time the life along the trail has not changed much since early eighties, and many of Robinson's one-liners survive well , like the one about flying with (formerly Roayal Nepal) Airlines : In Nepal , clouds have rocks in them. It is written at the breaking point of our innocence , at the time when you start to to wonder of the life banana pancake baker , and step in to the kitchen.

This sounds really serious , which is far from the truth . It's a grea romp ,with a supporting cast to match : Jimmy Carter (former american president) , Tsongkhapa ( founder of Gelugpa school of Buddhism ) , pot-smoking Secret Service-men , Ang Rita ( twelwe time successfull climber of Mount Everest) . And of course a Yeti named Buddha ..

--
Nice walk with Sally from Oz in the morning , playing guide , and a nice dinner in the White House with Jamyang , Tsering and little Tenzing , who treated me with a first review of the new Milarepa film. Will pick up a copy in Manju before leaving , hopefully also Angry Monk , the film about Gedun Chopel.

Re-united ...

2007-08-26T12:34:00.000+05:30

at last with my backpack , that never left Helsinki.

37 degrees and - obviously - humid on landing , but feels less. Quick shower and drying under the ceiling fan.

Lots of food (shabalay , momos, phing) and lots of languages in the dining room of Wongdhen House : English , Tibetan , Nepali and French to start with.

Thenthuk in the small square outside the temples , this year with awnings. Communal dining area , prayer chantings and kids just running and screaming. No photos taken , people made me feel invited and after that it stayed down . The kids took some photograhs though.

Todays Tibetan word : Tinda ! Look !

Linux and sutras

2007-08-07T23:07:00.001+05:30

Everybody loves seeing monks with computers.In a small net cafe in Manju ka Tilla , the Tibetan enclave in Delhi , I regularly met three young guys with shaved heads : two young monks and cyber wallah in charge of the place , with a multi colored mohawk hairdo . The place was cramped , the keyboards more or less worn out ... and hanging down at angle was a large portrait of Dalai Lama , framed with multi colored blinking LED´s.
The titillation of seeing Buddhists monks in this role lies in an assumed transgression : men or women of the cloth should remain isolated from the world of technology.

In The Argumentative Indian Amartya Sen raises an interesting contrasting view to this , high lighting the early Buddhists role as technological ground breakers. Book printing is obviously one of the greatest leaps forward in transmitting knowledge and ideas , and Indian and Chinese Buddhists had a key role in disseminating this technique : in fact the first dated printed book is the Diamond Sutra from Dunhuang. It was the Internet of it´s time : slow but hip , and in no way restricted to religious themes - the Himalayas were crossed in both directions carrying the latest landbreaks in astronomy , medicine and technology.

And in keeping with the Internet analogy , the Diamond Sutra echoed eerily of Linux terminology : "free and for universal distribution" as it says in the prologue .
Buddhists we´re involved the earliest book printing ventures in India , Japan , China and Korea. One could choose to see this as a co-incidental interest in material technology - or as an expression of the underlying social technique : printing became an extension of the public debate that from the beginning was a central feature in Buddhism .

As Sen point out , when Ashoka arranged the first known public debates between different religions (at the same time time as the Catholic church had Giordano Bruno burned at the stake ) , they had a couple of centuries of the great Buddhist councils to lean on.

Sen points out this tradition as a quintessential Indian quality , that explains some of the unique qualities of Indian democracy : the only Asian country I can think of where the Army has remained consistently uninterested in wresting the power from the elected governments . This tradition predates Buddhism , like the one line from the Mahabharata that has gained foothold in many Western minds : I am become death , the destroyer of worlds..

When Robert Oppenheimer (a truly cultured man , who had read the Mahabharata in the original Sanskrit) used these words to describe his anguish in seeing the end result of his work , the detonation of the Hiroshima bomb , he fixed one side of the epic debate between warrior Arjuna , who at first refused doing the unthinkable and Krishna who in the end literally drove him out to the battle. Most in the West seems not to remember that final outcome , but Arjuna´s voice is still a living , working cry resisting the horrors of the war.

In the same way , Sen shows , the Vedas contain a multitude of voices , that gives unexpected firepower to unexpected standpoints : an complete agnostic tradition , women speaking out against male power structures, Brahmins being descibed as con artists..
Even though the Krishnas so to say won in these conflicts , they never made their opponents invisible , and we can pickup their side of the debate to day.

In comparison , much of Christian literature gives about as much depth to their societies inner conflicts as statements from the old Communist party conferences.

Photo from the Asian Classics Input Program , www.asianclassics.org here in the process of transferring woodblock prints to hard drives in the library of Diskit Monastery , NUbra
.

Windstruck

2007-07-11T22:00:00.000+05:30

.. as I return home in the early morning. Temperature has dropped 15 degrees in a single day , the trees are shaking as if they are trying to uproot themselves and walk away. A welcome relief to last week´s malarial ennui.

And a good day for planning travel. Can´t resist swiping this from Mridula´s blog :

Recharging..

2007-06-11T22:45:00.000+05:30

Manali-Leh Highway : Keylong-Sarchu

2007-04-19T19:50:00.000+05:30

Manali-Leh Highway : along Chandra River & up to Keylong

2007-04-16T00:26:00.000+05:30

Manali-Leh Highway : over the Rothang La

2007-04-16T00:03:00.000+05:30

:description to follow

New, old book

2007-02-09T23:29:00.000+05:30

Long wait , in two senses : I looked for this story a long time ago , and gave it up when all I could find was long out of print German editions. Recently I found it in English , on a UK site , ordered it ... and waited three times longer than I´m used to from my Delhi bookshop.

Peter Aufschnaiter had in my mind become a sort of vaguely glimpsed counter image of Heinrich Harrer in Tibet : a man more interested in living his life with Tibetans , than boosting his own self image. ( Dalai Lama´s tutor , my foot ..)

And living, in the intimate sense , with a Tibetan woman which becomes a interesting point as I start in to the book : nothing to be found on this in the biographical notes.

Where did get this notion ? From the film ( where Harrer visits Aufschnaiter and his wife ) , or from Seven Years in Tibet ? More importantly , why do I think I "know" things like this without tagging the source ? Is my world view determined by Hollywood representations ?
Doh , I live in the Western/Northern hemisphere , of course it is to some degree . But not being aware of it is bad news.

Digging in to it : fresh reprint from a publishing house in Bangkok, with a different , lemony smell. I had smallexpectations from this cheaper reprint ... and then I find the back card board pocket for the map of Lhasa . Aaaah... loving attention to details speaking here, and in the drawings . Photographs , with that eerie detached innocence in the onlookers before the media age. A love of nature , and a cultured perspective , with quotes from Milarepa linked to what he sees today/yesterday.

Skövde skit

2007-02-05T22:42:00.001+05:30

Synchronicity : as the restaurant car rolls in to Skövde Railway station the cast of Lagaan ( nice clip here )erupts in to the first dance number on the parched Indian earth. At exactly the same time three pale young girls , no bangles but a lot of rivets , safety needles etc. start in to a skit , in a rhytm eerily synchronized to the film.Dry snow and and a creaking ice crust under their feet.

Returning from "equatorial" Sweden and film festival. One opening sequence haunts me : Malalai Joya , a woman from western Afghanistan challenges the warlords in new, forming Parliament : " I speak for the dead and the martyrs , you have blood on your hands and should not be allowed in this assembly, you should be tried as war criminals" . She has bodyguards , lots of them.

tranda

2006-03-01T20:17:00.000+05:30

Suddenly..

2005-11-12T02:49:00.000+05:30

..everyone speaks Swedish. I go from struggling to understand what people are saying , to struggling to understand what they are doing.

Along the way :
arrriving latish in Delhi. Traffic clogged on the way to Manju ka Tilla. The taxi radio endlessly blaring "control calling". Control orders, pleads, cajoles.. seemingly to no effect. A guy called Prakash as a message waiting ; in the end I also start to get miffed at him.

In Munich , the safety inspector has started to smile even before I come up to the X-ray machine. Passing thru her mahine and hands, the basic unassorted stuff of my trip :
*heavy walking boots
*khataks - offering scarfes
*compass
*guide book and map in a Tibetan silk slip case
*incense
*harddrive
*tsa tsa-amulets

..she can´t hold back her laughter.

Sorry, no way.

2005-11-08T15:20:00.000+05:30

not exactly the response I was going for when turning over my passport at the border post in Zhangmu. The group splitted in Lhasa , the tour group visa original was supposed to be at the border... no .
After being shuffled around for an hour , there is response from the agency in Lhasa : "oh , the visa , we left it (hold on to your hats ) in the chai shop" .
The Chinese guards almost smile when we leave.

2005-11-05T14:43:00.000+05:30

tashilunpo

Vanishing act

2005-11-04T13:55:00.001+05:30

Arrival in Shigatse.I go out for lunch ,and wind upin a small zakhang on the street leadingdown from Tashilunpo monastery. The more or less standard panoramic shot of Lhasa is pointed out to me and I go yes , Kyi Chu , Tsuglhakhang (Jokhang to the westerners) and Sera .. making a quiet inner note to my self : yes that , would be Drapchi,the infamous political prison in between. We find Ganden together .
The daughter in the family sits down and takes my hand , strokes the back ofmy hand and puts her hand next to it: loook...
After a bit of struggling, using the name for the Lhasa river ,I manage to come up with a new phrase : kyipa du ,I am happy.
We watch a VCD (on the TV covered with a khatak) from Lhabrang Monastery in Amdo , with stuning scenery and even more stunning butter statues. Leaving I get ten Yuan change back for my 15 Yuan meal on a twenty.. and small gifts.
Morning kora next day: long line of locals , Khampas and Amdowas walking ,praying, stoking the sang burners, sitting queitly in more or less organised meditation.Walking with camera in my left hand , keeping the right one free for the prayer wheels. At one point one woman turns around with a wordless question as I am taking some photographs.. and turns around to enthusiasm as she gets to see the pictures.
Inside the monastery there is a lotof pictures of the 9th Panchen Lama ( the most popular on the streets is with him sitting on a horse in frontof Tashilunpo, with a white touris bus in the background) some of the 8th... and a bare minimum of the Chinese -installed 10th, always with a conspicous absence ofofferings. Soft resistance.

Off again ...

2005-11-02T11:54:00.000+05:30

the jeeps making an endless trail of dust in the early sunlight , meeting the blue smoke from the incense burners and the backlit prayer flags. A couple of klicks from Yamdrok Tso we hit the tarmac again : a surreal feeling of floating. Close to two hours following the circular lake : golden yellow marshes by the rim, an impossibly deep turqoise color and on the other side russet browns , violet .. topped by the white cone of Nechen Kang, around seven thousand meters.
Over Kamba La , the last 5000 + pass.

In Gyantse

2005-11-01T17:08:00.000+05:30

...just now , but unable to see my blog from here. Will post more when I know it actually lands somewhere...

Flowing around the mandala

2005-10-26T17:53:00.000+05:30

Back from a couple of hours at Boudanath, my refuge from the commersialised existence in Thamel , where I ... sleep.
The Boudanath stupa is gigantic and minimalistic at the same time. No markers for the different directions , the same watchful eye in all four directions. A three-dimensional mandala. And the people flowing endlessly around it in a rapid , but unhurried way.
For some reason I come to think of the Nepali ghazal " life is a river".

Today I walked the outermost circle of the stupa , which is very easy to miss, just inside the enclosing wall. Triangalur patches with potted trees and shrubs (again, the forest theme) and boards where people do chaks : full-length prostrations. Rough boards with a sheen alog the edges where the cloth "mittens" hit the board as they strech out. Talk with a Amdowa monk , sharing the few common English and Tibetan words : Nga pö yin .. Aaah , pö..

Will try to upload some pics before it's time to board the next jeep.

Piety and bullhorns

2005-10-23T09:55:00.000+05:30

In the morning the rains lift away , and Kushinagar beyond the the plastic tarps and mala stalls is reavealed . Giant Thai-style stupa just across the dharamsala where I've stayed, and the vaguely 50's sci-fi hall housing the sleeping Buddha and a reliqary stupa behind it.

Pilgrimage : the endless re-inventing of the mix between piety and tourism. A Thai group arrives , bringing coverings ( like giant bedspreads in silk) for the sleeping Buddha - a soft spoken moment.

The next moment ... I think Siddharta would have laughed at the scene of the procession being led around stupa by a monk with a bullhorn , leading the prayers the same time.

Siddharta , who told people not to worship or believe him , only trust what people have tested with their own reasoning. And the early followers in the first monasteries, who made a concise statement on the use of imagery : the only embellishment found was a lotus bullseye in the urinoar.

Later I walk out to the cremation stupa (with numerous stops for chai, ras malai etc) together with Ramesh. The antipode of the gilt , slender Thai stupa : unadorned brick, oxidised black , with a indented profile that reminds me , gives some of the feelings as patients with "open lid" after brain surgery. Small flecks of gold leaf in the black.

Carwash

2005-10-22T20:09:00.000+05:30

.. I think, I am in a carwash . Even the rain can't be heard, just the endless stream of water sloshing in the gutters.
Long days travel yesterdays , rollercoasting thru emotions : few things are more depressing than a not recently dead cow , in the middle of the road in the rain, a long straight stretch thru a beatiful forest made me lift . Is there an English equivalent for that Swedish word - loevsal - a room made from the sheltering trees ?
And rain , pouring down like the monsoon just had started. People wading the streets of Gorakhpur. Arriving in Kushinagar after an interminable bus ride of 51 klicks : the driver slowed the bus down to a virtual , sometimes real standstill for every meeting vehicle.
Off the bus in the dark , sensing/seeing vaguely an archway : Buddh Marg ? Kushinagar ? Really?
Fruit and tea stalls, battened down under plastic tarps. Mud. A lot of mud. Temple cum guesthouse : "NB. Foreigners also welcome" .
To sleep , perchance to dream of a hot bucket shower ( when the power returns).

2005-10-21T15:09:00.000+05:30

flirting with Keralan ladies - dangerous stuff.

2005-10-20T15:06:00.000+05:30

chatting with the chai-wallah on the Varanasi night train

2005-10-19T15:00:00.000+05:30

Finger-played couronne game in Maju ka Tilla - favorite evening pastime

The moon is having problems tonight..

2005-10-18T04:57:00.000+05:30

Comforts : find at last the minibus to Delhi, twelwe people (one more than in the Leh-Manali jeep) and get a set behind a Tibetan and her daughter and between a cosmopolitan lama and a another Tibetan. Talks of favourite tsampa recipes, meditation on emptiness and Tibetan passports (yellow cards) .The guy next to me peers out of the window : "the moon is having problems tonight" he says - peering out of the window to get a chance to see the predicted eclipse. .

The bus stops quite close to Manju ka Tilla , and the lama and I set off : a goser with full trekking gear trailing behind the lama with a rolling Samsonite case, eyes halfclosed ,barely clearing the traffic rushing by. Munchhausen-like dogs with a shaved look. Garbage fires. In to the small street outside Wongdhen House I call mini-Barkhor. Dreamless sleep.

Economic theory

2005-10-14T04:06:00.001+05:30

Finally , the sun reaches our jeep and the frosted cage rapidly thaws. We are eleven people in the Indian Tata : thee czechs, me and seven Indians who have been sitting some hours near the 5000+ Tanglang La while the people up front have been trying to repair the truck that blocks the single lane road. Finally, after a lot of scurrying up and down the line of vehicles with batteries, making up fires under the truck etc., we can all set off.

The 15-hour run from Leh to Manali has about as much contact with the real world as modern economic theory : sure , it should be posssible , being less than 500 klicks. Only this time... if it wasn't for the broken bridge, the truck that couldn't start, the army convoy... if only reality didn't come in the way.

Other realities also make themselves clear in the process : I sit in the front , sharing my sleeping bag with the guy next to me, as do the Czechs in the next row. The four Indians in the last sideways seats share .. closeness and very little else , with chattering teeth. Along the road we meet the Bihari roadworkers with thin blankets and thin clothes, living in the tents the military wouldn't have : they earn less in two weeks than what I've paid for my jeep ticket.

In the end we arrive in Manali , 23 hours after starting , including a very short break in Darcha , which I used too share the heat from a burning coal bucket and a ginger tea with the same family/dhaba as last time I was there.

2005-10-14T03:36:00.000+05:30

frosted cage, thawing

Sunny and blue

2005-10-13T15:50:00.001+05:30

... almost summerish down here in Leh , easy to forget the snow falling yesterday or the jeeps that had to turn back in the Khardung La.
Taking a jeep out tonite. A bit blue as always when leaving Leh. One last cup of kawa at Tashi's...

2005-10-12T11:24:00.000+05:30

cold morning

2005-10-12T11:22:00.001+05:30

Taking the cue from the yaks...

2005-10-12T11:22:00.000+05:30

2005-10-12T11:20:00.000+05:30

Digar La

Cold ...

2005-10-11T15:18:00.000+05:30

Cold morning , I take my cue from the yaks giving up grazing in a nearby dell and pack down my tent and leave for warmer places with thicker air.Breakfast on the go : the last of the dried apricots and tsampa.

Lonely at the top

2005-10-10T15:13:00.000+05:30

.. but a lot of company along the way : eagles, yaks, really! large marmots, a family group of very elegant Ladakhi deers : light grey on the outside,white belly and inner leggings, chock black tail stump.. and the ever present yellowbeaked ravens (thanks for the binoculars, dad !) .
I manage to tag along an elderly Ladakhi gentleman in goncha and huge sunglasses up to around 4900 , where he gently lets me off : maybe you should take it slower; he signs "yams , yams" : take smaller steps. He obviously has mastered the secrets a long time ago : walks very slowly but never ever stops.
The map can't really prepare you for the reality of Digar La, the most un-la-like la (pass) I've ever seen . A long ,huge, curving valley climbing ... until it ends in a sharp curved ridge. Boulders and stones that first appears as gravel in sharp slope up to the solid ridge , with a small notch crossed by prayer flags : the pass(age) . Hairpin bend thru the notch , where the trail slopes down in an equally crazy angle. Like walkin up to the rim of a moon crater. The thin air turns me in to an atlas of respiratory distress symtom; like everyone else : William Moorecroft notes the same in his passage 1822 and adds in awe " even the yaks were affected .. and needed frequent breaks". Hard , cold wind lashing into me the last hundred meters; grateful for the staff.

Stone flowers

2005-10-08T18:16:00.000+05:30

(I'll be up- post- pre-dating posts the next days, generally mucking about with the the concept of time as we know it portioning out the Nubra story in installlments)
..as the Ladakhi call lichens, a bubbling brook to cool my boots in and the realisation that I've sloged away half of the days altitude, well before noon. In the crevices I feel the smell of thymelike herb with a bitter sidenote. Could make nice sang (not spoz).

Yesterday : grumpy. Couldn't decide if I needed a acclimatisation day, started out ... hit the wall.Muttering things like " that's great , only a kilometer left - vertically" I found a spot for the tent a couple of klicks from Digar.
To top of the good ambience , I froze from the ground as my hi-tech camping matress punctured as the altitude diuresis set in - meaning scrambling out of the tent to pee four times in the night.
Well , all that's forgiven as I've struck camp near Chumik Yogma(chumik :source , ma : upper, yog : ?)
Anoher source of frustration was the maps , what was on and not. Wrong mindset( but hello , mislaying a whole monastery...) . Today I've used the maps to what they can be used for , an interesting plan coming out of it : with water in he last tokpo I can make a very short jaunt tomorrow to the foot of the pass, meaning around 300-400 mters up to the pass, then all downhill to Sabu.

Dramatic grey & rosy skies on the other side of the Shyok valley as the sun wanes (snow ?). Soon time to zip up the tent and don the second sleeping bag.

2005-10-04T18:31:00.000+05:30

agham

Agham

2005-10-04T18:30:00.000+05:30

Woke up early - still no juice for my camera charger - packed and had breakfast : mint tea, dahi & chapatis and went up to the prayer wheel to wait for the bus. The clang of the two pryer wheels coming tighter as more passengers gathered.
Bus arrives : up on the roof with the pack and makes it on the bus with several cubic centimeters to spare. Drop off at the Panamik roadbend since the bus doesnt go further east . Run up to a waiting army truck : Khalsar ? A sea of smiling faces pulls up my pack , camera bag and staff .. and explodes with laughter and screams as the truck drives away just as I'm about to climb up. Short run and new climb.
Long , boring but somehow fun waiting in Khalsar ( " an unpleasant hamlet , dominated by a military garrison") playing a mutual look at the other game until I finally get a lift in miltary truck riding in a convoy. In front , big panoramic windscreen as we ride a high strech , paarlell to the river.
Long days trek in quiet solitude, partly trail , partly road.
Then the uncomparable racket of the back seat of a - not sucessfully - patchwelded military truck , together with a grinning Ladakhi, looking a lot like Plupp. He keeps patting his houlder and grinning and pointing to me , till I get the point : he gets by with a simple shoulder bag. He then proceeds to pat, point and and taking inventory of my pack : tent ? stove ? sleeping bag ?
In the end I leave the truck to trek the desert , scarred by the the asphalt pit of the projected road. Eventually thes also peter out , I walk for anothe two hours until I see a green wedge appearing (reming me of that poetic swedish 18th century word * for a flowery patch beside a stream.
On arriving I do my one third-of-each (ladakhi , english & pantomine) "long walk , looking for good water and good spot for my tent" routine - and gets shown to the local yak/cow grazing field. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but the water looks good and I find a somewhat sheltered place for my tent.
Later with the tent pitched and the Trangia chuff-chuffing another Ladakhi appears. I start talking about the contents of mmy pot (ngamphe, jos, chuli, dried apples) when he says : come and sleep in the house.
Second time I reurn from my tent site I have the Trangia with me , freshly made Ladakhi herbal tea and can for once reverse the situation : "don, don !" and they accept and seem to like it.
after this - of course - butter tea, games of jumping up and down in the knee with the toddler , a sueaky transistor in the window doling out Ladakhi folk songs. Butterlamps, portraits of Dalai Lama. I manage to get across the story of the the Tibetan monks at Moderna Museet who made a huge sand mandala.. and the horror ofthe invited Swedes as Dalia Lama smilingly inspects it - and sweeps everything in to a bucket to pour it out into the local bay. Everyone laughs.
Nightr approaches and I am shown in to the .. fine room : carpets around the wall , handpainted chogtse tables, election poster with Sonia Gandhi. I fret over which place is polite to accept .. until it dawns on me that no one will join me . Brief momen of panic and shame : are they sleeping out because I arrived ? But no bedding has been moved , evidently they sleep on the roof until (real) winter arrives. The lessons of earlier , pre-chimney times : it's not healthy to spend too much time inside.
Finally , for once I can strech out.

2005-10-03T18:34:00.000+05:30

stupa

2005-10-03T18:33:00.000+05:30

wait

Aspirin and kora

2005-09-28T10:56:00.001+05:30

A week in Leh now , all too easy to settle in to a comfortable pace : breakfast with kombish, homemade apricot jam and Yongchens yummy spiced mint-tea.

On arrival I was fit to wrestle a yak , second day (after stopping the gingko ) I was down to a small dog. Today : maybe a donkey.

Went to Thikse monastery yesterday , on a crammed, shallow breathing only, minibus. Later I met four of the ladies ( in traditional Ladakhi gos plus Calvin Klein handbags) in the upper story of the lhakhang, where the top part of the Buddha statue projects. A monk was giving a long explanation of the paintings, statues and more , richly interspersed with the ooohs! and aaahs! from the ladies. One of them held the green personal health record book from the Men Tse Khang , the Tibetan traditional hospital , and made notes in it. Yes. Health - all aspects.

Same ooohs! and aahs! later on in the clay modelers studio, where the artists were busy making a statue depicting the yabyum sexual position , from the same ladies that probably never would dream of showing their legs.

Later I had a nice talk with a monk in the new dukhang ( assembly hall). Talked about changes since I was here : the new , glassfitted windows dukhang : warmer in the winter... but also the changes from the outside : the pressure from tourist groups that has resulted in a series of locked rooms and signs : please dont drink alcohol, curse or sit on the abbots throne...
" Not many real monks today" - competition has crept into the mindset of many Ladakhis today. A book* I recently finished argued - with a lot of convincing stories behind it - that the social qualities of the Ladakhis were as much a product of the trading that practically every ladakhi family had to engage in to make ends meet. This trading involved the need to be able to make verbal agreements that would span over long time , up to a year, and crosssed distances fro a coupe of days march to other countries : the salt plains of Tibet and the trading houses of Yarkand. The chang of todays tourist driven economy saps this fabric because the relations are much shorter , and with the increased number of tourist involved, more impersonal .

A nice talk as I said , and without the setting of the sadly necessary signs I would have asked if I could take a portrait of the monk. Now it feels uncomfortable taking photographs of anyone I've met the first day.

Back on a even more crammed minibus , where it was easy to see that Ladkhi life still works : every time new passengers were let on an intricate dance takes place to make sure that those that need a seat really gets it.

Will hopefully get a Inner Line Permit today, onwards to Nubra tomorrow.

-
*Janet Rizvi. Trans-Himalayan Caravans: Merchant Princes and Peasant Traders in Ladakh

over the top

2005-09-25T11:09:00.000+05:30

... and past the last police checkpoint. Lightheaded and -hearted as we reach Baralacha La , sprint up to the top lartse with the prayerflags. Beyond Baralacha La the Moray Plains, with wonderful cream colored streams of sand running down from the top, mixing with grays , ochre reds ...

Waiting ...

2005-09-24T12:52:00.001+05:30

for the last (?) bus in to Ladakh : Anka , Cristophe, Alberto, Pavel - the bus finally arrived two hours late with only us as passengers. Had to stop in Darcha tent camp (alt. 3400) , which probably was better , acclimatisationwise. Tightly stacked beds , with Chhemid , the daughter in the family, doing homework in the middle. Learned my first Lahauli words : gonche (goncha) gda (vulture) kau kau (raven)

Ford

2005-09-24T12:41:00.000+05:30

…wasn’t too happy about that , not the part where the wooden pole went under the water, but the stability of the upper support beam. Went upstream, and having seen no-one for the past hours did as home : stripped down to the waist and went in to the stream to find a fording place. No go , so I return to the wooden pole – and of course , the moment I look up from my first trial run without the pack I look in to the eyes of a disapproving Kinnauri lady. (note to self : kurta is the preferred fording costume) .She then shames me a second time by lightly flitting over the stream , hands barely touching the support beam. I bend over the pack , turn again –
freezeframe as she leaps for a boulder on the far side , hands outstretched like a bird , shopping bag wrapped around her left hand , back leg tucked in… poised like a ballet dancer. After the ford some nimble footwork in the landslide area, a big boulder starting to roll sluggishly just after I’ve jumped on to it. Everything is in a fluid state, and when I finally reach the bank of the trail ( throwing up the pack before me) the bank breaks again and again – just like trying to get out of a hole in the ice.

along the way

2005-09-20T12:51:00.000+05:30

.. of the Hindustan-Tibet Road. This track is the original bridlepath, the trail that the lama in Kipling's Kim would have followed. Alternating between steep forest path and galleries cut in the rock. Lower down the 1930's road, even further down the present national highway.

Sitting for a applebreak where the trail curves around the edge. An -eagle?- -lammergeier ?- soars and finally lands heavily on an outcropping futher on. Three ants engage in techical climbing on the wet rock behind me, dragging a flower petal over sheer inclines, the top ant scaling negative inclines backwards while still dragging the petal upwards.

Old Kinnauri women , chirping voices and huge loads of cut hay , the vermicelli grass I've spotted on the steep slopes before I guess.

Butterflies : huge loads of what I've dubbed sergeants butterflies : dark brown wings with a single white chevron , pale blue ones, chockingly yellow ones. Crickets everywhere (probably happily munching away at the butterflies) , but not to be seen.

Nettles along the trail , also bigger than life, effortlessly stinging thru clothes.

Interesting explosion

2005-09-19T09:58:00.000+05:30

...that might have been , I thought with the match in my hand as I noticed that the fuel line to the stove was drenched with kerosene all the way up to the burner.

Backtrack x 2 :

First I arrived in Sarahan , which was intriguing. The balcony of the temple guesthouse , filled with angrezis, made a double stage : we watching them , them watching us. Partly from the litterature around ( The Yogins Autobiography, Paradise Lost) it gave a flashback feeling of Kathmandu in the early 80's (yes kids, I was there - gather around my feet and I will tell you) . Serene athmospere in the daytime (enforced serenity, beggars being bluntly pushed out) which by night turned into .. Kaliland as the stagelights on a high pillar came on and the music blared out over the whole valley.

Had chai with the sadhu in the forest : black polished soot on the roof of his cave as he made the tea on an electric hotplate.
" Good social life - nov no-one wants social life, everyone wants action life"

Started walking from Sarahan ( yellow gate at hairpin bend, minimal teastall, Shabaleg Rain Shelter) : guard lets me thru after I told him my route and brief conference with other guard. First road thru Army camp , then gently transforming to a nicely defined trail.Deodars , smell of junipers and then a deafening surr of crickets like in a 50's B-movie.
Three girls call out to their mother , and then come running to a gate to their field : " Good morning , Sir !" " Namaste , little sister ! "
Nepali flashback again.
I'm still shy of using the camera , but it begins to wear off. This makes me realise two things : the first is just how much I've been affected by the theme of intrusive photography in Ladakh, the other is the big difference when you can show the image directly afterwards. This really makes it in to communication : Look , this is how we look, this is how you look at us . Paging back the pictures puts you in a perspective : oh you came that way , did you meet .. yes you did.

Late start , late arrival in Chaura resthouse which I promptly almost blew to bits.

Back in 'netland

2005-09-18T20:15:00.000+05:30

The Pare Chu floodvawe ripped a lot more than houses, bridges and the road : no internet beyond Shimla. Just back in the lowlands (shimla) , will backpost my diary later.