On seclusion , and photography

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.

tashilunpo

flirting with Keralan ladies - dangerous stuff.

chatting with the chai-wallah on the Varanasi night train

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

frosted cage, thawing

cold morning

Taking the cue from the yaks...

Digar La

stupa

Aspirin and kora

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

... 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 ...

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

…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.

Shimla

..arrived in Shimla with the morning narrow track railway : 100+ tunnels and bridges across the valleys. Felt the altitude, oddly enough. Met with dahannajay , the first 'miker I 've met in the flesh and had a good talk re the trek from Kafnu. Maybe the bus to Sarahan tomorrow.

The fan rules

..fell down from the sky , rattled thru the morning landscape of Delhi (highway construction and breadbaking on the side of the road , newspaper reading under the trees)and eventually arrived in Manju.. or ? couldnt recognise - and then way in to the shadows I saw a sign with the conch, familiar names : Gomang , Sera Jey..

Naked under the fan, shower. Collected tomorrows train tickets at Potala Tours, bought Ladakh Melong and Tibetan Review in a bookstore , more panting time under the fan. Woke up to the call of pani-pani-panile ! and the din of the fan - bought my water in the guesthouse instead : banana curd, lime soda.

The fan rules totally : gripping money , drowning out conversations .. but actually it is better than the last time here : less crakling from the wires overhead, cooler.
The guests at Wongden House have been complemented by a number phyipas , outsiders : french and british travellers . Not better or worse : change.