"Like any good traveller, I have written more than I have seen and I have seen more than I have written." - Disraeli, misquoted :-)
1. Ooh Leh Leh!
Leh 3 – Thunderbirds and Pangong Tso
Pangong Tso – Tso means lake, Pangong means, well, Pangong. It’s an interesting endorheic lake; it stretches an unbelievable 134 kilometers, yet it is only 5 kms at its broadest point. Sitting at a cool 14,000 feet, it stares back defiantly as you try to understand how it got there. 2/3rds of the lake is Chinese territory, 1/3rd is Indian, the ducks and geese on the lake however didn’t know the difference when we checked.
You have to work hard to get to Pangong Tso; we certainly had to. The route from Leh passes through the military town of Karu, the mighty Chang La (superlatives attached: second highest, steepest, toughest, mightiest, most difficult to ride on pass in Ladakh), Tangtsey and reaches Lukung and Spangmik, the two primary human settlements along the Indian side of the lake.
Now we didn’t really know about all those superlatives that describe Chang La when it was decided that we were to bike to Pangong. Thanks to a sleepy motorbike rental guy, a leaky petrol can and some inefficient decision-making, we left Leh in our two freshly-hired Thunderbirds at 10 AM against the original plan of 6 AM. Good start, I breathe to myself. The road is peaceful at first. It is cool to be fitted out in protective gear and helmets thundering away – you know, the wind in your hair and the insects in your eyes kinda stuff? There’s a lot to take in and I am glad to play the contented pillion rider. The freshly-laid black tarmac is inviting, the boys want to open up the engines and zoom. A convoy of army trucks put paid to that idea, instead they provide a good initial test to the riding and overtaking skills of my two inexperienced-on-heavy-motorbike friends.
Worse, though, is yet to come. We halt for a break. We wonder aloud what the crazy stream – the Paagal naala before Pangong holds in store for us. We’ve been specifically advised to cross it before 11 AM when the water levels are low. Looking back, and considering the sheer elan with which my friends handled it, the stream was probably the last thing we should have worried about. These roads are everything that a road is generally not supposed to be; multiply that by factors varying from 10 to 100 and you get an idea of the various degrees of ‘road’ along the way. It gets worse as you go higher and closer to the Chang La. Your respect for the BRO increases manifold when you see how difficult the terrain is. This is the real deal – man’s morale and sheer numbers taking on brutal nature. We are mostly stuck on first gear with the occasional, short-lived visit to second gear. The bike has to pull a lot, there’s me and Kiwi and there’s our big rucksack and the 10 litres of petrol, all under low oxygen conditions. Looking back on how graciously she discharged her duties, the Thunderbird has earned my respect forever.
All the boulders, little rocks, big rocks and sand lying around meant that I had to disembark from the bike (swinging my cramped leg painfully above the rucksack) every time the road got nasty. And walking at that high altitude, especially when you are unprepared for it is extremely uncomfortable unless you are moving at the pace of a snail. To put it shortly, every short walk was also an exercise in self-control by way of having to restrain myself from kicking the two guys who were putting me through this misery! (Alright alright you two, I can hear you say it’s part of the experience blah blah, but if I am going with you next time, we better have a rucksack that can walk! )
Once you cross Chang La, you are greeted by slightly better roads which eventually smoothen out into runway-like black tarmac roads, albeit slightly narrow. However, we weren’t complaining. The scenery is striking and straight out of the picture books; wild horses grazing on green meadows while the stream gurgles by, wild horses galloping against a striking mountain backdrop, little friendly marmots that look like a cross between a meerkat and a giant squirrel, large, graceful birds, yaks, wild asses(?) and the occasional shepherds. The road ends abruptly at one point and a dirt track twists downwards. We’ve hit The stream. Ok, no big deal, we’ve just got to wind down to the stream and figure out a way and a place to cross it, right? Well, almost. The only difficulty is that you simply can’t see anything that looks even remotely like a road on the other bank. Road or no road, I realize I have to get my feet wet (The water is so cold it cuts through your flesh and makes your bone go numb) and wade across it. Shoot!
We stood there, slightly nonplussed when the voice of an angel hailed us from the mountains. An angel in the form of a Ladakhi road builder drifted down, guided us to the exact point where the two bikes could cross the stream, carried our rucksack across and helped me flit over the stones with minimal difficulty as well! I wanted to give him a hug and a 100 bucks; but considering how shy these people are, we settled for just a 100 bucks. Stream crossing and high-fives done, we continue on our ride and happen upon Pangong Tso. Somewhere just before Pangong lies the dirt track diversion to Marsimik La, the real highest motorable mountain pass maintained in a rough-and-tumble state by the Indo-Tebatan border police. Its questionable whether a road exists, but the specially fitted out army vehicles do make their laborious way up this pass.
The first settlement by the lake is Lukung – a collection of little tents and off-white stone buildings. There is an army settlement not far from the huts which also hosts a souvenir shop and a visitor’s centre of some kind. We walk down to the shores of the lake, triumphant and tired. For some reason that I can’t remember, we decide to ride further and find accommodation in the next town, Spangmik. The road beyond Lukung is just dirt track and after some distance forks into two, one road leading up in to the mountains and another winding down across the plain. For some reason, we choose to go uphill.
Progress is excruciatingly slow. The road has pretty much given up and stopped existing. Dusk falls quickly. And the wind turns extremely cold as the sun sinks. The road seems to lead to nowhere at all. We realize we might have taken the wrong route. Suddenly the hostility of our surroundings engulf us, it is a tiny bit unnerving and we decide to turn back. Enough adventure for the day, I think. The ‘luxury tents’ in Lukung cost more than the off-white rooms. We settle for a room for the night and crash gratefully, but not before a stomach-filling dinner of dal-roti-sabzi and a soul-filling view of the Milky Way.
The lake is stunning, but our ride back beckons. The boys are more comfortable on their bikes and the ride promises to be better as we know what to expect. The stream crossing is actually fun (it was, right guys?) and I graciously cross over with the heavy camera to take photos of the heroics!
We stop at the Peace Hotel to meet the marmots and a big black-necked crane and have a bowl of the yummiest Maggi noodles ever.
Soon its back to boulders and little rocks, medium rocks and big rocks! This time we halt at Chang La to have some of the free mint chai, buy an ‘army’ sunglass, take some photos. We chat up with an ex-army man who had visited here with Rajiv Gandhi. He informs us that he’s visiting here again with his wife and son who is posted around here. The son puts an abrupt end to the conversation, ‘Papa, chalo’. We wind our way down the steep roads and reach Leh just as my spine and I were beginning to get sore again.
It’s fun to ride a big motorbike around this place. Fellow motor-bikers behave like brothers; they smile through their helmets, wave, flash a thumbs-up there, a V-sign here and stop to help you if you seem to be in trouble. People who travel in 4-wheelers throw admiring glances at you and want to take photos of themselves on your bikes (not you though!). They speak to you and want to know how it’s been riding around. You can’t help but say, ’twas ok, pretty good’ and mean it in spite of however miserably your back ached because of that stupid backpack! And I am not quite sure why, but a Thunderbird thud-thudding away against the backdrop of those rough, untamed mountains is among the most appealing sights I’ve ever seen.
It’s time to leave. Bags packed. Bills settled. We reach the airport just as the Jet Airways flights comes in for a landing at the Leh airport. It’s inclined at such a precarious angle on the approach to the airport that I am half-sure it’s going to crash. But that’s normal at Leh – every thing is a little extreme in this place. I gratefully accept the window seat offered to me (thanks buddy!) and as our flight takes off, I sit tight as the plane’s wing gets dramatically close to the mountain ranges. The views of the Trans-Himalaya are needless to say, super awesome. The mountains stretch across forever. There are great sheets of snow that hardly a living soul has stepped on, deep gorges eroded by water and glaciers over the millenia. Serenity and mystery. The whine of the engines is distracting and I recite my goodbyes in my head…
Good bye Rimchen and Shanti guest house and huge French windows and little balcony
and apricots and snow-capped peaks and fresh mountain air and clear streams
and big bad passes and bleak mountain roads and galloping horses and bar-headed geese
and friendly marmots and white snow and cutting wind and cold desert
and sand dunes and two-humped camels and seabuckthorn and friendly taxi-drivers
and generous angels and contented people and herbed maggi noodles and thunderbirds!
Au revoir! We’ll be back!
LEH
Corollary: Don't write your travelogue before you travel.
However, I am led to understand that Leh calls for a celebratory post way before you actually get on to that jetplane for Delhi. So here goes nothing! Mountain sickness, absent loos, sleet and ice, lack of oxygen, higher fluid retention in the brain and lungs, nausea, dizziness - all promise to create a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious experience! I await Leh, breathless already!
Wayanad: How to spot a Yakshi
The ghwirrr of the generator downstairs ascends in pitch interfering with my silent reverie. I drift away again, with some effort.
Wayanad - picture perfect. For a few moments, let me overlook the slightly defaced hilltops, the tea gardens competing with verdant green natural forests, the coffee staking its claim on the lower slopes. Been a while since I saw such thickly-carpeted hills. Been some time since I felt that sharp, cool slice of wind that sends a shiver down one’s back... the kind that you get only around the mountains.
The woods, they are lovely, dark and deep. We pull over, parking the trusty Fiesta just off the road. Tall bamboo, crackling in the wind, birds, crickets, cicadas - the forest racket reigns. We spot fresh elephant poo. A honeycomb hovers above, threatening. A tall ant hill - what’s the probability there’s a snake inside? We’re near a water hole, we discover. Don’t animals frequent waterholes? Oh. Is there a leopard watching us from that bamboo thicket?
The roads are a driver’s delight - not too narrow, not too broad, just enough room to maneuver gracefully, maybe a little dangerously. Curved, if ever roads could be sensuous, these roads would be it. The Fiesta took ‘em all smooth and nice in the expert hands of our good friend Kiwi. Yeah, that’s only his nickname. He’s not from New Zealand nor does he bear any resemblance to the bird that shares his name.
Wayanad district is big; I am grateful for that. Home-stays are dime-a-dozen. The place isn’t too commercialized, yet. Hoardings advertising home-stays have giggle-inducing captions. They have a charm of their own though. Wherever you go in India, you can’t escape the thronging masses in various colors, shapes, sizes. Types. Families, honeymooners, the young in big, rowdy Matadors. The not-so-young lecherous male crowd in their cheap cars. But it’s possible to flip on that ‘space out’ button and ease yourself into a cosy aloneness. The ghats from the viewpoint crowd in on one another. Seeming almost endless. It is breathtaking. We drive ahead, hoping to find a place where there aren’t too many people. We happen on a quaint chai shop with a blue plastic sheet for a roof; dusk falls; cars whiz by. Kiwi’s camera captures light in motion as they zoom on.
We were intent on meeting the legendary yakshis; these mythical temptresses take joy in sitting atop betel nut trees demanding chunnambu from men who walk by. Lured to respond by their beauty, they would invariably end up as the yakshis’ dinner! Suitably warned not to heed any smooth voices demanding chunnambu, armed with flashlights and a stick, we crept down the road swapping ghost stories. For reasons yet un-understood, walking with flashlights turned off on a potholed road makes one giggle and laugh a lot. I don’t know if we traumatized the yakshis, but we sure did scare off a few dogs! The heroes of the night were the ethereal glow worms.
Why are flickers of golden light so glorious on a dark, moonless night? Uplifting.
Kiwi sets up his camera, again. We sigh. We couldn’t beat him. We joined him. How hard is it to capture a betel nut tree in starlight? Is an exposure time of 300 seconds enough? It almost was, with lovely effect.
A chirpy morning breaks. It’s time to leave, almost. But wait. You can't miss the mandatory plantation walk. Never knew dried eucalyptus leaves were so potent. We are ceremoniously introduced to ‘odomos’ eucalyptus, mangoes, cinnamon, elaichi, all spice leaves. We graciously accept the all spice leaves we are offered. We walk around sniffing, touching, tasting. Gooseberries, plucked fresh, quickly washed in a little lotus pond is offered. I gingerly take a bite, and stop. We’ve just been cheerfully informed that the lotus pond is known to have lotuses, snails, frogs, fish as well as a number of other unknown creatures.
The hospitality in our home-stay may have been of the intrusive kind, but I quit complaining after we were allowed to go bonkers with an air rifle and an endless supply of little bullets. There was no mercy shown to the unfortunate Bisleri bottle that was our target. A Coconut followed in the bottle’s footsteps.
Kerala has good bakeries by default. Intriguing.
Kerala has good everything by default. Lucky.
Too bad most of them Keralites aren’t around to enjoy it.
Oh, by the way, if you are still wondering how to spot a yakshi, know this. She only has a front, she doesn’t have a back. You say ‘What? How?’ Go figure.
When you go to Wayanad, maybe she’ll spot you before you spot her!
Prelude
The modified Matador grey-green van picks up speed; we move along a dusty road lined by brown, red, black dusty fields, past dusty towns leaving a trail of angry brown-red dust in our wake. The road could be better, but the potholes are not too bad; it’s the speed that’s making my teeth rattle.
Presently, the soundtrack grows better; a smile finds its way to my lips. Peace. Everything is as it should be. I am happy. A host of sunflowers breaks the monotony of red, black and brown soil framed through the window. I realize I am happy. And the long moment fades away leaving a pleasant aftertaste.
Stunning fields of sunflower garnish this land that seems loath to yield much of its wealth to anyone. I racked my brain to remember my Geography lessons – were we in the sunflower belt of India? Got to look that one up! As a matter of fact got to look up a lot of things! Indian history, for instance. I know we studied a specific period of Indian history in each year, culminating in the glories of our freedom struggle in tenth grade. Apart from some famous names and random dates, I realize I do not know much now.
Alright, before you lose patience and click away to the next glossy hyperlink, let me tell you what this is all about. Oh man, what is this about? Well, it’s about this four-day trip that a friend and I embarked on with some very inadequate scheduling and planning to somewhere in north-west Karnataka? Actually, it’s a history/archaeology/architecture lesson stretching from 500AD to the 17th century? Maybe an account of a 4-day escape from our clichéd city lives that had stabbed and wounded us a little too much as we made our way around some sharp corners? Wait, let me wrestle that drama queen bit of me to the ground…&%&*)&_)*&^^$^$(*)… uggh, done! I am glad you did not have to see that. Oh well, it’s just a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but mostly an excuse to write something that I hope will stand the ravages of time and stand out as one lone woman’s quest to find the truth in a world gone awry, a world lost in filth and depravity!! :-) You get the drift, no?
Change is good. Changing jobs is better. A two-week break between jobs is the best of all. It started as a trip to Singapore, wait, was it Italy? Well, I am not sure yet, but I zeroed in on Badami-Aihole-Pattadakkal with Hampi thrown in as an after-thought. After all, what could be more fun than being slow-toasted to a nice brown crunchy consistency in the North Kanara sun? The summer had started earlier than usual and my companion on this trip, let’s call her L, and I made some unhurried last minute preparations for the trip. We were headed to Badami via Hubli, with Days 1 and 2 spent at Badami-Aihole-Pattadakkal. We would then head down south and east to spend Day 3 and 4 at Hampi to take in the ruined splendor that Vijayanagara is today, thus fulfilling a promise made to myself in July’08 to return to this place that at first sight, robbed me of adjectives to describe it. Apparently I was not the first person in history to be dumbstruck by Vijayanagara and hence ended up writing really long sentences! A whole number of famous old travellers mention the sheer magnificience and splendour of this place. Vijayanagar’s riches continue to support a tourist-centric economy and a number of well meaning researchers, including a certain John and George who have made their living studying this place, writing a few authoritative books on the subject in the process. It was with their book in hand that we would set out to explore Hampi, but I am getting ahead of myself. That story for later.
First stop, Bengaluru railway station to catch the Rani Channamma Express to Kolhapur. Our destination, the city of Hubli, known for pretty much nothing major I guess. Well, a little research tells me it has a number of small industries. Our coupe companions on the ‘express train’ were mostly 55+ and aggressive-looking. There was fierce-looking North Indian with a spare thumb on his left hand, his well-maintained wife (pedicured, manicured, polished fingernails in place), an old guy who could have only been a file-pushing bureaucrat, another boring old South Indian couple, and a young boy in his late teens. Predictably, extra-finger man wanted to pull down the middle berth immediately after dinner as the train was pulling out of the railway station. Predictably, L didn’t take to this too kindly, especially since she has a thing against aggressive North Indians (surprising coming from her since she was almost North Indian herself). A hot exchange of words followed with Extra Thumb storming off to find the TT among rants around, predictably again, “disrespectful and unreasonable youngsters these days” and I silently despaired – our trip was off to a very promising start indeed. Nothing irritates me more than people who demand respect rather than command it. We stood near the train door for a while as more people stepped out to talk to us less out of concern and more out of curiosity! Ah, we Indians!! Our berths were near the door, this meant that we had to listen to the groan of the door opening and closing about 1052 times!
Almost there
It was tremendous fun to be figuring out our way as we went along, more so since none of my trips had ever been so unplanned. We reached K cross in 2.5 hours and were immediately confronted by a small maxi-cab like vehicle – a tam-tam – that was on its way to Badami, almost fully loaded. Momentary hesitation, but in the spirit of doing something different we clambered in. We chose to sit at the back and the supremely thrilled ‘conductor’ cleared out the place for us. We stuck out like sore thumbs and enjoyed being the cynosure of all eyes for a short while. The local women of these parts seem to be pretty feisty – oh wait, there I go committing the folly that all travel-bloggers do – generalizing from just one isolated experience! At least the woman who shared the back compartment with us was very feisty. She demanded to know what two young women like us were doing all alone, and responded with an ‘aiyyya’ when we told her we were headed to Badami, alone. Bad people there, she told us in Marathi. Find someone good and stick to them, she said. We nodded and smiled our thanks. She grew a little shy as we clicked a picture of her but was positively thrilled with the results when I showed her the digicam preview.
We were in north-west Karnataka, pretty close to the border of Maharashtra. And as you move along the borders of the Indian states, it’s fascinating to see languages get mixed up, evolve and transition to something else with a life of its own. I had encountered a lilting dialect of Kannada-Tamil-Malayalam at Masinagudi, a little town situated at the border of Kerala, Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Now, in the sunflower farmlands near Badami, a neat cocktail of Marathi, Konkani, Kannada…and was that a hint of Tulu? It makes me wonder again whether its sheer ignorance of our differences that keeps this country together.