roaming2: Nubra Valley Trip

We are back at the Oriental Hotel and Guest House in Leh. Run by a lovely family.

To get to Nubra Valley we drove over the road advertised as the highest motor-able road in the world. Claimed to be at 18,300 ft. Driving on a very rough road --you know mud holes, rocks, boulders, terribly disconcerting drop offs without any guard rails or such. One lane at best with areas to squeeze into for oncoming traffic!

Correction from last post! Not Drinker and Guide! Driver and Guide is correct. HA! Our driver Wantuk is a devout Buddhist kind and gentle man. Our guide is Stinzing also a Buddhist and Wantuk is his uncle. Really good people.

Nubra is very close to Pakistan, as close as we are allowed to go was the village of Turtuk, a 100% Muslim village that was in Pakistan before the 1972 war with India. They are now fighting a brutal war up on a high glacier up Nubra Valley. This Muslim town had a fairly unfriendly feel to all of us and while taking some photos a man asked where we were from we said Eh? Yes from Canada! Beautiful place but a lot of hard unfriendly stares etc. Pakistan flag on one gate. But children were fun and friendly and in the two or so years that the area has been open to outsiders they have learned to beg. It is so disappointing. They are far from starving and are well dressed but beg anyway. Young women wanted to smile and visit and ask questions but would look cautiously around to see who was watching and make any niceties very quick. Our guide told us that the women do the work and the men just sit around. And yes, the women were building the new additions and houses and working the fields and the men were sitting around in groups with beards having serious conversations and staring at us.

GET us back to the Buddhist side of the valley!

The Monasteries were up high on fantastic rock outcroppings and were very old. Ace put it this way .. While tha Anasasi were living in their cliff dwellings these people had built these Monasteries.

We stayed in tent resorts that were pretty nice. First night in Sumoor. Second night in Hunder.

We visited Some Monasteries below as per our itinerary:

Samstanling monastery. The Samstanling Gompa at the relatively bigger Sumoor Village is definitely worth a visit, and houses a fine collection of idols, frescos and tangkhas (painted and embroidered scrolls).

HOT WATER SULPHUR SPRINGS. The waters of the hot sulphur springs at the village of Panamik, the last destination travellers are permitted to travel to in Nubra, are believed to have certain medicinal qualities that cure a number of ailments. You can also walk to the Ensa Gompa that is over 250 years old.

DISKIT MONASTERY also known as Deskit or Diskit Gompa is a Buddhist monastery in the Nubra Valley of Ladakh, northern India. Founded by Changzem Tserab Zangpo in the 14th century, ( before Columbus sailed the ocean blue) it belongs to the Tsongkhapa (Yellow Hat sect) of Tibetan Buddhism. Lachung Temple and Hundur Monastery are also located nearby. Of note is an elevated cupola, with a fresco depicting the Tashilhunpo Gompa of Tibet? The monastery has a number of shrines and Mongolian and Tibetan texts in the storehouse. The monastery is connected to Mongol mythology in that the monastery is believed to be the place where an evil anti-Buddhist Mongol demon once lived and was killed near the monastery grounds but is said to have been resurected several times. Today the head and hand of the demon lie inside a temple of Diskit.

Yes the skull and hand were quite interesting. Those Mongols especially the demons must have been really bad guys. In fact that same Mongol's other hand is displayed in another Monastery somewhere local.

Food is mostly good ... Jeep rides on these roads for up to 8+ hours are punishing. At one point on the second day of being constantly slammed against my door I compared the relationship with my door to a very bad marriage and I needed a divorce Now! Susan sat between Ace and me and had no trouble with the door demons.

Coming home there was blasting at the pass that had caused a huge traffic jam on top. In one jeep Ace saw a woman that had passed out after sitting two hours at 18,000. Susan said oxygen was being passed around another jeep ( more like land rovers than jeeps). Then the lunch of noodle and veg soup at a road side place we had before going up the pass hit a couple of us hard and then the reality of being stuck on top with terrible facilities sunk in but we made it back -- beat up and a bit disgusted and very relieved to move back into a nice guest house with hot showers!

Road signs seen on the trip:

Darling I like you, but not so fast!

Better being Mister Late than the Late Mister!

Be gentle on my curves!

If Married Divorce Speed.

Highway is not the way to get High.

Hurry Burry spoils the Curry.

Printed on back of trucks believed related to proper passing signals:

"Blow Horn, Use Dipper at night"

Julley Y'all!