Leh

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I left Lumuruyu in the morning after a Tibetan breakfast and, after buying two identical postcards picturing a very old Tibetan woman in traditional dress, continued on to Leh. The ride was one hundred kilometers through more of the same winding hills and valleys that I saw on the ride to Kargil, but with less vegetation and a hotter, drier climate. The road peaked up and swerved down after increasingly tight turns that left room for many driving errors. For instance, at many points I pictured myself sliding on a cluster of loose sand while driving at 40 km around a 360-degree turn and trying to avoid a loud colorful semi coming from the opposite direction; the motorcycle skids and it and I glide blissfully into the deep desert valley below.

My visions of the future failed to become reality and I made it Leh safe and sound at about four in the afternoon, hungry and tired. I wanted something authentic and cheap, especially after gorging on junk food for two weeks in Kashmir, so I tried the dirtiest Dhaba I could find and ordered Thali. My mind at ease but my stomach sorely in need of a bathroom and my body in need of a shower, I tried to locate a guesthouse in the Old Town of Leh that the guidebook recommended. After two hours and a nervous breakdown I found another guesthouse and took a small room for 100 rupees. Babu Guesthouse was basically a building with small, shabby rooms and two outhouses with no hot shower (and no hot bucket I found out later.)

I organized my things and even did laundry with some primitive washing soap that you need to scrub intensely into the clothing for a few long minutes. The landlady told me it’d be better to buy the powder and do it in a bucket, but I had seen women doing it the hard way during my rides through the village and I wanted to try it myself. I succeeded with the laundry, leaving jeans and fleece for the professional Laundromats (these places also use the old methods; washing machines are rarely available in these parts).

I took a walk through the city, and met Olik and Anastasia which I now remember I already wrote about all this…

Long story short Leh is awesome. The city is mainly comprised of Ladakhys who are a kind of Tibetan refugee community from years ago who speak Ladakhy, and most also speak Hindi and Tibetan.

Olik and Anastasia were sharing a room in a guesthouse in the New Town where the members of the old group were also staying. Some tension had risen among different members of the Kashmir group, and at this point it occurred to Olik and I should leave the group and continue traveling together. We had become quite good friends in Kashmir, riding the motorbike to the city and taking the Shikara out for rides to the floating gardens. The group itself had also become unappealing to us. What was enjoyable in Kashmir because it was Kashmir (i.e. smoking pot all day long and lounging on Shikaras in a majestic lake) was not that fun in Ladakh. Leh is a city beautiful because it is surrounded by the Himalayas and because of its rich Tibetan culture, and it offers an endless array of trekking, rafting, camel riding, safaris, biking, as well as jeep trips to the multitude of surrounding villages, lakes, waterfalls etc… In Leh I wanted to take advantage of these activities and sights and so did Olik. We had decided in Kashmir to do a trek together in Leh, and we started searching out agencies to plan our adventure.

First thing Olik and Anastasia organized a bike trip for the whole group that included a jeep ride up to the highest drivable pass in the world (Khardung La – 5400 meters) and mountain bike ride all the way down back to Leh. I was going to accompany them on my motorcycle. A few days later the trip commenced and we made our way to the highest pass in the world. The ride up was splendid but the pass itself unimpressive. We took snapshots next to a sign proclaiming this the “highest pass in the world” and started downhill after a cup of tea.

Most of the group rode ahead fast, while I stayed back with the follow jeep and Anastasia and Olik. After five minutes I saw Olik surge past a turn, and after I had made the turn, saw Olik’s bike on the dirt and Olik getting up from the ground. He had crashed head first into a large boulder on the side of the road and was lucky to be alive, thanks to his cheap Indian helmet that was sharply dented in the front as a result of crash. He smoked one cigarette calmly, obviously shocked up the experience, and to our surprise, got on his bike and continued riding. I also continued with Anastasia who was riding the slowest, and since the ride was all downhill, I turned my bike off and drove the whole way in neutral side by side Anastasia on her bike.

When we arrived and returned the bikes I found Olik and took him to the hospital. He was certain he had a brain aneurysm due to the high impact and the intense pain he was feeling in his head, neck and shoulders. I assured him he’d be all right, though I had no idea in the least what the diagnosis would be. We found the hospital on the main road with the help of a few kind strangers, and walked into the emergency room, here called “casualty blocks.” There were no doctors to be found, and only a few nurses attending to many sad looking patients waiting on hospital beds in large rooms. A nurse directed us to a room where for 2 rupees only Olik filled out a form to see a doctor. Five minutes later we were in a room with a desk and a doctor dressed casually, who check the nervous Olik and assured him that his injuries were minor and inconsequential, that he’d be fine in a few days, and that he could go on the trek we were planning to leave for in two days. He said only that he should see the orthopedic specialist the next day for a second opinion. The next day we went to see the specialist who we found out was on leave. Another surgeon gave Olik the green light and we left for our trek two days later.

We were in Leh a full six days before the trek and we spent much of this time organizing the bicycle ride and the trek, as well as visiting the Jewish house, meeting older Israelis, exploring Ladakhy culture and eating Momo. Most of the nights I slept with Olik and Anastasia in their room because riding to my guesthouse in Old Town at three in morning in the frigid night air of Leh seemed unappealing and precarious. We shared good times here and Olik and I built a more solid friendship. We also started talking about opening a bar together once were both back in Israel and we stayed up late most of these nights discussing ideas and other important life matters. Olik had recently split from a long time girlfriend and many of our weightier conversations were related to this subject matter.

We had visited the Jewish house a few times to hear lectures which I found annoying and irrelevant to my India experience, but I enjoyed sitting with Israelis and also had developed a strange fondness for the young rabbinical student running the place with his wife and three daughters. He emitted a warmth, permanence and familiarity that I found attractive in the touristy and ever changing face of Leh. After the crash, Olik had wanted to do what is known in Hebrew as “birkat ha gomel” which is a prayer of thanks to God for having spared ones life in a disaster, or something like this. We went the same day of the crash and Olik told the story of his accident to a large Friday night crowd and then performed the prayer with a yamakah on his head. I listened and watched as people approached after and asked about his experience, and then we went out to a late dinner with two religious Jewish girls who were obviously attracted to Olik’s daring maneuvers and desire to be closer to God through acceptance of his accident and his fate.