Nubra...

I didnt actually leave today again from Manali...motorcycle repairs...so im stuck here one more day...

Id like to jump back a couple hours. On the way to Nubra signs that led me to Diskit actually led me to a checkpoint which a soldier claimed was the last before China. He told me to turn back -- Diskit was the other way, and the signs are misleading. Upon entering the Valley I was stunned by the picture before me: plains of sand for miles and miles, bordered by majestic hills backed by gigantic himalayan mountaines topped by a perfectly blue 5PM sky and a setting sun.

After eating we talked with the owner of the Organic Garden who happens to also be a doctor and he explained just how freezing cold it is in Ladakh during the winter and what actually goes on: nothing. Everybody stays indoors most of the time, sitting around a fire, the women sowing and the men drinking and playing cards. It can get boring, and showers are not taken. Apparently nobody gets dirty because the whole body is entirely covered with layers and layers of clothing all the time, therefore "not even one speck of dust can get in." Not exactly where I want to spend my Christmas vacation. After dinner I stayed up late with the Austrians, talking about Austria. She works for a NGO and he likes to mountain climb and has only recently "found nature."

In the morning I met Joanna at the Diskit Gompa. The monastery is hundreds of years old and is built into the side of a mountain. A road leads up to the entrance and stairs lead to the different stories, or levels. We saw some old Buddhist relics, artwork and religious pieces, most of it quite flimsy looking and lacking the impressive flamboyance of say, the Vatican. But this is Buddhism, a religioun that renounces the material world, not much emphasis placed on religious art. Some monks in red sat and drank Chai and Joanna took some pics. We left after an hour and some spiritual awakening. Theres lots of pictures of the Dalai Lama everywhere.

I followed Joanna's jeep with the couple and their guide to the other side of Nubra Valley for what I thought would be a day trip. We visited a few monasteries that day, a secret hidden lake in the center of a small mountain which the Ladakhys claim you can look into and see visual renderings of important events/people (like the Dalai Lama for instance). Joanna rode with me and took some awesome videos which I need to get from her. We visited Hot Springs in Panamik which were nothing more then a few rusted drains spurting luke warm sulphur water and small enclosed bath with discraded razor blades. With the sun setting I realized I wasnt going back to Hundar (1.5 hour ride) and stayed in a guesthouse in Sumur with the Spaniards. Dinner was set menu made of ingredients again grown in the actual gueshouse yard: aloo gobi, rice, chapati, veggies etc. Afterwards we drank beer with two Cambridge girls who could not be more out of place then they were now in tights, leg warmers, posh cashmere sweaters and fully made-up faces and hair. But we had a nice conversation and passed out.

In the morning Joanna and the couple rode back to Leh, all three of them feeling sick from the heights, and I returned to Hundar. On the way I stopped in the Diskit sand dunes and patted a bizarre two-humped desert camel that was apparently brought from China years and years ago. I declined a ride, having been warned about the slowness of the camels walk. I got to Hundar and moved to the Organic Garden guesthouse and took a bed in a well set-up and comfortable two person tent. Dinner again in the OG with the multicultural pack. Tomorrow we were going to see the Dalai Lama arrive for his first visit to the Diskit Gompa in two years.

In the morning the whole crew left early to walk the two hours to Diskit. I stayed back, read and enjoyed the glorious weather. I heard the DL was arriving at 3pm only so I left at 130 and reached the Gompa by two: just in time. The group had been waiting for hours along with the throng of Buddhist in traditional clothing waiting enthusiastically for their leader holding various incense, flowers and prayer beads. Everytime the crowd would rise for DL false alarms. I saw Nuchum the rabbinical student from the Jewish house in Leh. He had also made the trip to Nubra, but he specifically to see the DL. I had no idea the DL was coming until I got there. As I spoke to him about the similarities between the Jewish and Budhhist faiths, the whole DL entourage passed by us and we caught a quick glimpse of the DL. Thats it? We were to see more of him tomorrow. I ate lunch as the crowd dispersed and bought a Tibetan necklace as a gift and a Tibetan bracelet for myself.

That night at the Organic Garden I learned that the older Italian in our crew actually owns a small organic vegetarian restuarant in the heart of Rome and we talked shop into the wee hours. He says he works hard 14 hour days and needed a long vacation, so he closed the restaurant for a year to travel in India.

In the morning we all again went to Diskit, I took my bags with me as I was going to leave back to Leh after the morning teaching. Everybody from every where came with their dark black and brown robes, curved up costume shoes, prayer beads and incense and sat under awnings listening to the DL. I watched for 20 minutes, felt the closeness of the DL, had a girl take a pic to send me later, and after searching out an area with an English translation that didnt exist, left. I drove back to Leh and the ride was amazing.

In Leh I spent one day organizing my things to leave Leh back to Manali. I walked around and said goodbyes to the diffferent cafe and restuarant workers I had met. Olik and his friends returned from a bike trip cut short to Pangong and Olik tried to convince me to stay just a few more days. But I had been in Ladakh for a month and now it was time to go.

Nubra Valley

After the Nagmyal visit and a few days of pure relaxation and rest, Olik and I decided to go to Nubra Valley, about 120KM North, on the way to China/Tibet. The road passes through Kardung La where we'd already gone for the whole bicycle ride back down the road to Leh. This time we were going up and crossing the pass, and then coming down on the other side into the valley. The valley itself is about the same height as Leh, around 3500 meters.

But Olik's friends from Israel had just arrived and he wasn't going anywhere soon. I met a Spanish girl named Joanna going to Nubra the same day in a jeep and we decided to meet there. After talking all night long with Olik's childhood friends I woke up early, had a coffee with Olik who insisted I wake him up before I leave for goodbyes (even though we'd be meeting in a few days), arranged a few items and took off.

I road up the Kardung La road about 15 km when all of a sudden the clutch cable broke. Great. I managed to ride the bike in third gear all the way down, stymied at a certain point when my bike sunk in fresh asphalt in a construction zone, but making it all the way to the mechanic. A nice brit let me go first so I could get going, and once the clutch cable was fixed I departed.

Made it to Kardung La in 40 minutes, and then road down to Nubra in another 3 hours. The first 5 km after the pass was the worst chunk of road I have seen yet! Enormous boulders sticking out of the road at odd angles followed by huge craters. Scary. My bike nearly toppled over when I hit a jagged rock but I saved myself in mid-air with a swift turn of the handle bar. I landed on soft sand, sunk a bit, and came out of it all with no problems. The rest of the way was cake compared to the first part, except that I had to drive carefully due to the high volume of sand on the street. Theres few things scarier then loose sand for a motorcycle rider. The ride was windy as usual, large beautiful himalayan peaks, getting a bit shorter towards the valley. There was only one tiny village along the way called Kardung where I sat and drank chai with a group of Bengalis with expensive looking bikes and all the newest motorcycle gear and branded clothing.

I arrived in Hundar, about seven Km past Diskit, the main city of Nubra, and didn't find Joanna but instead found the Austrian couple, Nicole and Mikael from the Stok Trek. We had sat together often in Leh in the javeen cafe and I was very happy to find them here. I stayed in the dormitory in their guesthouse and we ate at the Organic Garden, a large tent guesthouse with a restaurant that claims to use only organic ingredients grown on the premises. We ate with another two Italians, a very young French guy and French girl, and a Columbian girl. Very multicultural, and no Israeli's at all!

The next day I met Joanna at the Diskit Monastery in Diskit. Now I have to go.

After Stok

I just got back to Manali and I can now write at a more leisurely pace since the internet is not so damn expensive.

I really want to write about my trip from Leh to Manali which is so fresh in my mind, but I have to finish with Leh first. After we got back from the trek Olik and I were burnt out. My body had undergone some serious altitude abuse, and now I was in dire need of some downtime. First we needed to find a guesthouse- we had left most of our luggage in the Jewish House - and we spent a couple hours searching for a good place with a badly needed hot shower. Leh was bustling and rooms were full to capacity, but after a while we found a room for 300 ruppees at Rinchen Guesthouse which is nestled behind the main road - Changspa road - and is run by a nice Ladakhy family. Most of the guesthouses indeed are run by quaint traditional families and in most cases the food served is also grown somewhere in the backyard.

After a couple hot showers we settled into a routine of relaxation for the next few days. We spent these days sitting at Javeen Coffee across the road reminiscing about the trek and how crazy we were to partake in it. All of our friends - and we had made a bunch in Leh - were fascinated - or so we assumed - by our four day expedition. The manager, a Sikh with a very clean, white and large turbin, welcomed us as regulars at his cafe and lavished us with day-old chocolate doughnuts (not made from lard and therefore not as tasty as american doughnuts). I had the misfortune of ordering something called the "Chef's Special Burger" with no cheese and receiving a potato patty topped with heavy cream and no bun. After several attempts to fix the burger, the Sikh explained that this is how burgers are served "continental style" which sounds like B.S. but ok. Mainly we drank black tea and avoided the food here.

Changspa Road in Leh is the main hub for Israelis and is a long road loaded with chill-out restaurants, cafes and expensive internet shops. We finally decided that Crossroads restaurant had the best food and we sat there frequently; i even broke my vegetarianism and ate Tandoori Chicken there which I liked a lot. The waiter was a tall, lanky Nepali who sat with us often but said little. I only gathered that he worked here during the high season and returned to Nepal with a pocket full of cash.

A week went by quickly as we lounged in cafes, spoke with different israeli and european tourists, made friends with staff etc. We walked up to a Buddhist monastery and watched the sunset, took small bike trips around Leh, did some shopping. At Crossroads I happened to meet and talk Neitsche with a smart 22 yr old Israeli named Moshe who had just finished three years with the highly selective Sea Commando unit in the the IDF and was not smoking any hash because he was planning on working as trainer for Nigerian presidential security agents which required special drug tests.

One day in the internet shop I was temporarily annoyed by an israeli family of five who were bickering about such obviously mundane and flippant issues like how much the eldest son could chat with his friends on instant messenger while the youngest wailed on in the background from utter boredom. Later I happened to talk with the father who said they had just begun a year long trip with the family, and that this was a dream he'd always had. Good luck!

Amin was an Indian friend I made at the Wonderland Restaurant, another generic place with indian style seating and israeli-chinese-indian-italian food. Originally from Darjeeling, he had been traveling and working in the South of india in places like Goa in restaurants and cafes. He was now not working and was traveling just like the rest of us, and many nights he sat with us playing cards and drinking mint tea with honey.

Remember Nagmyal? The trek guide? He had promised to invite us to his house in the Tibetan village and a few days had passed without a word. He also said something about owning a yellow sportbike. Sitting downstairs at the Wonderland one day we saw Nagmyal drive up on just such a yellow sportbike as he had described. He looked completely different, clean, shaven, wearing form-fitting jeans with tears in just the right places and patches in others. Olik and I were so happy to see him, having completed a life-changing journey in the Himalayas with him. There was to be a Full-Moon party that night and we decided we would go together. First, I reminded Nagmyal about his promise to show us his home in the Tibetan Village. Olik and I followed him on my bike to his village about 7 km from Leh. The village is actually on the road to Manali and is a very traditional onclave with cement brick dwellings divided by crude cement walls. Each house had a yard with a couple cows or chickens and maybe a mill for grinding corn. We entered his house, saw a couple cows in the yard, expected little from the interior, and were surprised to find a well-maintained living room with a large TV and stereo speakers. Lining the walls were Ladakhy tapestries with images of horses and other animals. Off of the living room was a small kitchen with fresh cow cheese in large wooden bowls on the counter. In another room I caught glimpse of an oblivious old man who I later learned was Nagmyal's father.

Sitting down on the couch/bed Nagmyal put before us bowls of Curd. For those who don't know, curd is what the Indians's call Yoghurt, and it's a few times more repulsive then the American version. I don't eat yoghurt in general, and when its served with so many suspicious lumps there is little I can do but decline politely. "I can't eat this" was my response because I just don't care if I offend people - I just don't like it damnit! Olik grumbled something about a weak stomach after the trek but thanks so much anyways. The curd dissappeared in a flash and was replaced by store bought pound cake and two bottles of coke that Nagmyal's son had fetched from the market. While eating and drinking Nagmyal showed us pictures of his brother in the army, his brother parachuting, his brother reaching a mountain peak. More pictures of his ex-girlfriend from Japan with him in the desert and a couple of large amplifiers. More pictures of his sister (who is working in Israel for one year as migrant farmhand) and friends from the past. One picture of Nagmyal at a Tibetan freedom march.

Nagmyal then showed us a video called Nomads, about the Chinese occupation and persecution and the Tibetan struggle for independence. His family came from Tibet, he told us, fifty years ago or so, and most of his family was still there; he had never seen most of them. His father had a special visa and visited his brother and parents in Tibet regularly, but Nagmyal had never visited. He dreamed now of getting a visa to visit family he'd never seen.

We left Nagmyal's house after meeting his mom who offered us a couple pieces of fresh cow cheese which Olik accepted and I declined and rode to a peaceful spot overlooking the Indus river. We talked more about Nagmyals plans to work in Europe and save enough money to come back and open a trekking equipment store in Ladakh and tried to convince him to come to Israel instead. The full-moon shined brightly on the Indus as we chatted into the night. At ten we headed back to Leh in time for the full moon party.

Everyone was waiting at K.C. Garden whose owners were throwing the party. Lots of israelis and european tourists waiting for buses to take them to a secret location. Olik and I rode the bike behind the bus and arrived at the secret location after 25 minutes. The party was in the middle of a huge field surrounded by mountains and we danced until 7 AM.

After a few days lounging about and doing nothing particular except for enjoying myself, I decided to take a motorcycle trip to one of the surrounding areas. Nubra Valley is about six hours from Leh and we decided to go visit.

Stok-Kangri

I have to write fast because im still in Leh and the internet is damned expensive. Next trip: im bringing my own computer!

Some places let me write in WORD for cheaper rate and then upload to the computer but I havent found a place like this right now. Thank god I can speed type.

So we were at the base camp at a level of 5100 meters and the time was about 2AM. We started walking. Nagmyal first, then Yoav, then Olik and then me, bringing up the rear. The weather stood still at about freezing, and we were each carrying about 30 kilos in clothing, plus a backpack each with metal spikes to clip onto our shoes and a big ice ax.

The first ascent came quickly, and it was one we knew was coming as we could see it from camp. The first two minutes were fine, I was walking at a brisk pace and breathing normally. After this, however, my breathing began to lag, and I immediately felt that all the food I was encouraged to consume the night before was slowly trying to break free of my body. I walked "slowly...slowly" as Nagmyal had encouraged us, and breathed deeply and rhythmically, but the higher we went, the more nauseaus I felt. I told the group to stop.

I took off my gloves and tried to vomit into the freezing nocturnal low-oxygen air. Nothing. We kept walking. Every so often Olik asked to rest, his cigarette smoke loaded lungs not bearing well with extremely thin air. With flashlights we followed the precarious path higher and higher, and the nausea was only getting worse. I was breathing like a pack mule after a very very long day in the fields. Only the breathing was slower, one breath with each step, each step slower then the one before it.

I tried puking twice more and even tried to take a shit, just to get everything out of me. But nothing came. Nagmyal knew I wasnt going to make to the top, and I knew it to. In a way, I was fine with this, and at certain points I hoped my body would just cave in and fall, and that way I would not need to make the decision to turn back round on my own. The sun started coming up at around 4:30AM, and we were taking more frequent rest stops. Nagmyal, as usual, smoked his cigarettes and remained silent. He knew it was only a matter of time before the first of us dropped. He was also hoping, I think, that if one dropped, we would all need to return to base camp as a group and forfeit the climb. Not so easy.

At 6AM we reached the advanced base camp at 5500 meters and, feeling like 1000 pounds, we managed to squeeze ever fewer steps out of our ravaged bodies. We made it to 5600, or thereabouts. We were walking on slippery ice at this point, a huge glacier approaching us, and I couldnt walk more then five steps without keeling over. I decided I could not go on for I could barely breath and was feeling extreme nauseau. To continue at this point would be risking extreme high altitude sickness and even DEATH.

Olik and I decided to turn back....enough is enough we said. But Yoav wanted to continue, and Nagmyal said we should all go back. A moment of tension between us, Yoav stated firmly that he would continue alone if need be. Nagmyal, irritated, continued upward with Yoav as Olik and I started the descent.

Descending was easier then climbing but still taxing. The walk back to base camp was long and arduous, but the view from this high with the sun rising above us was, and I dont say this lightly, the most spectacular view Ive ever seen in my life. The sun rising slowly over the himalayan range, the clouds parting, ever imaginaeable hew of brown and blue and green merging together and becoming brighter by the minute. By the time we reached the last descent, I decided I wanted to savor the view from this peak. I took a seat and fell asleep on the sand while Olik continued to base camp. I woke up an hour later, stunned by the 360 degree view surrounding me.

I continued on to base camp around 8AM. After saying hello and giving a brief description of our non-successful attempt to climb to 6100 to a group of fellow trekkers, I arrived at our tents. The cook reminded me that the climb was actually a success, as I had reached 5600 meters, and that many many many dont make it the first time. For my first trek I had certainly attained great heights. In fact, we were the only trekkers with no experience who had attempted this trek. We were also the only Israelis. All the other trekkers, and there were about six other groups, were groups from France, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Austria who had all come to India to trek in Ladakh, and brought all the best North Face gear, a wealth of experience garnered through years of trekking in the Alps, and most importantly, they were all on 8-10 day treks that had culminated with the Stok-Kangri peak after making successfull high altitude pass crossings in the week before, allowing for proper acclimatisation. Our problem, I'm quite certain is that we made the limb from 3700 to 6100 way too fast.

Anyways excuses are lame and Ill concur Stok-Kangri some other time. Olik and I both felt good about the trek so far, even though we didnt make it to the top, and while waiting for Nagmyal and Yoav to return, we decided we wanted to concur at least one other shorter peak before returning to Leh. We had the whole day in front of us, and we were to spend the night at the same place. We took a long nap, and, rejuvinated, boworred a set of snow-trekking sticks from an Austrian couple. These sticks are a godsend, and I'm certain that if we had them during Stok-Kangri we would have made it.

We spotted a peak near base camp which was apparently 5700 meters high, and started climbing. We took our metal spikes because we wanted to climb some glaciers, damnit! The climb was hard, obviously, but without our guide, we climbed at our own pace. I quickly developed a strategy: five steps, five seconds rest. This soon grew into shorter steps and longer rests, but we made it. It was insanely difficult, especially since we hadnt rested that much since the previous night's climb. I had wanted to turn back at certain points, not sure why we were making ourselves suffer in such a way, but Olik had the determination to persist and reach the glacier. I was less excited about the thought of climbing ice, but Olik, who grew up in Israel, has seen little snow in his lifetime.

We reached the foot of the glacier and we were mad with joy as we dawned our spikes. We climbed a few meters in the ice, realized the whole thing could just cave in, and having no guide, opted against climbing to the very very top. What if we lost our grip and slid down into the steep jagged rocks below? We took out our Tibetan flag, hung it, took many many pictures and videos in which Olik shouted mad love induce rantings and proposals of marriage to his ex-girlfriend, and ate chocolates we brought with us. Then we ran down, and I mean ran.

Yoav and Nagmyal had come back and were resting in their tents by the time we got back. We conversed with the Austrian couple, Mikael and Nicole, both in their mid 30's and avid trekkers and nature lovers, and gave back the sticks (without which we would not have reached the glacier).

That night we sat and laughed with Nagmyal, Yoav, the cook Tal and the Donkey man as we reminisced about the crazy trek and reassured ourselves that the climb was actually a success and not a failure and we had reached dizzying heights nevertheless. Yoav felt ill at night having suffered milk sun stroke, but was fine. He showed us pictures from the peak and we felt like we had been right up there with him, we were so happy that he made it, and yet surprisingly, not dissapointed that we hadnt. I think the glacier we concured during the day had strengthened our resolve and confidence in our trekking abilities. Next time we would concur Stok-Kangri. Anways hey, we made it to 5700 meters from 3700 meters, not bad for a first trek.

Tapka, the 24 year old guide for the austrian couple came to smoke a victory joint with us in our tent later in the night and told us some seriously funny stories. He's been trekking for years and has a record of climbing Stok-Kangri in three hours; for most trekkers it takes about six. He basically runs up the side of the mountain as if its nothing for him, a joint hanging from his mouth as he does so. He's seen a lot of things during his climbs and he told us a story about the Donkey Man who sleeps with his donkeys, the orgies he's witnessed between trekkers of different nationalities, his own sexual escapades with lonely trekker girls from China and the U.S., and best of all a weird story of how all men god their ding dongs. Sufficiently teary eyed from laughing, we went to sleep that third night in very high spirits.

We woke early and after breakfast, started the long walk back to Stok village. We reached Stok at 1PM and waited for our jeep to arrive for about one hour. We drank a aweful tasting victory beer with some serious Danish trekkers who had also climbed Stok but with great difficulty, and then drove back to Leh. We took some final pics with Namgyal, Tal and Tsewang the agent, and went to find a guesthouse with a really hot shower. This was about ten days ago.

Just so the world knows Im going back to Manali tomorrow or the next day where the internet is a whole lot cheaper and faster, and where I'll probably compose the next post.

Leh

The bicycle trip over, Olik’s head fine, and my desire to concur mountains greater than ever, we decided to go ahead and put together a trek. Now, this was my first trek, and having no experience or knowledge whatsoever about the ins and outs of trekking, we decided to go ahead and do the hardest trek we could find. Actually, Olik climbs artificial rock walls in Israel and he wanted to do a trek that incorporated mountain climbing. This sounded good to me. After visits to a lot of different adventure travel agencies, we found out about the Stok-Kangri trek. Stok is a village 10 kilometers south of Leh nestled at the foot of the Stok Range. Kan is snow in Ladaky, and Gri is Mountain, and Kangri is Snow Mountain. Therefore we were going to climb to the peak of Stok-Kangri, or Stok Snow Mountain, at a height of 6100 meters! The trek was to start at Stok village (3700), ascend to 4700 on the first day, sleep at the first camp, then ascend another 400 meters the next day to 5100 and sleep at the first base camp. The second day at 1:30 am the climb to the peak was to start, a climb from 5100 to 6100 meters! Then the third day we rest and sleep at the same base camp and come back the whole way on the fourth day.

We organized our trip through Himalayan Adventure Outback Travels with a very pleasant and knowledgeable 27 yr old travel agent and former trekking guide named Tsewang. At first Olik and I had assured him that we would be getting a group together for the trek. We spent the next two days trying to find people but to no avail. It ended up being Olik and me, and one other 23 yr old Israel named Yoav, a recently released Maglan fighter (some kind of serious elite unit in the IDF) and a serious trekker, having completed a dozen treks in New Zealand, Australia, and South East Asia in the last year. His return flight to Israel was two weeks from the date and so this was to be his final trek.

The price was relatively high, at $42/day. Normally treks are not so pricey, but everything is more expensive in Leh due to the high elevation and higher cost of shipping food and materials. Also, a climbing trek is more expensive than a regular walking trek due to the safety and climbing equipment needed such as ice picks and spikes for the shoes to walk on glaciers, as well as highly trained climbing guide. The price also included a full time cook and food, a donkey man, five donkeys, all the tents, mattresses and sleeping bags. We got lucky with the best guide available, Nagmyal.

We met at six on the morning of the trek after placing most of our luggage in the Jewish House with Nachmun, the “warm and fuzzy” rabbinical student. I had bought some extra clothing for the trek, including a genuine Yak beanie that was just finished by an old lady sowing beanies in a small local market for 140 rupees. I also bought a double fleece sheep wool coat that would surely keep me warm in the sub freezing temperatures nighttime temperatures of Stok Range. This I was to wear over another fleece, thermal and long johns. I was also provided with a pair of serious mountaineering gloves by the agency and a pair of mountaineering sunglasses that one of the previous climbers had forgotten with the agency.

After loading the jeep with our equipment and bags (I took only my blue backpack) we headed to Stok Village. After 30 minutes and a stop for breakfast we made Stok, loaded the donkeys, said hey to the cook, and headed out on the trek. The first day was not so hard. Though we climbed nearly 1000 meters, we were relatively acclimatized to the altitude having been in Leh for nearly five days already. We walked on a path through a desert valley full of horses and donkeys. After stopping at a make-shift tea stall and chatting with other trekkers in the finishing stages of other treks, we continued towards our first destination. We arrived in the afternoon and were surprised to see that our tents were already set up, our donkeys already grazing, and our cook already cooking in the main kitchen tent setup. Nagmyal was sitting smoking a cigarette, something we noticed he did every time we either took a break or arrived somewhere.

The weather in Leh and Stok is hot during the day and shivering cold at night, and in the high altitude of Stok these differences are even more pronounced. As the weather turned cold we added layers of clothing, and by eight PM I was wearing 80% of the clothing I had brought with me. The service provided on the trek was something of a world I had never before experienced. Immediately upon arrival in camp the cook would serve us with hot mint or black tea and biscuits on an impromptu table with a bright red and black checkered tablecloth. We sat and ate the biscuits and drank the tea while marveling at the unbelievable valley in front of us. After about an hour of chatting and marveling at the level of service we were receiving and how every dollar we spent was really worth it, the cook served us dinner. That night we ate tuna momo, fried rice, baked potatoes with a dal sauce, and a cucumber salad. For dessert we were handed Kit Kats.

Most of the time we sat with Nagmyal, our Ladahky guide with big dark dreadlocks hanging together in blue-pink head scarf. Nagmyal is a 27 year old Ladaky trekking guide who has been leading treks for the past 8 years. Before that he learnt the ropes by being a porter or helping out other guides on similar treks. He grew up in a small Tibetan village on the outskirts of Leh with his parents and brother and sister. He never went to school but instead spent time working with his mother and father in the house milking cows and making cheese. His passable English he learnt from a friend, and his life experience led him the aura of a wise Tibetan scholar. Nagmyal also had an eight year old son produced from a fling with a girl when he was 18 years old. The mother had long since disappeared, and Nagmyal told me his life now was all for his son; to give his son the education and life that Nagmyal’s parents could not afford to give him.

He now drove a 500cc Honda that he had bought with savings, and was saving more to open a outdoor camping equipment store in Leh. Trekking guides, and especially climbing guides with knowledge of a foreign language could make good money in Leh. Though the season is only four to five months long, the guides work round the clock to save money because they are basically unemployable the rest of the year. Leading treks in other parts of the country or in Nepal is nearly impossible since most agencies give preference to local guides and much resentment is targeted towards non-local, especially Nepali, guides. I asked about the cook who was Nepalese and Nagmyal said that in a few years he would no longer be allowed to work in Leh, as the local community was developing strong protectionist measures against Nepalese workers in Leh.

We slept extremely well that first night and were woken at six in the morning by the cook with two cups of tea. Olik and I shared one tent, while Yoav was alone in another. After waking up and having a breakfast of omelettes, toast, jam and cereal, we packed our things and headed out towards the base camp. We left before the cook and donkey man had wrapped up all our things, and as usual they were to meet us at our destination.

The trek was short but difficult. At an altitutude of over 4700 meters we were beginning to feel the effects of high altitude trekking: difficulty breathing and constant lethargy. The path was rocky and steep, and with every step the walk became more difficult. Olik had particular trouble due to his cigarette smoking, while I coasted along pretty much until the end, where I started falling behind. Yoav, the star trekker walked with along with Naymyal far ahead and reached the base camp 20 minutes before Olik and I.

At base camp we setup the tent, drank more tea, and stared engagingly at the huge snow-capped Himalayan peaks that suddenly surrounded us from all directions. We were at 5100 meters now and the weather was cold even when we arrived at 12 noon. After eating a lot and drinking numerous cups of tea, we headed to our tents at 7pm to sleep until 1 am when we were to be awakened for the big climb to the Stok peak. I couldn’t sleep until 9 pm, and was seriously groggy when Tal the cook woke us at one. We had arranged all the climbing gear in our bags and were already half dressed when we were woken. We put on every item of clothing we brought, pissed, ate a gnarly soup of ginger and garlic that Nagmyal said was very helpful for breathing in high altitude climbing, and set out.