I'D DO IT AGAIN BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW LUCKY I WAS THE FIRST TIME
clip "the movies" from last year's show
Cultural appropriation from the Land of Stupid?
Or self-generated blundering?
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One of my very best travelling days ever
Hitching down the Zanskar Valley
Which i would have enjoyed rather more
If i could have been sure at the time that it wasn’t a stupid thing to be doing
And that every slow kilometre wasn’t taking me further into trouble i’d have trouble getting out of
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Because
Lots of locals told me the new Zanskar Gorge Road is now “open”
But
That wouldn’t be my definition of “open”
When that road is so new it doesn’t properly “exist” yet
Though its certainly “there” enough to be utterly astounding
The most awe-inspiring valley road i ever drove down
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Bouncy-bouncy bang-bang crashy
Jiggety-jaggety crunchety crashy
From
Padum
To
Nimmu
Next the wide, white-splashed, brown ice-melt torrent
...
Down a plunging river valley, V-shaped not U-shaped and glacial
High, deep, jutting, rugged, stark
Old, aeons, tens of million
Tarmac, gravel, stone, sand
Winding, smooth, hairpins
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Strata bent, twisted, broken, precarious
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video clip is
THE MOVIES
from last year’s show
recorded as part of the Gabriola Island Theatre Festival
late August
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So there i was
Moving in five ten fifteen k fits and starts
Down the starkly beautiful river gorge road
The Zanskar valley North from Padum
Much of it overhung by vast cliffs
Much of it newly carved from the rock
Sometimes with a rock overhang the width of the two-lane road...
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Yet it’s not finished
[Though there are already signs of subsidence]
And so, because it’s not finished, there’s no traffic
Making hitch-hiking somewhat tricky
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While all my hitching in Ladakh, so far
Has been a cheery cruise of a chummy doddle
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And, also, the best way to meet local folk
Friendly, chatty, informative Ladhaki folk
Doctor, teachers, civil servant, crypto whizz-kid
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Many many folk hitch-hike here
Even young women hitch-hike
Which doesn’t happen in most of India
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Meanwhile, my two devices were not functioning
So i had no map
And had no idea how much or, more importantly, how little, of the 280 k i’d done
Though Google Maps and Maps.Me are both wrong and out of date in much of Ladakh, anyhow
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While its a big shame i couldn’t take my own photos
For none of the online pictures do it justice
None show the enormity
Or what it’s like to be on the finished and unfinished road
At the bottom of the high gorge
With the vast rock
And its twisted or vertical or vanishing rockbeds
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Elemental
Raw
Brute
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I’ve hitch-hiked thousands of time
And this was the most amazing day of them all
Where this road, the Zanskar Valley Road,
Is going to be incredible, a global wonder
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Assuming portions of it don’t slip into the river
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So me?
My lifts were one truck
One school bus, full of noisy schoolgirls
One teacher
Three construction trucks
One of them army
And one of them twice...?
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While groups of road workers i passed offered me lunch
And brought me water
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While the roadside time
Beneath overhangs
Under cliffs
Next a bridge
Was all glorious
Yet worrisome
For what lies ahead?
Does the road continue all the way?
And are there vehicles and therefore lifts on it?
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Until
After a number of slow hitch-hiking hours i had no means to count
There i was
Beyond the middle of not-really-anywhere
Stood in the dust and sun and splendour
Waiting for non-existent traffic
Which didn’t exist because the road ain’t open yet
And even if it did exist
The safety checkpoint a mile back wouldn’t let it through for four more hours, till 5pm
Though they did let the foot-bound foreign hitch-hiker through
Me...
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So i walked on until i got to an unbridged ford i didn’t want to hazard
And stood waiting
In the stark wowing high beauty
For forty minutes
Without a single vehicle
Thinking, am i in trouble
Or not?
Is this stupid
Or not?
It’s errr difficult to tell
Because the whole day has been slow
In the rocky grandeur
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And then my saviours ...
The taxi with two holidaying Hyderabadis
A doctor and an I.T. guy
Who both had an altitude sickness problem further up
And therefore had to abandon their motorcycles
To descend fast
And, being proper types
Had got an official medical exception to the closing of the road
And were allowed through checkpoints
Unlike all other civilian traffic
So their exception was my ticket to security
And i was sorted
Though i found i’d only travelled maybe 100 k
In six amazed hours of bitty hitching ...
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So then
There i was
Sat in the back seat
Goggling and gawping at the awe-inspiring splendours
Neck-swivelling, neck-lowering
Eye-narrowing, eye-raising
At the yawing rock
The flowing, churning, foaming river
The enormous scree-slopes
The colossal rock-faces
The gob-smacking scale of it
The height of the rock
The twisted mangled strata
The brown grey green red rock
The broken and smashed and pulverised
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Brute
Elemental
Colossal
Ancient
Towering
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With more fallen boulders than anywhere i ever seen
With more twisty switch-backing in the rock layers
The seams and veins and faults
Than anything i ever saw before...
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While i had to wonder
Am i the first to hitch-hike this astounding road?
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Until we cruised out the North end of the valley
Where the Zanskar meets the fabled Indus River
And turned right towards Leh
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Where i am now
And don’t really want to be
Now my laptop is fixed
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For i’d thought i could cruisily hitch down the Zanskar
Sort my malfunctioning laptop
Then neatly hitch back and resume plans
Yet, after yesterday
[How lucky was i?]
I dunno how wise that would be
Yet any other way back to Padum is right around the houses, maybe 400 k
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And there’s the big question
How lucky was i?
I suspect i was pretty damn lucky
And therefore shouldn’t try it again
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So i’m wondering what to do next
On Friday i guess
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Back to Brakoo is very tempting
And then there’s Tingmosgang ...
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Padum before the pass to the mid-right
taken from Karsha across the Tsarep River
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in other news
after a month in Ladakh i finally found some good food
for here scran has been no more than ok
the Indian curries are unspecial
ditto the thalis
and momos and noodle soups are only ever not bad
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while down South i’d springing cheerily from my hotel
three times a day
expectant of good food
yet here?
not so much
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till this morning i found
fresh bread
from something very like a tandoori
called chapatis but not like chapatis down South
more nan-like
yet doughy and crusty at the same time
while i inherited some honey
from Brody the Utah permaculturist
and the honey is perfect with this bread for an uncharacteristic sweet breakfast
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while lunch was South Indian poori
nice
with curd, spicy bean- lentil and
a first
some kind of reddish sweet and sour sauce
reminding me China ain’t so far away
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