October Happenings

After the FAT, we all needed some actual relaxation. First up was a trip up to Avalanche, a lake about two hours north near Ooty. I went with my buddy Chris from Singapore and his family. We stayed at a resort/farm called Destiny. Unfortunately, it rained on us most of the time we were there so we weren't really able to take advantage of many of the activities offered. We mostly stayed in by the fire reading and playing Uno.

Chris and I fishing in the rain.

Destiny Farmstay

Dinner with Natalie, Lisa, Gregory, and Chris.

I'm not sure what occasion this was from, but here's a picture of some of the Air Wing officers in their service dress:

Chris (Singapore), Alex (UK), me, and Ki-nam (Korea)

For Halloween, my fellow American officer, Jeff threw a party. It was a costume party, though it seems like most of the foreigners just came in their national dress. Costume shops are in short supply here in Wellington, so most of us made due as best we could. Personally, I threw on a bed sheet at the last minute and called it a lungi.

With Vanessa (Australia) and Hilde (UK).

With Lisa (Singapore) and Min-hee (Korea)

With Ki-nam (Korea), Jose and Gaby (Chile)

With Mohammed (Egypt) and Ali (Oman)

Jeff shows Michael (Zambia) some American dance moves.

FAT Part Five

The final chapter of the FAT took us to the plains of Jammu, well south of the Himalayas but still near the western border with Pakistan. Tensions in the area are still high, so the foreign officers were mostly relegated to staying in their rooms at night, traveling in convoys, and traveling by helicopter. To get to Jammu, we boarded an IL-76 from Leh. We were the first to board, so we all got decent seats and made ourselves comfortable. Once all of the officers had boarded, someone released the hordes and our plane was swamped with Indian soldiers trying to get out of Leh. I couldn't believe the pilots were willing to fly with passengers sitting in every possible nook and cranny in the back of the aircraft. Somehow, we still made it to Jammu...

Keep your seat backs and trays in the upright position for takeoff...

Ruwan, Riva, me and Dhar...tea and samosas upon arrival in Jammu.

Our time in Jammu was mostly spent traveling to different Indian Army formations in Punch, Rajouri, and Akhnour to see how they handle border security with Pakistan. To be honest, you can only see a border fence so many times before it becomes a bit redundant. Fortunately, there were some other sights to keep us occupied as well.

In front of a Hindu temple.

The faithful bring bells as offerings to the temple and leave them there.

In Akhnour we stopped by an Indian Army shooting range where they train their shooters for international competition. They showed us the skeet and air rifle ranges, and let us try our hand at some of the events. We all sucked big time at skeet shooting, but I held my own on the air rifle range.

It was also interesting to see yet another part of India, as each region in India tends to be very different from the others.

City of Rajouri

Street scene in Rajouri

Ali shops at a fruit stand.

Foreign officers with the Chief Instructor - Air, posing in front of our Mi-17 transport.

By the end of our time in Jammu, I was more than ready to get back to Wellington. Travel in India tends to wear you out, and we happily boarded one more IL-76 to get the hell outta Dodge.

FAT Part Four

First, an apology for being lax and not updating the blog for a while. The last month has been packed with school work, exercises, and vacation travel. I have a ton of pictures to put up, and I'll try to get to all of them before the end of the year.

But back to the FAT... When I left off, we had just finished a hellish day of driving along the Pakistan border and had returned to Kargil to pack up for our next destination.

Next on the itinerary was a trip to the far north of Indian Kashmir. The Siachen Glacier is the highest occupied battlefield in the world. The Indian Army maintains a network of border outposts on Himalayan peaks over 20,000 feet high. We weren't able to land on the glacier, but did manage to take some pictures while flying low-level passes in an An-32.

Glacial flow

High peaks

High altitude camp

After viewing the glacier, we landed for a quick stop at Thoise Air Base, where most supplies for the glacier are staged. While at Thoise, we also toured some of the headquarters facilities for the batallion currently occupying the glacier.

Our An-32 after landing at Thoise.

Zul (Malaysia), Amin (Afghanistan), Riva (Indonesia), and Ali (Oman)

Ali takes an oxygen break at Thoise.

Raj, Dhar, Riva, and I visiting a military unit.

Late in the afternoon we departed for Leh, a (relatively) large city in the Ladakh region of India. The Ladakh region is mostly high mountain desert with very stark features. The people are mostly Buddhists and seem to be more Tibetan than Indian. We spent three days in Leh, touring the local military outposts, doing some sight-seeing, and getting in some shopping for pashmina shawls and semi-precious stones. Our accommodations in Leh were a bit sparse, and we actually didn't realize how sparse until our last night there. I was sharing a room with my sponsor Indian officer, Gangs. We noticed it was pretty cold at night in the room, but just chalked that up to the fact that the power was turned off every night at midnight. On our final night, while sharing beers with some fellow officers in our room, one of them noted that the curtain seemed to be moving and that maybe the window was open. Upon investigation we learned that not only was the window open, there actually was no window--just a window pane with no glass! We notified the soldier responsible for the rooms, and his response was, "Oh, don't worry, it's been like that for a while." Obviously, this made us feel better...

View of the outskirts of Leh

Moonrise over the Indus River near Nimu.

Alley in the Leh market

Military HQ in Leh

Downtown Leh traffic

Buddhist prayer wheel

Confluence of the Indus and Zanskar Rivers

Don't kid yourself--we may be smiling, but this was just one more crappy bus ride on the FAT.

Leh is well known for its famous Buddhist monasteries, called gompas, which are scattered around the city. Each gompa has a population of resident monks of all ages who study and perform rituals throughout the day. The gompas were extremely peaceful places to visit.

Prayer flags in the Hemis Gompa courtyard.

Monks doing outdoor rituals at Thiksey Gompa.

Monks inside at Thiksey Gompa.

Meeting a novice monk.

Huge Buddha statue

View of a stupa looking across the mountains.

Another spiritual site we visited was the Gurudwara Pathar Sahib. In this location, Guru Nanak, who founded the Sikh religion, was supposedly meditating when a demon tried to kill him by hurling a boulder down upon him. Instead of killing him, the boulder apparently melted around him. The boulder remains here as a place of worship, and you can still see the supposed impression of the Guru in the rock.

Sikh shrine

Rock showing the indentation of Guru Nanak.

One other location of note that we visited was Khardung La, a mountain pass which has the highest motorable road in the world (at least until winter). Khardung La sits at 18,380 feet, so we only stopped long enough to take a few pictures before the extreme cold and thin air could take its toll.

After three days in Leh, we were ready to move on to our final destination on the FAT, Jammu...

FAT Part Three

The next day of the FAT was going to be spent in and around the town of Dras. The mountains around this town are close to the Pakistani border and were the location of fighting between India and Pakistan in 1999. We loaded up the bus early in the morning and set out for Dras. The sign on the road out of Kargil said Dras was 56 km away. In the US, 56 kms can be covered in under an hour. In India, 56 kms usually means two to three hours. The road between Kargil and Dras was relatively good for being in the middle of nowhere, but there were still large bumps in the road which tended to be unannounced and unwelcome. The bus we were loaded into had apparently been devoid of shock absorbers for many years, so each bump caused those of us sitting in the back to be launched 6-8 inches into the air. I'm not sure if there's bus service to Hell, but if so I'm pretty sure this bus was on loan from Satan's municipal transit company. After three or four of these bumps, I felt it was wiser to semi-stand with my back against the seat rather than risk a spinal compression fracture. To make things even better, it turned out our first stop wasn't going to be at Dras, but rather we were going to the tiny outpost of Gumri which was another hour and a half past Dras. Four and a half hours and innumerable potholes later, we arrived at Gumri where we were treated to a five-minute briefing and the usual break for tea and samosas. After that excruciating bus ride, we were in disbelief that we had come all that way for a total of twenty minutes of activity. I was near my breaking point. Sensing the possible on-coming of an international incident, my sponsor student arranged for me to ride back in one of the SUVs accompanying the bus. I didn't argue. On the way back to Kargil we stopped off in Dras, our actual destination. We spent a bit more time there getting a full explanation of the 1999 conflict and I will give the Indian soldier credit for being able to fight at high altitude over very rough terrain. I'm still not entirely sure why these rocks were so important, but they fought bravely for them...

Worst...Bus...Ever

L: At the base of a glacial stream near Gumri
R: Local hut

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You may think this is a road to nowhere in the middle of the mountains. You would be correct.

Me, Riva, Amin, and Ali wait around for the next briefing.

Tea and samosa break number four for the day.

View of the mountains from Dras.

L: More mountains
R: Local yaks and village view on the way back to Kargil

We returned to Kargil in the early evening and got ourselves packed and ready to leave early the next morning for even higher altitudes...