Did We Mention There'd Be Monkeys?: 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.