A very hard day in Nubra

Our breakfast was prepared in the garden of the tent camp. Two of us didn’t eat anything because they were ill. They decided to stay at the camp because today we had a tight program and it was going to be very hot – we couldn’t make out a single cloud in the sky!

The drivers brought us to the foot of a mountain. From there we started walking up a steep path that led to Entsa, a hermitage. While walking I felt worse and worse. I had stomach ache and felt sick too. I reduced my pace and when I told the others that I thought that I was ill too, everyone was immediately nice and caring. Someone took my backpack, I got offers to take medication and it made me feel better to see that the group was worried about me. I finished the 250 meters of altitude and lay down in the shadow of a tree in the courtyard of the hermitage. I got a Aspirin, but when I tried to drink it, I felt even more sick, so I stopped drinking and tried to relax instead. In the meantime, the others had a look at the building which is still not reachable by car. The road is being built at the moment.

Soon, the group finished and we went back down. I already felt much better, the rest in the calm garden was good. While going down, I didn’t feel sick at all and I could keep my normal pace.

on the way to the hermitage

After a short drive, we had lunch in a farmer’s garden. It was a pick-nick with rice, potatoes, vegetables and tofu. I only ate some vegetables. The problem that I had was that I was thirsty but when I drank some water, it made me feel sick, so I didn’t drink that much.

Our next destination were the hot springs. They weren’t that interesting, you could see where the 70°C-water was coming from and shortly hold your hand into the stream. But we didn’t use the simple bath that they had built. I thought that in Europe, there would be a big thermal bath with lots of basins and a sauna and all that stuff. But here they have some simple showers and one blank tub...

The third thing we visited was the holy lake of Tirisha. To get there, one has to do an uphill walk again, so I stayed behind and enjoyed the shade again. It is told that on full moon, one can see the Potala in Lhasa in the lake. Although we just had full moon, nobody could see it.

One last point we visited was a monastery called Samstanling. Again, I stayed behind and sat down on the stairs that led to the building complex. While I sat there dozing, suddenly something mad a loud noise when walking up the stairs. When I looked up, I saw a big cow passing by. It simply went up and then started to eat the flowers in the monks’ garden!

Annetraud and the others were lucky to see some beautiful statues and a mandala that was not yet finished.

I didn't see much more of the monastery than this... :-/

Finally, we drove back to the camp. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt, sometimes it was better, sometimes it was worse. We arrived at five o’ clock and didn’t have any program until dinner at 7.30. I had a shower and went to bed. Those two hours of sleep helped me a lot already. For dinner, our guide had ordered rice soup for the three ill group members. The soup wasn’t too bad if you added enough salt to it. I also drank some Magenfreund-tea and had some plain bread. Then I immediately brushed my teeth and went to bed again.

Walking on an old caravan highway and driving back to Leh

Guess who woke me up this morning. Yes, it was the flies that were still in our room. Luckily, they stole me only five minutes of my sleep because we had breakfast at seven anyway. Yesterday afternoon there were many clouds in the sky and in the evening and at night it rained. The garden was still wet, so we had breakfast in the dining hall.
We left Tingmosgang as soon as possible and after a short drive, we were left by the drivers at the edge of a little village called Ang. We started walking on an old caravan highway that was used before the road was built, and although the sun was not shining directly on our heads, it was still very hot. At least it felt hot, my thermometer showed something like 24°C...

our shadows are hiking upwards

One and a half hours later we arrived at our first pass for today. It was 3880 meters high and again marked by prayer flags.
But now only half of our tour was done: we had to walk down into a valley and up again on the other side. I liked that I didn’t have any problems with the altitude. I just walked like I would at home. And the way down was short because I kept talking with a guy from our group and suddenly we were at the bottom. Going up was harder but not long at all.
We reached the second pass with 3815 meters altitude.

3815 meters above sealevel! :)

I was a bit astonished when I reached it because after you go up a steep slope, you don’t expect the pass to be more or less flat on the other side! After having a snack and taking some pictures, we walked down to Hemis Shukpachan, a village that is well known for its juniper trees. There, we walked through green grass and stepped over many little streams. Hemis Shukpachan is an oasis in the middle of a huge mountain desert that has hardly any water. We got lunch boxes and sat in the green to eat them. The things we didn’t want to eat we gave to a small boy who then was happy as a child is on Christmas.

Hemis Shukpachan is a green spot between gray mountains

In total, the four hour-tour was very nice, especially because the weather was not too hot and therefore good for hiking. I didn’t feel completely tired when we arrived and this is a good sign because today we were higher than at the last pass.

What awaited us now was a very long drive back to Leh. The drivers did a really great job because the roads often couldn’t be called roads. In addition to the bad street conditions, we had to wait at a building site. Traffic in India is easy. Nobody obeys the rules and the one with the biggest authority or loudest horn or whatever, wins. Our driver blows the horn at every opportunity: when he doesn’t see around a bend, when there are people on or by the street, when he overtakes and even when he wants to greet somebody. But this is necessary because nobody looks back when overtaking and blinkers aren’t used either...

We safely arrived in Leh and got rooms in our old hotel. Some got the same, we got another which looks the same as our old room. In the afternoon we are going to see a polo match that is set up because of the Ladakh Festival. I never saw a polo match before so this is going to be interesting...

******
I changed the commentary option, if it doesn't work now, I have no idea what to do next.
You can see the picture books now, I had a wrong option there too...
Good night from Leh!

Lamayuru monastery and walk through the moon landscape

It was the worst night since we arrived in Ladakh. I woke up again and again, first because it was rather hot in my room and later because I was cold without my blanket. So getting up at 6am was kinda hard...
After breakfast we packed out things together once again, said goodbye to the professor and left Alchi. It was a long drive to Lamayuru and we had some adventurous roads on the way. Near the village, there is a rock formation that is said to look like on the moon, but actually it looks more like in the west of the United States where I was in 2009. Nevertheless you’ll find a Moon Guest House, a Moon Land Hotel and all other possible things are called “moon”.

I have never been on the moon, but I don't expect it to look like this!

At the monastery we met some young monks who were playing in the courtyard and liked being photographed. We visited the assembly hall and our guide gave us some information about the history of this monastery. We saw a cave where the monks saved some statues from invaders who destroyed most of it except for that particular cave. Another important fact about Lamayuru is that the swastika symbol is told to have been first recorded there. This symbol looks like a right turning Hakenkreuz but actually it is much older and stands for the historical Buddha Shakyamuni.
Before leaving again, we turned lots of prayer wheels that were all around the monastery.

The cars brought us to the foot of the hill on which the monastery was built and from there we started our first long hike. Two group members didn’t join, so there were six of us. Our guide made us go slowly, which was very good because I would have run too fast.
It was the first time I used my new hiking sticks to go uphill and they were very handy. We walked through a dry valley again but we hardly noticed the missing water because we were taken aback by the changing rock formation all around us. There were yellow rocks and gray rocks, loose rocks and hard ones. We also saw lots of mountain goats in the distance. One and a half hours later we reached the Prinkiti-La, the lizard pass. It is about 3790 meters high and marked with a prayer flag. On the top, our guide surprised us with some cookies and KitKat which he had carried up for us to eat, which was really nice. Annetraud offered Mannerschnitten and it felt a bit like at home.

Annetraud and me at the Prinkiti-La

The walk down was not as bad as I had imagined it, because during the 550 meters, there were clouds and wind to make us feel less hot. We reached the cars after three hours and had lunch at a nice river which we crossed without our shoes on to enjoy the shade on the other side. We got luch boxes from the hotel which included toast, an egg, an apple, mango juice, a potato, a Milk Treat, cookies and one slice of cheese.
When we had finished, we picked up the two others, who were waiting in the next village, and drove all the way back and further to Tingmosgang. Here we had some tea before we got our rooms which are very comfortable. Maybe that’s because this village is called the richest in Ladakh.

In the afternoon we had spare time which I used to upload my pictures and to get some rest. Also, Annetraud and I did some yoga which was quite funny.
Dinner was not as good as in Alchi but that’s really hard to reach up to. We had buffet again and apricots as dessert.
Now the flies are really annoying me. They got in in the afternoon and now they are sssrrrring around and tickling my arms. Why is there a cow right in front of our window?

How many flies can you find on our room's ceiling?

Hiking Tour Glungezer Hütte

Like planned, my aunt, Mario and I did a two day training hike to the Glungezer Hütte near Tulfes in Tyrol. My uncle was as kind as to bring us to the station of the Patscherkofelbahn cablecar which took us to the Patscherkofel, Innsbruck's home mountain. There were hardly any people in the cablecar and also when we started walking we met less and less other hikers. At first the path called Zirbenweg, was rather flat - we didn't gain or lose any hight. Then it slowly got steeper. At a parting of the ways, we seperated and while my aunt stayed on the original path, Mario and I went up to the Viggarspitze which is 2306 meters high. We enjoyed the beautiful sight before going down again and following the first path as well.

 

After four hours we finally arrived at the hut, which appeared quite suddenly after a quite steep slope. The altitude of 2610 meters is perfect for acclimatising. We were welcomed by my aunt who had already ordered tea. The host of the hut described to us how to get to our room, which was rather unnecessary because there were only two rooms in the hut! Ours was small and cold (the window was open) but nice. There were four places to sleep so we could use one as deposit station.
Next, we had dinner. If anybody ever told you that on mountain huts you just get simple or bad food, don't believe it because it is not true. We had four courses, four very good courses! Starter, soup, main course and desert. The hosts can really cook well!

We were all tired and went to bed early, around 9 o'clock. Unfortunately we didn't sleep too well and when the alarm clock rang at 6 am, nobody wanted to get up and leave their warm bed. But we had decided to watch the sunrise, so we had to face the cold air outside. It was 4°C and windy when we had a first glance towards east. The sun didn't show yet so we quickly went inside again and I took another jacket. This was when my aunt and I decided that we had to take along more warm clothes than we originally wanted to.
The sunrise itself was really beautiful. Have a look at the pictures, it is around half as lovely as it was in reality.

At breakfast we were the last ones because all other guest had already left. We took our time and after packing our things together, having a chat with the host (and explaining the Pangaea project to him), we also headed off. Our fist goal was the Glungezer - it was just 15 minutes from the hut and that's how we made another summit, this one is 2677 meters high.
Then we started our long way down. We met sheep along the way and saw several marmots that didn't care about us standing close by and taking pictures. They were rather fat too, ready for winter I guess. I never before got so close to a marmot.
Our hike ended at the upper station of the Glungezerbahn. It took us about one hour to get down to Tulfes because the lifts are quite slow. But we had time to enjoy the view and reflect on the nice tour we did.
In Tulfes we were picked up by my uncle again (after some difficulties) and we finally were back in civilisation.

I spent the rest of the day with packing, weighing my luggage and having my hair cut (it's short... :-) ). Everything is ready, now I need to focus on what's lying ahead of me and try not to panic. :-D

Glungezerhütte