1985 – Kashmir, Ladakh and the road to Kathmandu
Part 1 – Kashmir
I returned from my first trek in 1984 with a different view on life. All I wanted to do was to go back to Kashmir and Ladakh and spend my life trekking in the Himalaya. Up till that point in my life my ambition had been to work my way up in the catering world and train to be a pastry chef in Switzerland. But I returned from the Himalayarealizing there was more to life than chopping vegetables into tiny squares in the hope of one day being promoted to the patisserie section of a kitchen.
At the end of my first trip to India in 1984 the local agent had said to me ‘come and work for us next summer – we have a small office in Leh and we Kashmir is don’t like Ladakh as there are no trees like here in Kashmir’. Just a simple throwaway comment, but a seed was sown that would change my life forever. The next few months were spent working in an hotel in Switzerland (chopping the dreaded vegetables) and saving up for a flight to India. I loved Switzerland – I could practice my German language skills and I learnt to ski. I felt at home in the mountains and loved the icy dry cold, high-altitude, snow and sunshine (plus there was plenty of cheese and chocolate in the diet!).
By June 1985 I had booked myself the cheapest flight I could find to Delhi. This ‘job’ or part volunteer workwas not going to pay me a wage, so I needed to be careful with my budget. Another girl was to join me, and the local company put us in touch with one another. We chatted on the phone and met at Heathrow before flying to Delhi for our big adventure. We were both so excited that it didn’t matter that there was no alcohol, food or film on the plane. 3am on a steamy, hot night we stepped off the plane into the oven of Delhi.
We found the local office in Delhi, a small house in the centre of town, where we sat sweating on the doorstep, swatting mosquitos until a more sociable hour. At about 7am the cleaning boy opened the door and gazed at us. Once we explained who we were, he invited us in and after a glass of icy cold water we were offered a tiny clay cup of hot, spicy chai. After introductions and breakfast, we had a wash and explored the local area. Phone calls were made by the boys working in the office – young men from Kashmir who were nearly all relatives of the family who owned the company. The plan was to send us to Kashmir the next day. That suited us perfectly as Delhi was so hot and humid plus it was choked with fumes. Early the following morning we were taken to the bus station in an auto rickshaw that sped through the streets of Delhi, screeching its way in and out of huge trucks that roared past. The bus station was absolute chaos, even at 5am in the morning. It was like everyone in Delhi was catching a bus to somewhere. Bus conductors shouted and hollered their bus destination, families were fast asleep under thin cotton sheets, tea sellers were wandering in and out yelling ‘chai chai garam chai (tea tea hot tea) and men shouted from stalls selling food, cold drinks, books, plastic toys, fruit, newspapers, freshly squeezed juice and anything else anyone could want on a long bus journey. We were lucky that one of the office boys was with us and knew which of the hundreds of buses to get on. Our rucksacks were thrown on the roof and for 1 rupee the bus boy promised it would be safe. We didn’t realise at the time, but this journey was to be a test. Our task was to look after ten tourists that had booked a houseboat with the company. We didn’t think that was a hard job, but we were naïve in the cutthroat ways of the tourism industry then. We soon learnt that other companies had put touts on the bus that would try and lure ‘our tourists’ onto their boats. We heaved a sigh of relief as twelve hours later the bus pulled into the terminus in Srinagar and we were met by one of the brothers we knew and handed over our tourists.
I was sent to stay with the family of one of the guides the company employed. Ghulam Rasool and his wife and three children lived on a small doonga boat on the busy Dal Lake. Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir is set around two lakes – Dal and Nageen. Dal Lake is more central and is busy and bustling with life. Large houseboats line the lake and in between are the smaller doonga boats. A doonga boat is a small floating family house with a bedroom, living area and small kitchen area. They are much smaller than the larger boats used for the tourist industry (it would be a while before I got to stay on one of these). Often a doonga will be attached to a larger boat and the cook and his family will live there. I settled down to life on the lake and Ghulam’s family became my friends. His wife cooked delicious Kashmiri food – paneer (soft cheese) and vegetables cooked in fragrant sauces and perfectly cooked rice. We would all eat together, sat on the floor in the living area eating with our right hand. At first it was difficult learning how to scoop rice and curry up together, but the children taught me well and there was lots of laughter and mess. I was given the small bedroom and there was a small bathroom area with a pan squat toilet (that went straight into the lake!!) and a shower base with a tin bucket. I leaned over the side of the boat to fill the bucket and washed in the cold lake water.
In exchange for English lessons for the children I was taught a few Kashmiri words. To get into town the youngest boy would row me to the shore on his small water taxi (shikhara) and after the children had done homework, we would take the small boat out on the lake to visit relatives.
Ghulam took me to the local office where I was told that I would be sent to Leh to run the office, but I couldn’t go yet as the road to Leh was still closed. The 425km road journey from Kashmir to Ladakh takes 2 days by bus and crosses three passes – the Zoji La at 3,500m, which crosses the Himalaya, is the pass that is blocked by snow from about November until June, the Namiki La at 3,700m and the Fatu La at 4,100m. I was excited to see the road as I had heard that it is one of the most spectacular journeys on earth (I will describe it in more detail in the next part of my story). Leh was effectively cut off from the rest of the world for at least 6 months of the year and it would be many years before I discovered the beauty of Ladakh in winter.
The Moghul Emperor Jahangir once said about Kashmir: “If there is Paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.” So, over the next couple of weeks, I took the opportunity to explore parts of this paradise. My first bus ride was to Pahalgam, a small, picturesque town set amidst fir and pine forests. The main street was a bit like a frontier town with men on ponies galloping up and down touting for business for their guest house or to offer their services for trekking. I found a small lodge for the night (of course I had followed the dashing dark eyed young man on the only white horse in town!) and wandered round the colourful bazaar. The clear air and rushing streams were a refreshing change to the cars, honking horns and bustle of Srinagar. That evening I met a couple of Australians and as you do when you are backpacking alone, we teamed up to do the 4-day trek to the Kohlahoi Glacier that the boy at our lodge had recommended. Rucksacks packed we set off up the valley to a place called Aru. The scenery was very Swiss-like with huge fir and pine forests and a rushing river roaring down the valley. This trek was to become one of my favourites over the next few years and little did I know now that I would be leading groups of clients there next year. From Aru the trail climbed by the river to Lidderwat. This was the last place to stay and the aptly named Paradise Lodge provided a bed, food, and warmth. Over the next few years, I would spend many evenings in this small wooden lodge sitting round a comforting wood burning stove – interestingly Lidderwat was the place that in 1995 six western tourists were kidnapped from and a book called ‘The Meadow’ was written about the episode. The next day we had a long walk to the glacier and back, passing many shepherd camps. In the summer, this area is inhabited by the semi nomadic Gujjars, beautiful tall and often blue-eyed mountain people who had huge flocks of long-legged sheep and goats. The excitement of meeting all these (to me at the time) beautiful, exotic people made the whole thing even more adventurous. Returning to Srinagar I read and learnt about other treks and places to visit and spent my time exploring this wonderful valley.
By late June there were rumours that the road to Leh was going to open. Trucks laden with fruit, vegetables and chickens were desperate to get to Ladakh. The Zoji La was blocked by up to 60 foot of snow in the winter and the road across the pass was narrow and a one-way system operated. The army were clearing the snow and ice as fast as they could, but it took time. Finally, I was called to the office and given a 39-rupee B class bus ticket from Srinagar to Leh that would depart the following day at 6am and a key to what would be my office in Leh.
The next part of my adventure was about to begin.
To be continued in Part 2 – summer in Ladakh
(Part 3 will be – the road to Kathmandu)
