At the beginning of this week the UWC group returned from their 10 day MarkhaValley trek and went off on their homestays with their Lamdon student hosts. We saw a few of them at school and asked them how the trek was. The answer from most of them was “tiring!” but I reckon they all enjoyed it nonetheless. The teachers did their ‘homestay’ at Mr. Tundup’s guesthouse so we had a good time catching up with them about UWC and Singapore. On Wednesday we went to dinner with them and some of Bill’s sherpa staff in town. We went to a really good Tibetan restaurant called Tibetan Kitchen and ate momo’s (of course), thukpa and lots of paneer. Penny Jackson, who I’d heard of through being part of Himalayan GC at school, was also around as she’d been helping out on the UWC trek and is staying in Ladakh for a bit to help Bill with the medical camp in Nubra next week. He has arranged for nine dentists, an eye doctor, a women’s health doctor and a number of general practitioners to come to Ladakh for a week to run a medical clinic at the LamdonSchool in Diskit, Nubra, for the students and the general public in the area. The team and Bill have also gathered a huge amount of medical donations and necessary equipment which they’re going to bring over to Nubra with them.
At the school we had a really fun class on Monday with the younger girls. A while ago Tom and I bought a small book of Tibetan folk tales. We brought this to class with us and read out the beginning of one of the stories about three beautiful daughters who couldn’t find the right men to marry. They weren’t allowed out of their house except one day they begged their parents to go to a big festival happening in the town. The students then had to get together in groups and think of how the rest of the story would go and then act it out in front of their friends. This worked really well because they didn’t have to spend so much time thinking of how to start which usually takes a long time. One of the groups’ stories had the daughters get attacked by three bad men at the festival. Then three good men came and rescued them. Inevitably the sisters got married to the good men in the end and they all lived happily ever after.
As Jason has now gone back to the U.S. Yueng Chen asked us if we’d like to come and stay with her. Although it has been great staying with Mr. Tundup and his family, we thought it would be really nice to stay with Yeung Chen who is such great company. It would also mean staying in a proper house as opposed to a guest house and it’s also just up the road from the school which is very convenient. So we moved in with her on Friday morning and immediately made friends with her 7 year old nephew Smanla who is very easily entertained by making and destroying card houses and playing ‘catch’. Smanla’s parents live a couple of hours away from Leh but he lives with Yeung Chen so he can go to LamdonSchool. Yang Dol, who came to Nubra with us the first time, is also still at home on break from university in Jammu.
The LamdonSchool exams start next week so unfortunately we’ll have nothing at all to do in Leh. Therefore, when Yueng Chen asked us if we’d like to come to Nubra with her (she has been asked to go along to help the medical team) we were more than happy to do so. We’re not sure what we’ll do but Yueng Chen said there might be a possibility of us helping out with the medical camp which would be great. So we got Bill’s permission to tag along and set off with Yueng Chen in a jeep on Saturday morning up and over the Khardung La again and down into the beautiful NubraValley. Yueng Chen had to go to straight to Diskit to bring the exam papers to the school but as the other people in the jeep were going on to Hundar we decided we might as well spend the night there as we really liked it the last time we visited. Hundar is apparently the oldest village in Nubra and was once well known for it’s production of iron from the surrounding mountains. To get there you also have to pass the sand dunes alongside the river. Apparently the sand dunes form there because when the river level drops the fine sand along the banks dries out and is blown through the valley; the part of the valley where the sand dunes are found is the widest part of the valley and therefore has the less wind energy so much of the sand gets dropped there. Although I’ve found out a little more about the valley since being here the last time I still wish I could come with a geologist or a guide to tell me more about this incredible valley!
This week all the students started serious preparation for the upcoming exams. Although it’s great that they all have such a good work ethic we unfortunately found ourselves with no older students to teach because they were too busy for extra classes. This means we have temporarily stopped work at the boys’ hostel all together but we have some work to do at the girls’ hostel. For the next few weeks we are going to be teaching the class 6 students who are typically around 12 or 13 years old. We have had to change the structure of our classes a little because some activities are a little too demanding for our new students. For example having hour-long debates is out of the question. Instead we have been focusing on dramas and games that encourage the students to practice their spoken English.
Joss also had three of her wisdom teeth taken out by Jason and Yeung Chen this week and is just about getting over the discomfort. For someone who has a fear of needles Joss did really well with the anaesthetic injections and the extractions. I think she found it easier having a friend remove her teeth because she was really calm throughout. I even got to play a vital role (haha) in the whole thing because the electricity went out just after the injections so I had to operate a very complex piece of equipment to keep the suction going - a foot pump.
After Joss had her teeth out she felt pretty woozy so she went home and I had to take one class of about 35 grade 6 students. The class went quite well although the younger students aren’t so shy around me anymore so they don’t mind getting quite hyper when they are doing fun activities. Sods law would have it that on the day I was teaching on my own the use of the study hall would be disputed. When the girls had just settled down and started performing their dramas about 20 older students burst into the room, didn’t realize I was there and promptly ordered the younger students out. This sparked a spirited argument that lasted about 5 minutes and eventually the older students realized the younger students weren’t just playing around and agreed to share the hall for the last 15 minutes of our class. Unfortunately after all the excitement it took a while to get back down to work! All in all it was a tiring class!
This week was also the famous Hemis festival which meant that, aside from my tiring class and sports on Saturday and a time slot that the boys were busy studying in on Tuesday, there was no school for most of this week. Mr. Tundup told us ahead of time that the reason for going to the Hemis festival, the masked dancing, is made somewhat redundant by the fact that it is always so unbelievably crowded that you probably won’t even catch a glimpse of the dance itself. Bearing this in mind we accompanied Jason, Yeung Chen, Yang Dol and Smanla (Yueng Chen’s nephew) to a masked dance in Choglamsar which was basically the same dance as in Hemis but with a much lower attendance. We really enjoyed the masked dancing and traditional music that went with it although we didn’t stay to watch the whole performance because it was such an incredibly hot day.
We were sad to say goodbye to Jason this week as he flew back to Alaska a few days after the masked dancing. We have really enjoyed his company over the last few weeks and it’s a shame he had to go so soon.
This week has definitely been a highlight of our time in Ladakh so far. As Tom mentioned last week, Jason booked us a jeep for 3 days and 2 nights in the NubraValley – and it was amazing.
On Friday morning, after an obligatory cup of tea at Yung Chen’s house, the five of us – Tom, Yung Chen, Yang Dul (Yung Chen’s daughter), Jason and I – began the 6 hour drive up and over the LadakhRange, along the highest motorable road in the world, into Nubra. It took us two hours to traverse a hair-raising 40km ascent to the top of the Khardung La (18,380 ft). As we got near the top the road surface quickly deteriorated due to rivers of melted snow flowing down them. We bounced through potholes and over stones excavated by the running water with nothing but thin air between the edge of the road and 100-metre drop below. We round a blind hair-pin bend in the road and are unexpectedly confronted by an oncoming truck. Our backs are gently thrown from our seats as the driver hits the brakes, knees clench, hearts stop and then we fall back into our seats again, relieved to still be on the road and not to be at the bottom of the mountain mangled in the carcass of the car – the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of future tourists. Slowly, the two vehicles inch past each other and we’re off again. Fortunately there is a fantastic view over Leh and the surrounding mountains to distract us and soon enough we’re joking about again.
The reason for going to the NubraValley is not necessarily to visit some certain attraction but just to experience it. No matter how many photos we took, we couldn’t take one that really showed how spectacular the land forms were and the sheer scale of everything. Nubra is hemmed in by the KarakoramMountains to the north and the LadakhRange to the south. The ShyokRiver runs parallel to the LadakhRange and the NubraRiver flows into it from north to south. Along both of these valley floors, at the bottom of the huge, steep-sided reddish-brown mountains, are scattered a number of very fertile villages. On our second night we stayed in Panamik, a village as far north as a visitor can go, which was built on an alluvial fan which had fallen from the mountains behind it into the valley below in which the huge blue NubraRiverGrand Canyon. A terrace was suddenly swallowed up, rivers had carved enormous gullies and crevasses in the rock until all that was left was like a bar code. Except for the villages, everything was barren. The only things that would grow were tough shrubs and the only animals that seemed to be able to live there were camels, donkeys and lizards. We flew along the mountainsides and occasionally across the valleys filled with white rounded rocks and pebbles brought down by the rivers. We kept wishing we had a geologist with us to tell us about all the rock types and landforms. braided over a width of perhaps 500m. There were hundreds of these alluvial fans, like the tail-ends of huge sandy wedding dresses flowing down from the mountains. Other parts of Nubra were like the
Our first stop in Nubra was Deskit where there is a small Lamdon school with a hostel. We had a tasty lunch of momos and noodles and then, glad for a chance to stretch our legs, went for a short walk to see the school. We met some of the staff who we bumped into the next day when we went for a 30-minute camel ride in some sand dunes (!). The school was having their summer picnic and so they invited us for butter tea after our undulating ride. The camels were two-humped Bactrian camels which are descendants of the camels who used to travel along the main trade routes through Central Asia and into Leh. They weren’t the most comfortable animals to ride on but we all enjoyed the strange experience.
After seeing Deskit we continued west along the ShyokRiver for another 7km to Hundar where we found a nice guesthouse and went for a walk along one of the river’s tributaries. We found an old mill and walked upstream through the trees and chortens up to a bridge which is another dead-end for tourists (very clearly stated by a number of armed military men on the other side).
On the second day we misguidedly had it in mind to go to see the Siachen glacier. However, we hadn’t yet realized that it was outside the permitted tourist area and is still the scene of military occupation as part of it is in an area which is disputed between Pakistan and India. So we gave that a miss and did the camel ride followed by a visit to Deskit gonpa on our way back and up to the NubraRiver. Deskit gonpa is about 700 years old and sits majestically above the town on a big crag. Like the other gonpas we’ve visited so far, there were the usual heavily decorated prayer rooms and statues and rooms with prayer books in them. What was interesting about this gonpa was how they get their water. It was great having Yung Chen with us because of course she speaks Ladakhi and everybody likes her so whenever we went to visit places we got special treatment and found out more about where we were. In this case, we got shown around the gonpa by a monk who also took us round the back and further up the long crag to show us the deep gorge and how the monks used to climb down the almost vertical 100m rock face to collect buckets of water. Now they have a long water supplying pipe which goes far back up into the gorge to a point where the river is above the gonpa. However, sometimes the pipe needs repairing for which a rope is attached to a big rock at the top for the monks to abseil down and along the cliff face on. Om mani padme hum.
In the afternoon we drove north along the NubraRiver through the village of Sumur on to Panamik. After finding a nice family-run guesthouse there and eating more momos we drove 4km upriver to cross the bridge and then 4km back downriver to the bottom of the path which led up to Ensa gonpa – a tiny, 800 or 900 year old gonpa looked after by one monk half way up a large rocky hill. The path wasn’t very obvious but it was a great climb. First we scrambled up a small steep slope of loose slate and then found a slightly more obvious path which zigzagged up the hillside, marked here and there by small piles of rocks. After about half an hour of working our way up the slippery sandy path we got to the top. Thanks to Yung Chen we got a tour around the place and got invited to have tea with the monk. We sat in a room which overlooked the valley. It was coming towards the end of the day and the sun was falling on Panamik with its tall green poplar trees and lush green barley, sometimes interrupted by a haze of purple heather and splashes of yellow mustard fields.
We all slept very well that night but woke up early the next morning to go down the road to the hot springs before breakfast. The actual spring was further up the hill but the water had been channeled down the hill to a small building of two rooms where it came out of a pipe. Although the water cools as it comes down the hill it’s still quite hot when it comes into the building. So we had nice warm showers, followed by chapattis before setting off on our way back to Leh. On the way we stopped once along the NubraRiver where there was a short walk to a nice lake. It was a baking hot day and, although there was some greenery and wildlife around the lake, once you got beyond the low hills surrounding it, it was like stepping into a desert. The car in the distance was wobbly with heat haze and we were glad for the breeze coming through the window when we set off again.
Out last stop before leaving Nubra was the Samstanling gonpa near Sumur. Recently, the head lama of the prominent Spituk monastery died. His reincarnation was found in Nubra and currently lives in the Samstanling gonpa and so of course with our travel guru, Yung Chen, we got the chance to visit him. When we first arrived he was playing with his train set but when he saw us he waved his hand to tell us to come in and his minder took him through to the room next door so he could give us his blessings. We each gave him a white silk scarf and he gave us an orange string. Being only 3 years old, he was a little impatient and went to attempt to climb up a wall hanging when he was done but despite that, he seemed to be very understanding of his role.
By the time we all arrived back in Leh we were pretty exhausted but we all thought Nubra was absolutely incredible and were glad to have been.
As for the rest of the week at school, the hostel students made up some short plays again – this time about friendship/family. They all did pretty well which we were pleased with because most of the stronger students weren’t there because they’re still busy studying for their exams. This was quite good for the less confident students as they had to take more initiative. In fact on Wednesday almost all of the students at the girls hostel session were no older than 12. We were planning to do a debate but I figured we wouldn’t get very far with that so instead we played games like Pictionary which they really enjoyed.
On Thursday the huge group of 63 UWCSEA students visited Lamdon. Like the Tanglin group, they brought lots of donations of school equipment. However, this time we got something too – Tom was walking around with a big smile on his face for the rest of the day because the group brought out his nice leather basketball. I’m guessing he’ll be making the most of it next week!
IT’S HOT!! Summer has undoubtedly arrived in Leh in force! I didn’t think it would get much hotter but we have not seen a cloud all week! In the middle of the day the sun can be maddeningly bright. Thankfully we both have good dark glasses and plenty of sun cream! The heat is certainly tamer than in Cambodia or Singapore since there is virtually no water in the air. All you have to do is step into the shade and the temperature drops a few degrees. This makes the heat really pleasant instead of being a nuisance.
A group of Tanglin Trust students arrived on Thursday this week so Joss and I decided to attend the special assembly that was being held to welcome them. The assembly turned out to be a marathon one and a half hours and we were both very glad we had on plenty of sunscreen as the sun was really beating down. We felt a little sorry for the Tanglin students who had only arrived the day before and looked a little shell-shocked. At least someone had warned them beforehand and they all wore good wide-brimmed hats or sunglasses like Joss and I. The sunglasses we wore turned out to be useful for blocking out the sun and the glare of the Tanglin students’ t-shirts! The group had special Ladakh 2009 shirts made for the trip and opted for a flamboyant and slightly frightening shade of fluorescent orange! As Joss pointed out, the teachers probably chose the color to aid them in locating the students throughout the trip. The assembly was fun though, with an enjoyable drama on keeping Ladakh clean and a song to that affect by one of our boy hostel students, Tundup. We had a chance to catch up with Nirku, a long time guide on the school trek, for lunch while the Tanglin group was eating and he told us all about some education projects he is trying to set up in the very remote region of Eastern Nepal where he is from. Joss and I both thought that might be an idea for the summer holidays!
We finally caught up with Bill Kite, who has been out of Ladakh literally since our second day, to discuss possibilities for trekking. Our primary reason for wanting to chat with him was to find out how much we really need to pay to go on a trek since all the trekking agencies we have talked to so far have given us fairly ridiculous quotes. We were hoping that Bill could help us find a better deal as the prices we had seen so far would really limit what we could do financially. Thankfully Bill told us that most of the trekking agencies in Leh charge about twice what it should really cost to run a trek per day for two reasons. Firstly, they only have business in the summer months (June, July and August) so they need to make enough money in that time to live on for a year. Secondly, most agencies are so small that they don’t own all their equipment so they have to factor in renting it out from other people. Also, most people come to Ladakh for a once in a life time experience and don’t mind shelling out extra money so the trekking agencies get away with charging a lot. Factoring all these things in we still wouldn’t be able to afford much so Bill kindly told us that if we wait until early July when Tanglin, UWC and his dental group have all been and gone he will have all his equipment sitting around doing nothing plus a bunch of really nice guides (most of which were on the trek when I came a few years ago and apparently still remember me) who don’t want to go back to Nepal just yet since it is still monsoon season there. Bill Kite also owns all his equipment and has other work he is happy to lend us the equipment and charge us quite a bit less. Joss and I were both really relieved because although this means we will have to wait about a month to do any trekking it means we can do a lot more with our money and won’t be limited to just one trip.
This week Jason, the dentist, told us that he and his protégé Yueng Chen are going over to Nubra next weekend in a jeep owned by one of Yueng Chen’s cousins (therefore the price will be more reasonable) and we are welcome to join them. We were both really excited about this since we have been dying to visit Nubra and needed people to go with. Conveniently, the jeep will leave early Friday morning which means we will be able to welcome the UWC group when they arrive at school on Thursday. Just incase anybody missed it in our previous blogs, the road to Nubra is allegedly the highest motor road in the world (actually second to a road in Bolivia by about 100ft according to our guide book) and is supposed to be a rather amazing/hair-raising drive. Not to mention that Nubra apparently has bountiful natural beauty of many varieties. Foremost among our reasons for going to Nubra are opportunities to cross short portions of desert on camelback (which Joss is particularly excited about) and at least one stunning glacier (which I am particularly excited about!)
Teaching this week was also really good! As Joss mentioned last week the girls have really stepped it up since we talked to them about their level of engagement. The boys have also maintained a good standard although we have lost a few students to extra exam preparation tuition since there are exams in a few weeks. The girls really got involved with a lot of discussions this week and we were so pleased with them that we allowed them to choose a fun topic for Friday’s session. They decided upon: Girls VS Boys. Surprisingly, most of the students seemed to want to argue on behalf of the boys! Very strange! We all had a lot of fun with this debate and thankfully there was no winner!
As Tom mentioned in last week’s blog, we’d been having some problems with getting the girls to come on time (or to come at all). However, after talking to them it has been going much better. This week we tried again to get them to do a drama – this time about a Ladakhi story – which they did really well. We only got one day, Tuesday, with the boys at their hostel because, due to the next day being a holiday, all the hostel students had gone to town on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, Mr. Tundup had organized a huge picnic for all the older students – at least 700 of them! – in a nearby town called Shey, a bit further south from Choglamsar where we had the other picnic. Tom and I were also invited but decided to first go with Jason and Yung Chen to visit Spituk gonpa. The gonpa, like most others, sits high up on a hill overlooking Spituk with the glacial blue IndusRiver running through it. Built in the 15th century and founded by King Graspabumlde, it was the first ‘Yellow Hat’ (a Buddhist sect) monastery in Ladakh. We walked up and down steps winding between the sturdy white-washed mud-and-stone monasteries and temples and past walls and roofs covered with colourful prayer flags. We went inside one small red-painted building where there was a tiny dark room in which the walls were lined with terrible wooden masks and in which stood a number of large stone statues of the gods, their faces covered with decorated cloths out of respect. We also went inside the main temple where a number of elderly monks where sitting and eating lunch and reciting hymns. The room, smelling of butter tea, barley bread and burning candles was elaborately decorated – every wall was covered with paintings of the protector deities and from every column hung colourful hangings. At the back of the large room were photos of H.H. the Dalai Lama and other important lamas as well as statues of gods – all shrouded with white scarves. There was also a table of offerings including silver bowls of coloured water and flour and butter made into shapes. When we went outside again we were shortly followed by the monks who offered us butter tea and bread. We walked through to a courtyard after this and looked inside another similar temple which held the Kangyur and Tangyur (The Discourses and Commentaries) in wooden shelves along one wall. Up above the temple we took in the view of the Indus valley for a while before heading to the picnic site.
To get to the picnic we headed for Shey where we turned into a road on the right at a fish farm. Beyond the farm was a beautiful long Teletubbyland-like narrow pasture with a gurgling stream running through it. We soon found everyone – little clusters of makeshift tents and speakers around which groups of students where enjoying themselves in the sun and dancing together. Tight-walking over the stream on a few wooden poles we found ourselves sitting in the teachers’ spot with some of the teachers we’d become friends with at the last picnic. It was another sunny day and we spent most of our time playing cards until it was time for a most delicious lunch of rice, lentils, potatoes, stewed vegetables and whatnot followed by yoghurt and fruit. Tom and I have decided to give up on trying to eat meat here – the vegetarian food is so much better.
Later in the afternoon Jason and the two of us decided to drive down the road to the next town, Thikse, where there is another gonpa. This is a very well-known gonpa and there are postcards and posters of it all over the place in Leh. This is not surprising because it’s really spectacular. Thikse used to be a very small village, almost all of which clung to the side of a steep hill on top of which is the gonpa. However, in the last 10 to 15 years it has grown incredibly fast – it now stretches far into the distance along the valley floor. I reckon it must be at least three or four times the size. The most famous thing about Thikse gonpa is that it houses the largest Buddha statue in Ladakh – and it is enormous – literally 2 storeys high. We climbed up a large staircase to get to the second floor of the building and were greeted by a humongous golden Buddha head. You could look down to the bottom floor to see the bottom half of the Buddha, His two massive golden feet pointing up at you as he sits in the lotus pose. His smooth, serene face is framed by a huge intricately decorated headdress. The whole of the temple was surrounded by a continuous line of golden prayer wheels on which the mantra om mani padme hum is written. Climbing up higher we went inside another temple much like the ones we had been in at Spituk but this time empty of monks. Up another couple of flights of steps we got to the rooftop on which there was a library. Something I really like about these buildings is their windows which are usually very tiny and have a thick black border around them. Sometimes their wooden shutters and frames are painted with little patterns which have mostly been worn away over time which gives them a beautifully rustic look.
From the top of the gonpa we had another sweeping view of the valley in which Thikse lay – at this point Tom realized that that was where he did a home-stay when he came to Ladakh on the school trip a few years ago. At the bottom of the gonpa hill is a large barren plot of land in the middle of which is a tiny L-shaped building which is one of Lamdon’s satellite schools which we visited on Wednesday with Mr. Tundup. The 75 students – from Kindergarten to grade 8 - are taught in the 10 classrooms. We met the principal and a volunteer teacher from England who told us a bit about the school and we had a look in the classrooms where classes of up to 11 students (usually only 4 or 5) where taking classes. It must be fantastic having such a teacher to student ratio and we really hope that we can spend a few weeks helping out at this school although we’re not sure yet where we would be most helpful. We also visited the Lamdon school 3km down the road in Shey which was slightly larger (about 180 students) and had a hostel where the majority of the students stayed. We’ll probably do some treks first before visiting one of these schools for a few weeks but we’re looking forward to it already as it will be quite different from being in Leh.
We headed back to the picnic, narrowly missing a small canyon in the middle of one of the small back-roads, where more cards were dealt. Someone thought it would be fun to go for a walk through the pasture along the stream where we entertained ourselves with poo-sticks and jumping from bank to bank. However, I ended up being exploited for being the guinea pig to cross a boggy patch and returned to the picnic site later with bog-coloured trousers.
The rest of the weekend hasn’t been very eventful because Leh is on tax-strike and everywhere – literally everywhere – has been closed since Friday morning. Apparently there used to be no taxation in Leh but now the government wants to add it. Word is that no one is opening up again until their demands are met – a good time to go walkabouts?
Another week in Ladakh! This week teaching went really well with the boys! Thats the good news, unfortunately we had a few problem with the girls hostel students. We also FINALLY made it up to the victory tower that affords a great view over all of Leh and we are still planning for our trips out of Leh in the coming months.
Its strange that things have been going so well with the boys and that things have been a bit harder with the girls. Partly because the boys are a little younger and partly because everybody (Mr. Tundup and ourselves included) assumes it will be easier teaching girls. That is not the case in Ladakh. The boys show up bang on time for every session we have had so far and are extremely enthusiastic about any task we set for them. Unfortunately the girls frequently keep us waiting for as much as half and hour and are less than enthusiastic about certain tasks we ask them to perform. For example, although the boys really enjoy the informal debates we have been having they had no problem when we asked them to prepare and perform a story about Ladakh in English. In fact they got extremely involved and produced some really great short dramas. When we tried to have the girls do the same thing half of them complained that they would rather have a debate. We think this is because in a debate often, despite our efforts, the confident students get to talk a lot while the shy students get to hide behind them. In a drama this isn't possible as the groups are small and we stipulated that everybody must speak. So far our sessions with the girls hostel students just have not been as satisfactory compared with the boys. This week we got a bit fed up when the kept us waiting for almost 45 minutes and then told us they needed to get washing done, (this also happens with the boys, but they give us some notice) after this we had a rather frank conversation with the girls trying to make it clear that if they wanted us to work with them they needed to be entirely in or out rather than showing up occasionally and not involving themselves much. To be fair, the girls seemed to take this onboard much more readily than when we tried to subtly hint at it and there has already been a marked improvement.
We also finally climbed up to the victory tower that over looks Leh this week, and we were not dissapointed by the view! This victory tower is situated a couple of hundred feet above the royal palace of Leh. This royal palace was deserted when Kashmir invaded and the royal family moved to a palace in nearby Stok where they still reside. The victory tower was built when the Ladakhis kicked the army of Kashmir out. The view is great as one side looks down right over the school and the other looks over the old and new towns of Leh. The short walk up is a little steep but it is well worth it!
On Sunday we also went up the 560ish steps to Shanti Stupa to watch a large ceremony to celebrate something to do with the birth of Buddha. It was a little unclear if it was his birthday or not. It seemed like all of Chang spa was making its way up to the top, many carrying short and wide wooden tables (which coupled with the steep steps is quite impressive). When we got to a good vantage point to watch the proceedings we saw a banner welcoming visitors from Singapore. We found this a little confusing until one of the leaders of the ceremony lapsed into English to welcome some Buddhists from a temple in Singapore who had come to celebrate here. We watched the ceremony for some time but since we had no translator and all the reading was in Bodhik we headed back down for lunch after a few hours. Not much else happend this week other than a little informal basketball coaching and continued planning for trips in the future. We are going to go with Mr. Tundup next week to visit some of the Lamdon satelite branches where we might spend a few weeks teaching soon.
Lots going on next week so hopefully the blog with have a bit more substance!
One of the great things about Lamdon School is their inter-house competitiveness. On the last school day of the week they dedicate the afternoon to inter-house games. On Friday we arrived just before lunch to see the I.T. teacher and a group of students chalking out the last of the basketball court lines - the court was being prepared for the first ever Lamdon inter-house basketball competition. After lunch all the students from class 6 to 12 sat around the court in their respective houses to watch the event. It was great fun to watch and there were plenty of ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ from the crowd. Basketball has become a very popular sport at the school since it started there a year ago and especially after school the students always like Tom to play with them so they can improve. I also join in sometimes which is fun but still tiring at this altitude! During P.E. time and after school the girls hostel students like to come and talk with me and this week a few of them have told me about their home villages and places which we should see in Ladakh before we leave. A few of the girls are from Nubra which is where we’re hoping to go and Tsiring is from Biama, a town at lower altitude than Leh were lots of fruits grow and where the ladies are known to wear a lot of beautiful jewellery. We have been to a few trekking agencies and have found that one of the easier treks from Likir to Temisgam is about an hour away from Biama by bus so we might be able to visit Biama if we decide to take that route.
At the hostels we decided to see how the students would do with making up a short play instead of doing debating all the time. We split them into groups of four or five and gave them two topics to choose from: honesty or jealousy. The boys thought it was a great idea and immediately got into animated discussion within their groups and came up with some great skits – they have become less shy around us and aren’t afraid to try using new language. After this success we were very surprised the next day when the girls cringed at the idea and said they would rather do debates!
On Saturday we planned to go for a day walk to Sabu, a small town just to the east of Leh. However, at dinner on Friday Mr. Tundup asked us if we’d like to join a picnic with all the teachers to celebrate the most recent Lamdon School graduates’ good exam results. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity, we got in the jeep after breakfast and tea the next morning with Yung Chen, Lamdon’s dentist-in-training and Jason who is in Leh for 5 weeks to give her training. Once out of Leh we travelled south through 15 minutes of grubby edge-of-city settlements on the way to Choglamsar. I was wondering where, among the lengths of road-side mechanic shops and general stores we’d find a pleasant picnic spot when we turned into a narrow dusty road with a sign to the Indus Hotel. A little way down the road we came to large grassy courtyard surrounded by the empty rooms of the Indus Hotel. At the far end was an embankment, beyond which was a stunning view of the braiding, glacial Indus River, lined with tall green poplar trees. On the far side of the river was a grand mosque and the ever-present breath-taking mountain backdrop. To the right of the courtyard was a forest of poplar trees, in front of which the picnic had been set up – sitting carpets, music system and all – enclosed on two sides by brightly coloured cloth strung between the trees. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was the perfect picnic spot. We spent the day sitting on the embankment looking over the river playing cards with Jason, skimming stones on the Indus, drinking tea, eating, dancing and playing karem – a game I saw in Nepal once which involves a 1m2 wooden board with pockets in the four corners into which you have to shoot round chips by flicking them.
When we’d been at the picnic for about an hour Yung Chen asked us if we’d like to visit the monastery over the wall to the left of the courtyard. Of course we said yes so us and about ten others literally went over the wall and jumped down into a large open expanse of land, at the river edge of which was an empty monastery with a small one-person speech tower in front of it. This is the place where the Dalai Lama comes once a year to give a speech to tens of thousands of devote Buddhist Ladakhis. In fact his next visit is scheduled on 6th July for the celebration of his birthday. Walking to the other end of the large field we reached another wall – this time with a gate which we went through. We were surprised to find that it was only half-heartedly kept shut by a loosely slung rope because it led to the compound of the Dalai Lama’s Ladakhi summer home! He wasn’t there at the time so we followed Yung Chen into the compound. On the left was a yellow-painted block where the monks – who look after the place – live, and on the right, beyond an open gate and a rough garden full of trees, was the summer house. It was quite modest in size but of course had all the necessary golden trimmings and decorations. To our surprise Yung Chen told us we could have a look inside so we followed her and the rest of the group through the front door where they all immediately performed their blessings to the set up of statues and other ornaments and pictures in the hallway. We went into a room to the right which was like a waiting room and had yet another shrine. Along one wall was a long glass cabinet full of photos of the Dalai Lama, dolls and more ornaments. Along the bottom ledge of the cabinet was a long row of silver bowls which are constantly kept full of water by the monks as offerings to the gods. Visitors had also placed 10 rupee notes all along the ledge and, as in the rest of the house, everything was covered in white silk scarves which are gifts of respect. Upstairs was a study and at the top of the house a room with a huge central cabinet full of carefully wrapped Buddhist scripts. We walked back to the picnic via eight huge chortens, reflecting on how lucky we had been not only to have seen the Dalai Lama’s Ladakhi summer house but to have had a look inside.
About an hour before the picnic ended, Mr. Tundup rounded everyone up to come and sit in a large square in the picnic area. One of the teachers, who had been teaching Montessori at Lamdon School for 23 years, was leaving and so he and a few other people gave a speech and gifts were handed over to her. After the speech she was showered with white scarves by all her colleagues – in the end she had so many around her neck that you could hardly see her face! At 5 o’clock a convoy of picnickers drove to her house (this time about 15 minutes south-west outside of Leh) where everyone was ushered into the living room where we sat around the edge of the room on carpet-covered mats with snacks of dried apricots, nuts, fruit and biscuits – and our 7th cup of tea for the day – served on the same small beautifully painted tables as in Mr. Tundup’s living room. A typical Ladakhi tradition is to do dzangs – insincere refusal – which we found entertaining to watch. It’s considered polite for the guest to refuse what the host offers at least 2 or 3 times before accepting. Although we were getting pretty tired (and full of tea) by this point we really enjoyed the atmosphere and the experience of Ladakhi hospitality – something they’re particularly good at!
This week we really got into the work at Lamdon; we have started having informal debates/discussions with the hostel students as a constructive way of practicing English. We started with some fairly easy topics such as “Is it good to have uniforms in school?” and the students, especially the boys, seem to really enjoy practicing their English this way. We have also started planning some other activities designed to help the students develop their English in a fun way. These include moral dramas and group activities where they need to design and build something such as a board game conducted strictly in English. The students get very involved with the discussion which is really impressive since they come to us after a full day of school. As in Cambodia when the students are enthusiastic it's really easy for us to keep things going. Unfortunately we have had a few topics we have had to quickly amend since the students were not particularly interested in them. For example the grade 7 and 8 students in the girl's hostel were not at all interested in the uniform topic. We have overcome this problem though and have plenty of alternative topics if the groups we are working with are not very excited about the one we have chosen. We rarely have this problem with the older students as their English is at a level where they can come up with interesting points on almost all the topics we can think of.
We have been trying to find something to do with our mornings since we only start at the hostel at 4:30 and so have started joining in with the sports that run all day with different students. Of course I have been spending almost all my time playing basketball and Joss has been joining in with the volleyball although she has now started to really enjoy basketball as well. Some of the students understand basketball to an extent but it's a little frustrating that the P.E. teacher, the only person at school who speaks no English, doesn't understand the game completely. For example he called some students offside in a game a few days ago! It's strange, because all the teachers who attended school in Tibet or even bits of Ladakh understand the game really well but the P.E. teacher makes it difficult for them to pass any knowledge onto the students. The students all really enjoy playing basketball and hopefully the other teachers will have some input in the future.
Since we have been here for three weeks already we thought it was time we started investigating trips and treks. One trip that we are particularly interested in is travelling to the Nubra Valley north of Leh. In order to get to the Nubra Valley one must get a permit and travel over the second highest motorable road in the world (5603m) which goes over the Khar-Dung-La mountain pass. When you reach the top of the pass you are apparently 100m above Mt. Everest base camp! This sounded a little scary at first since there are apparently gutted corpses of Jeeps that tried to speed over the pass and went over the edge but after asking around we found out that this doesn't happen anymore and it is now considered “safe…well, quite safe!” Amo-le told us that the Nubra valley has “something of everything - from glaciers to deserts!” Joss is also particularly excited about the prospect of riding a camel across portions of the desert there.
The weather in Leh has suddenly changed completely! When we arrived it was still quite chilly and we rarely had a day without a significant number of clouds. The trees also seemed to be in a state of autumn with everything gold and brown. Now there is rarely a cloud in the sky and all of the trees have burst into vibrant shades of green. The fields that were bare and brown when we arrived have since had various crops planted in them and already they are bright green as well! In less than two weeks it seems like the whole of Leh has changed colour. This has also coincided with the arrival of many more travelers and tourists and therefore all the businesses and restaurants that were shut when we have arrived have started opening. Really Leh seems to be waking up as a town and the trees and fields seem to be waking up as well.
It’s come to the end of a second wonderful week in Leh and by now I reckon we pretty much know our way around. It’s quite an easy town to get to grips with because, although it is the capital of Ladakh, it really only consists of three main streets. However, particularly in contrast to Chamcar Bei there are lots of restaurants and little shops and services (especially trekking agencies) which will make our stay here quite different to that in Cambodia. Since Wednesday was Election Day, and therefore a public holiday, Mr. Tundup suggested that we didn’t start our work at Lamdon School until Thursday. So we spent most of our days this week doing some more exploring of Leh and learning Ladakhi from our new phrasebooks.
So far we haven’t been disappointed with any of the food here – we’ve found lots of good, cheap Tibetan restaurants and have been enjoying trying out the local food such as momos, thokey and thukpa. Ladakhis are also very big on their tea and I’ve managed to drink a different type of tea every time we’ve been out to lunch. And of course if there’s one thing Ladakh is known for it’s the (in)famous butter tea, sometimes known as gur gur cha – onomatopoeically named because it is made in a long, decorated wooden tube (called a gur gur)which makes a ‘gur gur’ sound when you prepare the butter in it. It’s usually drunk in winter time to keep you warm but Mr. Tundup’s wife (ama-amo) made some for us to try this week. It had a very strange taste - naturally very buttery - and was more like soup than tea. I wouldn’t exactly say we got addicted to it the first time but I’ve heard it’s an acquired taste so I would try it again.
We had the choice of staying in a different family/guest house right next to the school but Mr. Tundup also said that we could stay at his guest house if we wanted to. We decided to stay where we are because although it’s a 20-30 minute uphill walk to the school it’s much closer to the town (about 10 minutes walk away). Also, the walk to school is quite nice so we don’t really mind it. Mr. Tundup and his family are all very nice – there is his wife, amo ama-le (sister mother), his daughter, amo (sister) and his niece, amo-chuen (little sister). They’ve made us feel very welcome and always invite us to eat with them. They have an extension to their guesthouse which they use as a living room during the winter but rent it out during the summer months. When we first arrived we ate with them in there. Like in most Ladakhi houses the floor is covered in traditional rugs and sitting mattresses are placed along the edge of the room. In front of the sitting places are a number of low tables on which you eat. They are painted red with blue and green flower patterns and are also traditional of Ladakhi households. At dinner time they like to watch Hindi soaps which are entertaining to watch. Although we have no idea what they’re saying we can follow the general plot by their dramatic facial expressions. However, now we eat breakfast outside under a sunny blue sky and dinner in their other smaller living room.
On the Election Day itself, we walked up the road away from town to test our acclimatization by walking up the 554 steps to Shanti Stupa. Stupas, found all over Ladakh, are domed Buddhist monuments which used to be used for holding remains of the Buddha. Now they rarely do but are still deeply symbolic icons representing the five elements Earth (the square base), water (the spherical centre), fire (the spire), air and space (the sun and moon atop the spire). Shanti Stupa was opened in 1985 as part of the legacy of Japanese Fujii Guruji who built many temples and pagodas all over the world in a mission to promote world peace. We had to rest a few times on the way up but once at the top we got a fantastic view over Leh surrounded by the snow-capped mountains which was well worth the effort.
On Thursday we went to Lamdon School after lunch in time to watch the grade 6-8 English debate about whether television is useful for students. All the grade 6-8 students crowded into the Hall and sat down in their respective Houses. The debate started and we were immediately very impressed by their fluency in English and confidence. There was some very intense discussion and some very good points were made. Television is quite a topic of discussion in Ladakh at the moment. Ladakh opened up to visitors as recently as 1974 and since then it has been increasingly exposed to the Western world. Many Ladakhis as well as culture and ecology experts are worried about the effects it will have on this previously relatively undisturbed culture. Television is one of the main sources of information about the West and many young Ladakhis are becoming increasingly attracted to the biased positive images of Western culture and life – in particular materialism which was previously non-prevalent in Ladakh. When the debating was finished Tom and I were asked if we’d like to give our opinions about the topic so I went up and said something about it. One of the things we may be helping the students with is their debating.
After the debate (which lasted for 2 hours!) we went to the girls’ hostel and met the grade 9, 10 and 12’s to talk about how we could help them with their English (and perhaps other subjects too). They were very eager to talk to us and had lots and lots of questions about us and Singapore and our school etc. A lot of the students in the hostel are supported by sponsors and most of their families live outside Leh, although some of them are orphans. Lamdon has a number of branches outside Leh and the best students from each branch get a place in Lamdon at Leh. One of the most interesting hostel students was a student who had just arrived to start grade 9 in 2008. She is 22 years old but has spent the last 6 years studying Buddhism and is now a nun. Previously nuns and monks in Ladakh could not go to school unless they were very highly ranked. It was very interesting to hear her talking about her outlook on life and we'd both like to get to know her better as I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from her. Her mother died when she was young, she rarely sees her father and she is losing her eyesight in one eye. However, she is such a confident, happy person and she told us with a smile that despite her problems she is happy to have the freedom to get an education at Lamdon and hopefully to become a philosopher of Ladakhi and Western culture.
The next day, we went to eat lunch at the girls’ hostel and then, before going to visit the boy’s hostel in the late afternoon we visited the Ecology Centre. There is a book called ‘Ancient Futures’ which is all about development in Ladakh and how Western influence and development may disintegrate the local culture and traditions. It talks a lot about solutions and promoting nature-based, sustainable alternatives to energy-based economic types of development in Ladakh. Among other things the Ecology Centre had lots of examples of this on display as well as a set-up of a traditional Ladakhi household and lifestyle and a library with loads of books about sustainable development and agriculture. Later on at the boys’ hostel we found they were a bit shyer than the girls which made it difficult to keep conversation going but hopefully that will change when they get to know us better.
The students at Lamdon also have school on Saturday although after lunch they have Inter-House Games rather than lessons. We arrived before lunch and played high-altitude basketball with some of the older students during their P.E. lesson. As you can imagine we were pretty exhausted afterwards! After lunch the students grouped into their Houses and we watched the younger students play cricket and the older students play a game we’d never seen before. The two opposing teams stood on either side of a small court drawn in the sand and they took it in terms for one person from each team to go over to the other team and I think they had to tag an opposition and run back without getting caught.
In spite of aching legs we’re off in to town again now to hunt down some sunglasses and yak-hair shoes.
The trip from Singapore to Leh was eventful to say the least. I managed to get sick half way and if any of you readers have ever been through Delhi International Airport then you know it’s not an easy or pleasant experience at the best of times. Delhi was tiring before we even got off the plane since everybody decided to jump up and start rushing for the exits as soon as we touched down. This sense of unnecessary urgency continued into the airport with porters accosting us and WHO employees yelling incomprehensible questions at the general populous.
When we finally got out of Delhi the flight was much calmer as everybody travelling on to Leh seemed so much more relaxed. The landing in Leh is the exciting part of the journey as you suddenly drop through the clouds and into the Himalayas. The Leh valley is totally obscured by the mountains around it so there is no view of it until you begin a very sharp decent into the airport. The Himalayan mountains are unbelievably majestic and barren which serves to accentuate the beautifully green and lush Leh valley when you suddenly drop into it.
Upon arriving in Leh airport you couldn’t imagine a starker contrast with the Delhi International Airport. For one thing it was about 25o C cooler, but the main difference is the attitude of everybody from the moment you step off the plane. We really noticed the difference when we got inside the terminal building. Visitors have to report to a foreign registration desk and by the time we had reached this point I was really not feeling good. Seeing this, the officials kindly told me to sit down and directed the questions to Joss. When Joss told them I was sick they kindly asked us to inform our host Mr. Tundup (principal of Lamdon School and very well known in the area).I always expect staff at such desks to move you on as quickly as possible but they talked to us and helped Joss fill out the forms like there was all the time in the world. Everything in the airport everything seemed unbelievably calm and placid compared to the usual chaos expected of any airport.
We were met at the airport by a driver and taken straight to Mr. Tundup’s house. As well as being the principal of Lamdon School, Mr. Tundup runs a small guesthouse (left) above his house where he lives with his wife, daughter and niece. We dutifully told our host I had been ill on the flight over and they immediately got a doctor to come to the house and examine me. He gave me some broad-spectrum antibiotics and a few days later I was absolutely fine!
Our first dinner at Mr. Tundup’s house was a lot of fun as Bill Kite, the UWCSEA Ladakh-trip organiser in Leh, came over with some of his staff. It was especially nice because one of the staff members he brought with him had been a guide on the Ladakh trip I went on in 2005. We had a great home-cooked dinner of rice, dahl, potatoes and veg and Bill told us all about the dentistry project he has been pioneering at schools around Ladakh. After dinner Joss and I went to bed totally exhausted despite having slept all day. We spent the next few days, on Mr. Tundup’s orders, taking it very easy so as to acclimatize well to the altitude (12,000 ft) and did a little gentle exploring of Leh. Although most of the shops and restaurants are closed at the moment since the tourist season hasn’t started yet, there are still several establishments that are open anyway. We had some great lunches at a place called the Wok Tibetan including a great dumpling called a momo – filled with spinach and cheese - that people repeatedly told us to try. Momos actually look a lot like dumplings you get in Singapore but they taste totally different because the dough is made of wheat rather than rice. We also had some amazing apricot juice since apricots are one of the major crops here and also one of the only local sweet foods. After several attempts we found the Leh polo ground which had two games of cricket going on. We were a little less successful finding the Buddhist mani walls and finding the path up to the palace. Although they seemed to be marked clearly on the map, I think we need to get detailed directions from our host.
Leh is a really nice town with a lot of character about it. We are staying in an area in the north-west of Leh called Chanspa which is very peaceful and has fantastic views of the mountains and plots of land which are busily being plowed by dzo – a mix between a cow and a yak – for the wheat to be sown. The centre of town is about ten minute’s walk downhill. There are two major streets which are lined with shops and small eateries with strings of prayer flags overhead like Christmas lights. There are also several smaller shopping alleys branching off Leh Main Market street. To the east of the main town, below the palace, is the old town which looks exactly like it sounds – small one-storey mud and stone buildings on either side of a narrow zig-zagging cobblestone pavement. The whole town seems really lovely, with the hustle and bustle around the high street and the quiet areas like Chanspa all ringed in by immense, snow-capped mountains.
Everybody here is just as friendly as in Chamcar Bei, always smiling at us and saying “Ju-le!” which is one of the only Ladakhi words we have picked up so far. Ju-le is a good word to know since it can mean hello, goodbye, please or thank you. We have invested in a few books for learning the Ladakhi language but it seems to be much harder than Khmer. We provoked huge amounts of laughter in Mr. Tundup and his family over dinner one evening when we spoke the only phrases we have learnt so far:
Joss: For how much will you give me these cauliflowers per kilo? Tom: They cost three rupees per kilo!
I don’t know if it was the accents or the shock of us trying and tripping over our tongues but we all spent a few minutes laughing afterward.
Mr. Tundup also gave us the grand tour of Lamdon School where we will be teaching. We knew the school would be far better established than CLC but the size was still shocking. There are 1300 students! Still more surprising was the hostel in which the boys from faraway villages stay. The girls recently had a new hostel built so they are about six to a room but the boys live in tiny rooms with up to 12 of them jammed into tiny bunk beds. Thankfully a new, bigger boys hostel is undergoing construction and should be ready by this September. Despite the confined living quarters the school is really quite impressive. They have teachers from India and Nepal as well as local Ladakhi teachers. It’s situated just outside Leh – to the north-east – and is about 30 minutes’ walk from Mr. Tundup’s house and 20 minutes from the centre of town. In the morning we walked there with Mr Tundup, along paths weaving between houses and beside streams and plots of land ready for plowing. We watched the senior children’s morning assembly which was totally organized by students and included prayers, singing, poetry reading, news headlines and a short play. It was great to watch the teachers sit back and let the older students take initiative. The school also offers several extra-curricular activities such as a budding music department and sports such as cricket, football and basketball. Although most of our work will be done after school hours helping the students with their English in the hostels, we are both looking forward to working in a school that is so well-established. It was a great experience in Cambodia helping to develop education from scratch but it will be nice to just jump straight in here.
Mr. Tundup has made it clear that our schedules will be totally flexible so that if we want to go on a couple of treks that is absolutely fine. He also told us that we can spend a few weeks working at one or two of Lamdon’s satellite schools and living in a rural household in a more remote village which we are both eager to do.
We’ve been making the most of our cold-weather clothes as the climate is taking a bit of getting used to, especially at night. Having said that, we had a little sleet at about midday yesterday! However, the sun is much too strong for anything to settle on the ground and it seems to be warming up slowly so hopefully the weather will be a bit more temperate by the time we decide to do some trekking!
