Week 7 – Plans and the Orange Army (not the Dutch)

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!

That’s it for this week!