Last flight out of Ladakh: Chapter 4 - Day 1

Last flight out of Ladakh: Chapter 4 - Day 1

The first day of the trek started with shivers. Shivering people crowded around the small bonfire in the wee hours of the morning. Actually it was not very early, it was close to 8AM, but the sun shone a little less bright through all the clouds. The ice around them aggravated the effect. They had all slept the night in tents, which had an insulating layer of foam at the bottom and blanket on top of it. Then they had slid inside their thick sleeping bags, with a woolen layer, and had two-three layers of woolen inside. Some even kept a leather water bottle inside with hot water so that it keeps them warm. The problem was not for those that had a sound sleep, but for those that felt urinary pangs in the middle of the night. Some tried to control it, but those that did get out for relieving themselves found themselves agape at the dazzling starry sky, a riot of glittering jewels more that mankind could ever fathom.

Breakfast was served at quarter past 8’o clock, parathas and piping hot chole bhaturas, breads and eggs with tea. The trekkers stocked up to their satisfaction and then the group started by 9AM, Rajmohun reprimanding them for delaying excessively on the first day and telling that next day it would be an hour earlier they would have to start. The first day’s walk was from Matho Doksa to Shingra Koma, close to 10 kilometers. They all moved at an easy pace, taking breaks to stand and stare gingerly at the vistas around them, framing and capturing shots and drinking hot water that they were carrying. Since not many knew each other, they were also chatting casually with each other and getting acquainted. While the serious guys kept to themselves, the more people loving ones starting passing around jokes and lightening everyone’s mood. By 12 noon they crossed the Hot Gates, a passage through the river valley where the two sides comes so close that two people can join hands and touch the two sides. More snapshots followed. Soon after that they broke for lunch in an area where the ice had parted to gushing waters of the Zanskar while there was still a lot of icy Chadar on the bank sides. Hot mushroom noodles and ready to eat tomoto soups was served. They were all joking how cold the waters would be and would it be possible to take a bath in it, when Prathap decided to drink it and check. He had a long straw in his bag pack, one used for connecting to water bottles directly which he took out and strolled alongside the river bank. No soon had he leaned down and dipped the straw in the water, he heard a faint sound as if a mirror broke, and the next instant he was in water. His reflexes were fast enough that he held onto one of the side of the ice Chadar, and somehow that didn’t break. Porters rushed in to help him out. He was seconds close to getting washed away in the icy waters, which would take him to an other-world covered with an icy roof, never to surface again. Everyone was shaken but soon the mood got lightened up as he changed his wet clothes and started cracking jokes. The group finished their lunch and moved close to 2PM.

In the second half they started coming across waterfalls that had been frozen due to the temperatures and gave the illusion of towers carved out of pure marble by nature herself. The Chadar was not always a uniform walkable surface, at some places it was several meters thick and all they could see was depths which trapped air bubbles of many seasons, and at some places it was a slush pool which had icy water and semi-frozen particles floating in it that could be inches or sometimes several feet deep. They learnt to follow the instinct of Pasang, the local trek leader and move in his steps, or learn to understand the sound that the icy was making under their feet to change their steps to more solid surfaces if there was a doubtful one. The ice beneath them changed colors, from pure white carpets of freshly soft snow fallen only days ago, to hardened ice, to greenish blue pure slabs of ice, to inky blue slush pools, and to bluish white newly formed Chadar. And at some places it was absolutely transparent, and they could see the water flowing beneath them. When they walked by the river, they could see small block of ice flowing across and occasionally come across pools bearing lotuses of the ice, a rare phenomenon.

Close to 4PM they all had reached the campsite, where the tents were already set up by the local porters who had moved faster than the group and had also prepared the evening snacks. Everyone settled down, relaxed and feasted on them.

****

“Let me tell you a story”, Pasang said with an eerie voice.

They were all around the campfire, some sitting, some half kneeling and some standing but all very tightly together to not feel the chilled wind blowing that evening. Everyone was tired after first day of trekking and clicking so many pictures of the beautiful vistas surrounding them, so hot tea and pakodas were being passed from kitchen and gobbled up in no time. They were all telling each other anecdotes from their past trek experience and accidents they had come across. From there the conversation had steered to ghost stories that people had seen or heard about. It was then that their local guide, Pasang had walked in the congregation, heard them for some time and when everyone was silent while munching pakodas announced that he was telling a story.

Pasang spoke, “Once upon a time there were forty monks from the Alchi monastery standing where we are now. No, they were not going to Lingshed Monastery like us or to other Zanskar villages. They were on their annual pilgrimage to a very special monastery. In a village where there was a castle long ago. The castle that was burnt a long time ago and the village abandoned. But that is a different story.

As the legend goes, only these forty monks knew the location of the village. Every year they made this trek in the winter on their own, without the help of any Zanskari, carrying their own food, fuel and tents and taking great care that no one follows them. They didn’t even talk to anyone of us if we came across their path. It had been always like that since I had known, and my father and their fathers. Forty monks came from Alchi to perform yearly prayers at a sacred monastery in these hills, year after year. And then something happened, something really bad.

In 1972, I remember I was 12 years old then, on the first day of their journey on Chadar, it cracked and took them all in. It was not a thin layer that cracked, the monks were far too skilled to distinguish the even the slightest signs in the ice to foretell a disaster. A thick part of the Chadar which might be more than ten feet thick cracked, and swallowed them all. We got to know about this from one group of Zanskaris who had camped at Matho Doksa and had seen the monks passing in the morning. They were behind the monks that day, maintaining a safe distance not to disturb them but still seeing them when there was a clear line of sight. They heard the deafening cracking sound as if a demon had pounded a huge hammer into the ice itself, as if a thunderbolt had struck in bright daylight or as if the land itself had parted itself.

Since that year, the practice to pray at the sacred monastery was discontinued. There was no one at Alchi monastery left who knew the location of the village, with its monastery and the castle.”

Everyone was quite for a full minute even when Pasang had stopped. No one had interrupted him, and it was as if the story played like a visual, a projection into their very minds.

Prathap broke the silence and asked, “You mentioned it was their first day on Chadar just like us, so did we cross that spot where they all like went in?”

Pasang looked at him and smiled, “Yes it was right in front of us, where we had our lunch today. Exactly the spot where you fell in the water.” He responded to Prathap.

Another half a minute of silence and stares into each other followed.

Stanzing, the cook’s helper came in chanting, “Dinner ready, dinner ready”, and everyone rushed to get their plates and cups. Everyone was glum with the story and then with the anecdote on today’s ominous incident. After the dinner rice kheer was served and people cheered up a bit. Some did star trail shooting after it, some got into tents and played dumb charades, while most got into their tents and called it a day, the air was getting colder and soon it hit -35c.