Leh, Ladakh, India

Day 6: Saspol, Alchi

Part of the Ladakh 2017 Trip series

2017-09-25, 22:28, JASON

BUDGET, STAY: Tsetan Guest House

We 'hire out' our hostelowner's dad for a day trip to Saspol and Alchi, and here's why.

We were in Chennai in February, and one instance that struck us was when, upon negotiating with the man a price for the rickshaw, said, "Why don't you guys ever pay the higher price? How am I supposed to make money??" It was a fair question.

In Leh, it's very popular for Indians (using this to refer to Brown Indians, as Ladakhis are technically Indian by nationality only) to rent Enfields, which are kind of 'classic adventuring' motorcycles. Think Che Guevara in the Motorcycle Diaries. It's so much of a 'thing' to do, that there is an overabundance of them in the streets, and not all of them are good drivers. It's so much of a 'thing' that it's gone into the realm of 'Instagram' generation, where people will do it thinking they're cool. "Yeah, I went to Leh and rode an Enfield" -- it's a right of passage. Something about a motorcycle ride through some cultural Indian city gives you street credit in the literal sense.

We initially thought about doing that too, until we realized the hassle. Me sitting on the back of a motorcycle in a busy Indian city. The need to buy parts to repair stuff if it were to break down in butt fuck nowhere. Buying a phone to contact the repair people. Too much hassle, we thought, so we decided to give our tourist dollars to our hostelowner's dad, who agreed to take us. He works as a taxi driver on the side during the day, so we figure we'd just employ him. Plus, we liked the hostel a lot and wouldn't mind the money going back to them. So, good support of tourist dollars, and avoiding the tourist sham of the Enfield.

We stayed in Tsetan's House, which is the name of the son of the house. So, his dad, and our tour guide for the day, will be formally called Tsetan's Dad, since I didn't really hear his name.

Tsetan's dad slowly begins talking about Leh. He always is careful in making the distinction between "Ladakhis" and "Indians". He'll say that Ladakhis are like so and so, and usually Indians are like so and so. He says he doesn't understand why Indians sometimes do this, and why Ladakhis do that, making the distinction between nationality and ethnicity. It's interesting how he does it, but perhaps it poignantly 'picks out' the problem with modern national identities. Throughout the journey, he occasionally chimes in with the "idiocy of Indians" especially when it comes to them being tourists.

He drives us first to Saspol, which is about 1 hour away, home to some old cave paintings nestled in rock caves. The entire drive, we pass by more Indian military units like we did the first day driving into Leh. The land is very expansive, and so occasionally there'll be not a soul for a few miles, and then civilization in the form of army camps. We come across many different units, with Indians doing various activities. Some are running in parallel lines, shoulder to shoulder, adjusting to the altitude. Some are playing basketball. The occasional odd-one-out is just walking along the roadside, seemingly aimless. It's weird going through there on an inconspicuous tour van and peering into the military camps. Almost feels as if you're part of their training.

Tsetan's dad tells us that he used to be part of the military, and he was with them for about 20 years before he retired with them. As to why he joined the military, he said because it was his only option. "I didn't go to school!" he laughs, in a kind of old man laughter that's a little whispy and a whole lot of wheezy. He knows he's not educated, but he's clearly not dumb; rather, well mannered, and smart when it comes to dealing with people. "I joined the military because it was where I could contribute." Because of retiring after working with the military, he's able to live a more comfortable life since the government takes care of him. "It allowed me to give Tsetan and my wife a home." We ask him about his time in the military but due to a language gap there's not much to say. He had a good time, we gleaned, and he seems to have seen a lot of northern India (Ladakh, Chandigarh, Delhi). I can't tell if he's so proud to be Indian, necessarily, but he is proud to have served the military. He is also proud to be a man for his family.

We pass by a stop called Magnetic Hill, supposedly named bcause there's a 'natural optical illusion' effect; like you're moving downhill even though ahead of you looks like you're going uphill. Tsetan's dad scoffs and does a heartily laugh, one that he does so well, and says, "I mean, come on, you think it's magic? You're obviously going downhill. It's just the angle you're going from looks uphill! I'm standing there from the bottom looking up at people amazed they're going downhill! As if it's something new! Cheh!" He continues to laugh.

We get off at one point to take some pictures. It's a place where two rivers (I forget which) meet, and there are a couple of other cars parked out in the front. One has a steady flow, and one is more turbulent and murkier, but they merge perfectly at a line, and the water seems to be neither turbulent nor smooth, but ripply. Nevertheless, it's still brown. It's still a bit surreal I'm here. There's still a headache from the altitude sickness but I'm just staring blankly into this river, and for a moment it seems to disappear.

When we reach Saspol, Tsetan's dad tells us to just start climbing at some random entrance, and we promptly follow his instructions. We wind through small, pastoral villages with local Ladakhi families carrying in their harvest. They greet us with a "Jullay!" which means hello, and then continue on their way. It still must be strange to see a kind-of-Asian looking person with a white person, and maybe the locals linger a bit longer in their stare than they would for a white tourist couple, but they continue with their work.

I really can't describe the Himalayan Valleys. You're surrounded by mountains on both sides and the sun is a kind of intensity you never experience, since you're at high altitude. The brush along the way carries a subtle breeze that cools the sweat from the sun. Apricot trees line the valley and have occasionally fallen off and have been smooshed by wandering tourists. I feel out of place, and time.

We hit a paved road, and follow along it. There is an inconspicuous small, stone path that leads up to the cave paintings which is loosely 'paved' from the feet shuffling of previous tourists. When we get up, we see a small red door, and a few signs posted on the front indicating that restoration activity had been happening. The door has a small latch on it and we go in, unveiling a thousand years of history before our eyes in a relatively unpreserved state. Old ass cave paintings from however long ago, still here, preserved in time with the quaintness of the valley. It's as if this place has never moved on, carrying with it the scars of time -- a huge crack down the side of one of the paintings after a recent earthquake.

When we walk out, my headache hits me full force and I feel a bit of vertigo. The drop down the side of the cliff is pretty brutal, but there are still a few more cave paintings to see. To get to the other hubs of cave paintings, it requires some acute maneuvering and stepping on the odd, misplaced rock. It's a struggle, but eventually we make it to another site.

I will always remember this site over the "red door" site, even though the latter is the most famous. There were two people in there, taking pictures of the wall paintings with what seemed like advanced photography gear. Thorin and I popped in after a near-death experience scaling the wall and took a moment to appreciate the art. After taking a few pictures, the two other people began scraping some of the parts of the wall off, and putting it in a small bag. It became apparent that they were surveyors of some sort, and so I had to inquire.

Turns out, they were preservationists who had just graduated and been employed by a foreign grant to attempt to save these cave paintings. The signboards that were posted at the front of the Red Door site were actually their employers, and these two people had to carry the signboard up and post it nearby the site entrance as a result. They were doing some spectral analysis on the painting colors to attempt to back-trace the source of the pigmentation, as well as attempting to survey the rock behind the paintints and fill it with cement in order to solidify the rock structure (it turns out that the rock they painted on was very porous, and so prone to crack, as was seen in the Red Door). They had spent one year in the previous cave we were in, and this year, they were attempting to do restoration in the cave we turned up in. I mean, three years of your life to preserve art of one-thousand years old. I liked that dedication. I managed to get a picture of them while working, and thanked them, both for taking the time out to answer my questions, and for preserving a bit of what's left of history.

There was still one more cave we wanted to see, and to do that we had to scale some more mountain. There are a lot of 'cave looking things' up there, but only a few actually have any cave paintings in them. Given my state of dizziness, I managed to pick only a few caves and, as my luck would have it, they had no paintings. There was a small fort built at the top of the mountain. Thorin took a dump at the top of the rocks. "It was serene" he said, "It's like shitting alongside history." I handed him the baby wipes. We took some pictures.

By the time we'd made it down, Tsetan's dad was already waiting for us and looking for us. He thought we'd gone missing but we had just misinterpreted his directions. He laughed about it and just said "Oh so silly!" and then proceeded to drive us to Alchi, another small Monastery town.

I think by this point, we'd been in a car so long, and been driving so long, that Alchi didn't really have such a wow factor. I believe it was known to be a monastery that was actually not built into a cave, which is rather funny given the context. Oh, and they were also known for the apricots. We had a lunch at some restaurant there, and met a group of random Taiwanese aunties who were there for Buddhism or something. They started picking the apricots from the garden and eating them after their tour guide gave them permission.

When we finished the dinner, the monastery was on some lunch break so we waited in line for the doors to open. What happened next was unbelievably shocking and an allegory for human greed.

As I said, Alchi is known for apricots. There are several apricot trees blooming around town and some have fallen on the floor for consumption. In the monastery grounds, there were also some apricot trees that were growing. Mind you, we were inside monastery grounds.

A group of westerners come in and, without even the slightest hesitation, start grabbing at one of the trees in front of us and pulling down the branches in an attempt to pick the apricots off and eat it. Thorin and I are sat there in slight amazement, but disgust, as to these people that are ripping off the leaves of this poor apricot tree just so they can try the famous Alchi Apricot. They cast a quick glance at us and smiled as if they were doing nothing wrong. Afterwards, another couple, also western, unrelated to the first group, actually started trying to climb onto this apricot tree and pick apricots from it. The more they tried to tug the branch down and pick off the apricot, another two would fall down at the relapse of the branch at its base. They also cast a glance at us, smiling, but proudly eating their apricots that they had just picked.

I don't know, the scene disturbed me. You don't go to someone's house and pick fruits off their tree and eat it, let alone leave a mess of the fruits on the ground when you leave. If you saw a tourist doing that -- picking off fruits at a tree -- in your church, or your religious place of worship, how does that look? It was complete negligence to how they're coming across that shocked me. There was no better allegory for greed and entitlement that was embodied by these tourists ravaging these apricot trees, their greedy snickers and sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, post-apricot. Harmful tourism embodied.

We toured the monastery, and left shortly thereafter. Some really nice Buddha paintings in the monastery, though. For a non-cave monastery, it was still up to par with their cave counterparts.

When we went back to Leh Market, there was a small popup market in the main center, selling some local Leh delicacies. We sit down and have some weird stuff: a ball of very heavy dough with super spicy sauce, as well as this orange-soda ish type of a drink that is made supposedly from a super fruit. I completely forgot what they were called so those are my descriptions. We wash it down with some Butter Milk Tea. The heavy dough was good but it was heavy; however, the redeeming thing was the spicy sauce. The Ladakhis love their spices. While we're sitting, an NGO kid from Australia we met a few days earlier was there, and had shown up with another white person. All of the locals know him since he's one of the few white people that speak Ladakhi. We chat for a bit then part our own ways. I figure I wouldn't get his Instagram -- a 'thing' we do these days -- some connections are better left unlinked.

I still had a slight headache that night. I felt like I was just getting over the altitude sickness, but I'd have to be gone the next day. But despite the altitude nonsense, Leh was surreal in an objective way. It was just a bit more surreal than usual because I'd spent the entire time in a state of low-oxygen.

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