Befuddledbeckers’s Weblog

So I didn’t bring the cord for my camera. But Kevin did. His pictures are here. I’ve only been to the Ladack and Agra sections of his trip. Enjoy! I will post my pictures when I get home.

So we finally left Leh. After hearing about how the road might be open “in a day or two” for 5 days and after reading this article about all of the landslides we finally bought airplane tickets. The last rumor we heard was that it might be another five days till they clear the road so I’m pretty happy with the choice.

One great thing about the road being closed is that we made a lot of new friends. Leh is a pretty small place and as it was way after the tourist season, you tended to see the same people over and over again. My last two nights in Leh consisted of interesting conversations, a little bit of beer and a lot of yummy food. It made waiting around pretty nice. Plus I might meet up with of of these fellow travelors in Rahjistan since Kevin already went there for some reason and we will be parting ways.

Today was a day of travel. I flew out of Leh at 7:20 am, while Kevin chose the cheeper route of taking a 12 hr overnight jeep ride to Shrinegar and flying out of there this morning. Once Kevin and I found each other again, we headed to the train station and rode general class on the train to Agra. I’ve never had so many people staring at me for so long in my life. It was a little disconcerting and when Kevin leaves for Nepal at the end of the week, I think I’ll be traveling in the ‘ladies only’ section of the train.  There were a lot of questions about Kevin’s ‘wife’ (haha, I know. I almost laughed out loud at that) and anytime I looked up from my book it was to find 6 or 7 pairs of eyes staring at me. We were sitting up on the luggage rack so at least we got to sit for the 4 or 5 hours (though people kept poking at me through the grill >(  ). I guess I was a bit of  a novelity.

Tomorrow we are going to hopefully see the Red Fort (as the Taj is closed on Fridays!) and then the Taj on Saturday and then a overnight train to Veranasi. We have abandoned our original plans not only because of the delay in leaving Leh, but the amazing amount of natural disasters in the areas we were planning on going to. The Spiti valley had an unexpected and early snow fall, which required the Dalai Lama’s second to be airlifted out of the area. The Leh/Manali area is suffereing from landslides that have resulted in at least 6 known deaths (though people are still stranded on the roads so this will most likely go up). And Shimla has had major flooding and over 40 deaths. It’s pretty crazy! But no worries, Kevin and I have been perfectly safe, if not a little stir-crazy stuck up in the mountains.

So that is all for now. In case you cared, I’ve read the following books since I came last week: The Left Hand of Darkness, Seven Years in Tibet, Fearless Fourteen, and The Fifth Mountain. I’m starting A 1,000 Splendid Suns tonight. I imagine with all the train rides this list will get pretty long!

We are stuck in Leh. The rainy day I mentioned in the prior post caused a snow storm up at the pass out and the road sort of got swept away or something (that is the rumor). We have been chilling, waiting for the pass to reopen and debating on whether to go north to Kashmir (yes, I know) and then south to Delhi via armed escort (yes, I really, really know) which is the only other way out. Right now we are opting for waiting. Airfare of course went way up and isn’t available until the 26th anyway, so that is not a real choice at this point. So there will be lots and lots of pictures of Leh when all is said and done.

Yesterday it did not rain but it was very cold and Kevin and I finally spent some of our money on winter clothing. We hiked up to the monastery and palace that overlooks the city for some amazing views. Funny Beckyism: So I was taking pictures with my camera, but whenever I turned it sideways to get a longer frame, the screen went really dark and I couldn’t see what I was taking a picture of. I thought maybe I had broken it or Kevin had hit some mysterious button when he was fiddling with all the settings earlier. And then Kevin pointed out that I was wearing polarized sunglasses. Yes, I am that stupid.

Today the weather was awesome! It only rained a little and the temperature did not require the winter clothes we bought. We took a bus out to Thiskey monastary and finally got to see the real people of this area. It was nice to get away from all the tourists and the hawkers in the main street here. The whole area is basically a dessert and the river that runs through the valley is irrigated into the surrounding fields. So basically you have a rather green strip running through what is otherwise a dessert valley with snowcapped mountains trapping it in.

Donkeys and cows make a lot of noise. And it really, really carries. It is strange to be startled by a donkey heehawing when you are on the roof of a monastery that is on a mountain way up from the field where the donkey is. And it is really nice to find soft serve icecream in town when you climbed a gazillion steps earlier in the afternoon to get to said monastery. That is it. Not very exciting I know, but hopefully we will get out of the valley soon and move on to slightly less cold places.

I’m in Leh, India. When Kevin and I arrived here yesterday we were told not to do much because we needed to get use to the altitude.  Leh is more than 11,000 feet above sea level! I’m not sure if Kevin really believed this acclimating business until we climbed the stairs to our room and we both had pounding headaches and were breathing heavily from the exertion. So we have been tooling around, drinking lots of water and tea. And since it is very cold and rainy today we decided to find an internet cafe. Since there is only so much browsing I can do in a day, I decided to sign up for a wordpress blog (which is what Kevin is working on right now). Only to discover that I had in fact signed up in March (which I have absolutely no memory of doing. Sigh). So here is my new blog. Ta-da!

So far my trip has mostly been in transit. My flight involved 15-16 hours of screaming, grumpy children and pushy older people. We got into Leh around 6:30 am yesterday and then took a nice long nap. Kevin has been ill and was quizing me on whether he needed to take his antibiotics or not. I said no and then yes because there were some white patches on the back of his throat. Have I ever mentioned how glad I am not to be a doctor? So needless to say with all the traveling and acclimating and Kevin being ill we have been taking it easy. It’s kind of nice. I’ve already finished my first book. There was talk of renting a motorcycle if it is sunny tomorrow and going to some of the monastaries in the area. I’ll let you know how that goes.