July 30, 2002
ARRIVAL IN LEH AND
SETTING OUT FOR TANGSTE
Interval Letter: Part A: Arrival and acclimatization in Leh Ladakh, and Introduction of the team members, as we pack up for Tangste (sent July 23, 2002)
I am typing this note as a cover note for what I hope to be able to send out before I am out of any contact with any town or telephone line. I have tried hard to get the messages of my arrival in Leh, Ladakh, typed into the discs, which requires a source of electricity or charged up batteries, which has been my full time task so far in the staging area of Leh, before we leave today for the remote village of Tangste, along the border of China, through Chungla Pass over 17,640 feet. My team of principally freshmen medical students are all out of whack from their rapid transport here to the far side of the globe, “orienting” over twelve and a half time zones away, which has given a 180* reversal of day/night in their circadian rhythms. Additionally, a few have found, to their regret, that they did not do well with a brief visit to Kardungla Pass, the highest motorable mountain pass on earth, with some of them returning blue and sick.
I have struggled with electrical supply, trying to catch the brief periods when the diesel generator is turned on to charge up the batteries of this machine, and then to seek out any Internet Café that might have simultaneously both electrical power and a telephone line to mail you out this message of our arrival and getting into position to commence our first medical camps today in Tangste along the Pangong Lake border with China. But, when the power is on, I can get a jolt from the “juice junkie’s” pursuit of electricity, but also a lungful of the diesel smoke that constitutes about half of the breathable air here.
I have had a few laptop glitches that have erased the first three times I have tried to put down this cover note, so this brief note is going to be scrambled on the back up battery as I now go through town, with bag and sleeping bag packed in the jeeps for takeoff, awaiting a shop that may have a telephone line when and if power comes on.
So, I am here, in Ladakh, and trying to get to work, despite atmospheric, geographic and biologic clock impairments, but ready to do the job!
Cheers!
GWG
RETURN FROM
TANGSTE AND PANGONG LAKE
Interval Letter: Part B: Return from Tangste and Pangong Lake, enroute to Tso Morari
(Prepared to be sent July 27, 2002)
From the three highest roadways on earth---the road trip is continuing!
I have just made it back to Leh, the capital of Ladakh. Ladakh, the “Kingdom in the Clouds” is a section of the Indian Province known as J & K. That last letter stands for Kashmir, and if that is a name that seems somewhat familiar to you, you are right—this is where the action is.
My own action has been in getting my team and me over the highest roads on earth, and I have just returned today through the Chungla Pass to get back to regroup (laundry, mail, and—if there is electricity du jour—email—which you will know has been successfully negotiated if you are reading this) and then take off on a long day’s drive up the Indus River into the restricted area that will give us permit access to Karzok, and Tso Morari, even more remote than the area we have just now returned from along the Tibetan (read “Chinese” border,) across the Pangong Lake.
In order, the three highest roadways on earth through he three Himalayan Passes that are “jeep motorable” are:
1) Kardungla Pass 18,450 feet
2) Tanglangla Pass 17,800 feet
3) Chungla Pass 17,350 feet
So, we have just transited all three of the world’s highest roadways this week---if you will allow the Himank-built detours over rock avalanche chutes and tunnels through glacial ice to participate in your definition of “roads.”
I attach the rather unusual dynamics of the Tangste medical camps with a very rewarding experience for most, and one quite adamant exception, whose argument might be instructive, if for no other reason sowing that we all have to start somewhere in this business of trying to do some one other than us some good, and some of us may be starting a long way back but have borrowed a lot of terms that may be misapplied in objection to the way it is happening now. So Jul-B-9 is a part of our story returning from Tangste medical camps as we set up for our next venue, the Tso Morari remote Lake District for our next one as we leave early tomorrow to try to get there from what seems like a balmy low-lying thick atmosphere now—of only 12, 500 feet!
RETURN TO LEH FROM
TSO MORARI
Interval Letter: Part C: Return from Tso Morari and the last of the medical camps of Ladakh-02, and the farewells to the first team, as the interval between Ladakh-02 and Lingshed-02 has now approached before the later August 4 takeoff on trek to Lingshed (July 27—29, ’02)
I am just now back in Leh, for the third arrival of this trip, with a few more still to go to return to the Hotel Khangri as my staging area for the two medical mission trips and the interval stay in Ladakh between these two missions. I have returned from the favorite distant site, Lake Tso Morari, where we are camped on the shores of this salt lake in the remote Ladakh/Tibet border at 15,100 feet elevation, where we carry on our final medical camp of Ladakh-02.
I have straggled in late at night to try to clean up and quickly get down to the dinner for the returning team members who will have a full day off in Leh tomorrow as the final day before they each scatter to differing destinations. I am a bit unsure yet of my interval activities, but will try to determine this after searching for an Internet Café from which to send this note tomorrow, electricity permitting. It may be that I remain in Leh doing some further work on this machine (again, electricity permitting) or use this “window” to climb the highest peak in Ladakh—Stok Khangri, if that can be arranged with another outfitter, who has been expecting my arrival for this interval between medical missions.
I can now report on the Tso Morari trek since I had typed up a letter to you, (Interval Letter B, above) but could not send it nor find a place with both electricity and a phone. So the interval note “B” above and the attached Jul-B-9 will tell you about the experiences in Tangste.
Now, this interval note “C” will tell you a bit about Tso Morari and its medical camps, along with the Jul-B-10 chapter attached.
Cheers!
GWG