JUL-B-6
THE DAY BEGINS WITH THE LONGEST RUN AT DAWN,
AND GIVING THE KARDUNGLA PASS A MISS,
I TRY TO GET BY WITHOUT ELECTRICITY IN
STRUGGLING WITH A LEMON LAPTOP AND NONELECTRIFIED INTERNET CAFES
TO ATTEMPT TO
COMMUNICATE
July 21, 2002
It was a long run. This time there were only two runners, I and Olga, and a number of walkers, when I explained the route we would take up past the Halal market and then over the Tsemo Gompa, to zig down the hill into the fertile and irrigated valley of Lei where the meltwater from the Kardungla Pass was channeled to irrigate paddies of potatoes peas and other garden vegetables. I had loved the maze-like part of this in the cool shelter of the trees and the verdant green in contrast to the stark desert all around, when I had done it before, but cautioned that to get into and experience it well meant getting lost in it, which I have also done before—nearly every time I had done this run. But I also remember having done this with “my girls,” Amy Hayes, Elizabeth Yellen, and when we had returned to pose on the roof of the Hotel Kangri when the very appreciative Indian Army who were posted here at the time that this city was under military curfew after the monks had been assassinated by the Moslems when they had heard a misinterpretation of the Koran forwarded to them by someone who had wrongly heard what the monks had said---and the opinion that the “girls” and I had was that this was the most exhilarating run of their lives in this exotic setting. So, Olga and I set out to do the run or its variation on the theme of getting lost in the green maze after the long uphill past the Halal Market and then over the Tsemo Gompa.
We did. We started at 6:00 Am and came back after 9:00 Am to catch the tail end of the 8:30 AM breakfast, and miss the takeoff of the jeep ride up to the Kardungla Pass—a distinction to stand in the highest motorable pass on earth which I could give a miss, since I have done it eight times before, and we would be going through the Chungla Pass tomorrow on the way to Tangste and Pangong Lake which pass is only 30 meters shorter than Kardungla. But, we did do the run, and it was exhilarating, and we certainly did get lost. We in fact came out very far from where I thought we would be, near the airport, and beyond the Norboo Sonom Hospital where I had given my lecture yesterday and had to walk back a fairly long ways, since every “shortcut” toward the center of Lei, was cutoff and we had to turn back the long way. So, the distance was about twenty miles when it was over, but it was possibly even worth it.
The walkers did not see as much, and turned back before even getting to Tesmo Gompa, despite instructions. At least they got the distinctive views of both the Halal market butchery and the silent sentries of “Latrine Hill”
I went directly to breakfast in my running gear, and mostly drank. I was then delighted to see the lights on and ran upstairs to use the first minutes of the electricity to shave, and then turned on the laptop. At that point I saw that there was no electricity, so I tried typing the end of yesterday’s story with the battery, and I got the same messages I got when I was in transit in Frankfurt Airport. “You are typing without a backup; you have no memory left; you must save your work now.” And, sure enough, I know what this means: the next thing as I am about to attempt to save, is that the cursor disappears from the screen and the last things that I type have not appeared on the screen as the machine freezes up. So, at this point there is no control, and there is but one thing to do—reluctantly turn the machine off, reboot, and lose whatever had been done to that point. Isn’t there a “laptop lemon” law that, after four new motherboards and two keyboard replacements, and the machine still fails in the most remote areas when I am depending on it, that I should simply have this machine replaced?
At this point I simply lay down and stared—the return of the nadir of my circadian rhythm, a dip in the forenoon---probably an indication to get a steroid boost. So, I am simply awaiting the return of the gang from Kardungla to have lunch, and see if there is any possibility of getting to an Internet Café, to be there if and when electricity returns to try to send a message that I have arrived in Lei, even if telecommunications capability has not! Then, we will later try to see this event of the high altitude polo, after I have packed up what goes and what is stashed here for the trip tomorrow up to Tangste where our first clinics will be held, and making a side trip up to Pangong Lake—the Chinese border in the 70 kilometer lake which is one of the largest highest lakes on earth, and ---like Tso Morari—a salt lake, without egress.