JUL-B-10
PACKING UP AND DRIVING OUT:
Our road trip Tangste to set up camp and
to treat the population expecting to meet us tentside
July 24, 2003
Repeating the form of the chart from yesterday’s message, I can give the readings on the various areas we passed through and the GPS marks, altitudes and O2 readings:
PLACE LATITIUDE LONGITUDE
ALTITUDE O2 SAT PULSE
LEIL
CHUN 34* 02.44 N 77* 55.51 E 17,350 FT 78% 74
TANG 34* 01.57 N 78* 10.01 E 13,065 FT 88% 68
SHAC 33* 59.24 N 78* 06.27 E 14,152 FT 86% 70
The trip up to the third highest road pass on earth, Chungla, at 17,350 feet, involved a short period of headache and shortness of breath, as I chased around briefly at the pass trying to shoot a photo of the purple blue anemone-like flowers that grow in the saddle of the pass, right up to the edge of the glacier. When we came down the extensive rock slides that have dammed the glacial run off stream toward the Pangong Lake, where these meltwaters dead end, we will cross some fords in the road. One of these fords had a bus stuck in the middle of it, with increasing depth and flow of the water as we watched. Futile efforts were launched by pulling with a rope, which, of course, snapped each time—at least to the last attempt without taking off anyone’s arm or leg or head as it recoiled. Finally an Army recovery tow truck pulled the bus and it made it across, and we could continue on after our hour and a half wait for this obstruction to b e cleared.
During that interval, I saw that my 28—70 mm lens failed. The screw that controls the aperture had once again slipped. This is the fifth time this has happened to this lens, repaired by George Mora each time—but I need a wide angle lens for the panoramic scenery at Tso Morari. So, I thought I should try to get a repair done—futile thought—in Leh, but there is little hope that they can do it and almost no hope that they can do it before I take off on the Lingshed trek. So, from here on, I am going to have to use my 70-210 Zoom as my only Nikon lens. I tried to borrow a lens from the medical student who would be gong back after Ladakh, but he recoiled at the idea. So, I will have only close ups from her on in the slide film I plan to be shooting through the Nikon.
We arrived at the stream banks where I have camped each time I have been to Tangste, and after unrolling our sleeping bags in the tents, I went to sleep right after dinner. The clinic tomorrow will be a full day, and we will be short one team that will be going to a school nearby to review a couple of students- shorting our manpower by too much for the idea of a jaunt. We will see how we can arrange the rest of the clinics in the Tangste Valley, but it will be a different venue than usual, since the whole of the Tangste Valley will be decamping off to Shachukul for the beginning of the four day Ladakh Festival, which is hosted by this red-hatted sect of Tibetan Buddhism at the Gompa there. Since people would be coming from far and wide to the Gompa, we will also follow them and set up our clinics the next two days in the Community Center there. From that strategic vantage point, we may also be able to see a bit of the festivities of the Ladakh Festival which will go on there for four days as a celebration of the New Year. That this was typically done in mid-winter has changed with the arrival of the road and potential tourists so that they can use the festival of traditional religious rituals to show off the culture and gather in some tourist revenue as well. We will see what both the clinical and medical educational programs produce her in the remote Tangste Valley and also the added feature of this year’s Ladakh Festival.