JUL-B-6
THE ARRIVAL
LETTER TRANSMITTED
FROM AN INTERNET CAFÉ IN
AT THE START
OF LADAKH-03
Dear Friends at or Near Sea Level:
I have arrived two miles up and gathered the entourage of 27 participants who will be joining on the first of the Himalayan treks, Ladakh-03. None of them have ever been here or on anything like this kind of adventure, and they are all woozy today with the altitude and time zone adjustments, as we go through the accommodation and orientation phase at our staging base here in Leh Ladakh before takeoff tomorrow on our jeep road trip up the Indus River in a convoy of over a dozen vehicles. When we return in ten days, ready for what will then be seen as a major center of civilization, even though it appeared to be quite primitive upon their first view after arrival from Delhi, flying along the spectacular Karakorum Range, we will get the longed for shower, laundry, Internet Café messages and posting cards, and then take off up the Zanskar River into the Kashmiri remoteness of Linshed-03 on trek. So, despite the weariness and weirdness each of the participants feels upon arrival in this exotic environment, the real exertion is yet to come for the second group I will pick up at the end of August and repeat the acclimatization drill, then go out for the serious exertion at altitude, passing through seven passes over 15,000 feet on foot.
I have attached the record of the beginning of this Ladakh-03 multiply repeated trip for me in the Jul-B-series; complete this far from Jul-B-1-5. I will now pack up the laptop and set out with backpack and sleeping bag and medical kits to the remote clinics along two of the world’s highest “saline” remote mountain lakes in what was Tibet and now is in disputed claim between China and India, before going in the other direction for the first three weeks of August into disputed territory of what was once Tibet and is in hot conflict over “the line of demarcation and control” between Pakistan and India! May all your problems be easier to solve than these geopolitical quarrels over the steep alpine desert turf underneath neglected peoples otherwise ignored!
Cheers from the “Kingdom in the Clouds!”
GWG