Leh, Ladakh

The beauty of these Himalayas is only equaled by the warmth of the Tibetan people that inhabit the region.

Leh is fantastic. It's a little Buddhist town nestled among mountains in a high altitude desert, relatively near the borders with China and Pakistan, in the Ladakh region. It's technically part of Jammu & Kashmir, but other than the J & K Government cars and banks throughout the town, you would never know that this is anywhere but Tibet. The area is surrounded by monasteries, and throughout the city's streets are many Tibetan refugee markets, and more prayer flags than I've ever seen in my life. The sun is fierce, at 3500m, and the air is incredibly dry, so my lips are chapped beyond recognition. The area reminds me in some ways of northern Vietnam, which I loved and cannot wait to return to. Sapa, like Leh, is a town where Europeans flock to in order to avoid the heat that blankets much of the rest of the country (ie. Vietnam and India), and where mountaineers gather before going on treks. Although Sapa at times feels a little artificial, in the way that it caters almost exclusively to tourists, this place has kept the very spiritual essence of itself, with the monasteries and Buddhist monks dotting the landscape. Zach, the offer still stands for a future trip here. If you're down, I'm down.

Yesterday I got a shared Jeep with 3 other people to go to Pangong Lake for a couple of days, a waterbody that is well into Tibet, and the majority of which actually lies over the Chinese border. The drive there was spectacular driving through the Himalayas for hours, in a scenery that is mostly high-altitude desert, but with several populated valleys of green, as well as some sand dunes on the final stretch, before the magnificent turquoise lake appeared. On the way, we even stopped drove past one of the highest roads in the world, at 5360 m! We were dropped off in our home for the night, a Tibetan homestay right on the banks of the lake. The family, an elderly Tibetan couple and their 16-year-old niece, lived in one house, with their livestock in a stone penn out front. Another house with three rooms had been constructed, where I and the other 3 members of my Jeeping crew slept. Tents were also set up, and were eventually inhabited by a group of French and Spanish backpackers.

As I sat in my single room, I thought about what to do. For the first time since I can remember, I felt a real sense of freedom. I was away from everyone I knew, without a phone, in one of the most peaceful and remote places on the planet. I had no deadlines, no meetings, no essay or application due, no time at which to be back. Especially after the East African trip, where every hour was accounted for by a lecture or NGO visit, it was an incredible feeling to be able to do exactly what I wanted, when I wanted.

After settling in and leafing through the photo album that my new "homestay dad" brought out to show us, I decided to go for a walk along the water. I started walking toward China. Although I knew it was over 100 km away, and that tourists weren't allowed further than about 10 km from where I was standing, it was a nice little goal to set myself. I walked for a few hours, stopping to take pictures and just contemplate the power of nature - these mountains, that have been here for millennia, that move ever so slowly, only allowing water to pass through them to create valleys.

I wish I knew more about nature, about the history of the Earth, about science, about geology, about evolution, about the interconnectedness and interdependence of people and the Earth. I wish that when I looked at a mountain range or a river or a lake I could do more than just admire. I wish I could fundamentally understand the processes at work. I wish Dr. Engstrom and Dr. Shiklomanov could teach me everything they know about hydrology, Arctic climatology, and all their other snipets of scientific knowledge.

Geography is the study of humans' interactions with the environment, and how they both influence one another. Through university, I can learn the science behind the environment, this knowledge that I've craved ever since Dr. Shiklomanov made science interesting something no one had ever been able to do before. (It's crazy to think that this time last year I was sitting in an internet cafe in Vietnam complaining that I had to take a 'Weather and Climate' class with 'some new Russian professor'). Through travel, I can hope to understand people a little bit better, and the many ways in which these interactions with the environment can vary, and more specifically, the level of respect that more traditional societies accord to nature, which we in the West often forget.

“I used to assume that the direction of 'progress' was somehow inevitable, not to be questioned. I do not anymore. In Ladakh, I have learned that there is more than one path into the future and I have had the privilege to witness another, saner, way of life a pattern of existence based on the coevolution between human beings and the earth. Industrialized countries have lessons to learn from people like Ladakhis about building sustainable societies. It may seem absurd to believe that a 'primitive' culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned.”
-Helena Norberg-Hodge, "Ancient Futures”