Photos...

Well shit...

Sometimes it is only once a week or even once every ten days, sometimes it is five times or more a day and only rarely is it each morning between getting up and having a shower. It is the topic of casual conversations with near strangers and sometimes it is the all-consuming focus of my attention to the exclusion of a gorgeous sunset, the location of my passport and the fact that the world exists beyond my bowels.

This is a brief dissertation on shit in Ladakh. Knowledge, of course, cannot be given back and if you wish to know nothing of toilets in Ladakh, including their design, use function, mishaps and misadventures then you should turn your attention elsewhere. You should close your eyes and rely on an idealized version of travel that does not include the hard truths of life beyond a porcelain throne, central plumbing, and discretely placed cans of air freshener.  

Ladakh is a land of rock and dust with the occasional tree planted in the hope it might one day find a useful structural location after its death. Little of use is wasted, and ceremony is left to the useful areas of Buddha, karma and kindness.  Toilets are built of mud bricks stacked one on top of the other until a two story shitter rises above the bedrock and barely arable land. Each of these stories has its own entrance where the first is accessed though a small wooden door at ground level and the second is found at the top of well worn steps. I have no idea what the Ladakhi call these different doors; indeed I have no idea if they even bother to give them separate names. As a way to embrace my ignorance I have chosen to call the bottom door “Very Wrong Door” and the top or second story door “Not So Wrong Door.”

Like so may things in the world, shit travels with gravity and in the case of a Ladakhi toilet shit travels from the second floor, where it is deposited, to the first floor where it is stored for later use. Thus in the middle of the night when the fist of a titan squeezes your guts it is important to remember this fact and run up the steps to the second floor. Do not go blundering blindly into the “Very Wrong Door”.

Choosing the correct door is not the only challenge to be faced. Remember that these building are made by hand with mud bricks and building them is hard work. The taller the shitter the harder the work and thus I do not begrudge the Ladakhi insistence on low ceilings. I do however, wish I had a better memory and that I had never found myself wondering if the stars in the sky were born from my head slamming into a ceiling joist or from a distance supernova.

Once inside the toilet the fist thing to remember is: watch your step. In the middle of the floor is a shoebox shaped hole, place your feet on either side of it but don’t on any account place your foot in it. This hole is for your shit not your foot, and since it is also for everyone else’s shit as well nothing good could possibly come from such a mistake.

With one foot resting on either side of the hole the next step is to drop your pants to your ankles. I have never tried this process in a Ladaki winter nor do I relish the thought but it is worth remembering that the Ladakhi town of Drass holds the record as the coldest inhabited place on earth with temperatures see as low as -60°C.

For those born to the method of the squat/shit the next step is, presumably, no big deal. I however, was not born to this method and the act of keeping my balance, front to back and side to side without anything that might resemble a handhold is a desperate challenge. If you are in doubt on this last point just give it a try, put your feet shoulder width apart and bend your knees until your thighs rest against your calves. Remember not to use your hands and once your butt is a few inches from the floor remember to relax, you are going to be here for a little bit. Also remember to practice this a few times, you will inevitably need to ‘assume the position’ while in a desperate hurry.

Lastly when you are finished with your business stand up with caution. That low ceiling is still waiting to crash into your head and if you strike it you will undoubtedly lose your footing and slip into an awkwardly placed hole in the floor.

Charged the Pakistan Border

Mountains of rock covered with boulders, coated in dust and topped with ice; this is the Ladakh that has confronted me. Knife slits of streams thread their way through valleys yet these streams only give birth to vegetation reluctantly and sporadically. Tiny hamlets cling to these sporadic green patches surrounded by stark brown cliffs, making a vast vertical desert that ends only when it reached a featureless blue sky. Ladakh is a dry grandeur that has defied my expectations not only for its obvious lack of water but also for the life that thrives here. Herds of blue sheep range on these slopes nibbling at vegetation only they seem able to find. As the sheep migrate up and down these slopes with the seasons wolves and leopards follow them known only from their nightly songs and tracks in the mud. Add to all this the windblown and sun wrinkled old women quietly herding their yaks from one place to another. Each time a trail crosses a pass, mounts a ridge or rounds a corner to a noteworthy view tattered prayer flags sway in the wind and walls of intricately carved mani stones part the path displaying their prayers to all who care to learn the Tibetan script.

Ladakh is not what I had imagined. Nepal, Sikim, and Tibet all felt like places that invited life. Ladakh by contrast feels like a place where life has arrived without preparation but has managed to find a bewildered and happy reception anyway much like the dinner guest who arrives without an invitation but who also brings the groceries, cooks the food and fills the house with laughter.

Five days ago we piled into a jeep with three other tourists and a driver to travel from Leh to the Nubra Valley. Leaving Leh the road begins an impossible climb through this land of rock and dust to Khardung La pass at 5602m (18,379 feet). It seems to me that high mountains detest roads and this road and these mountains are no exception. Though the Indian army and sprawling camps of dark skinned laborers crush rocks, pour concrete, and divert streams the road is still little more than a muddy stream bed filled with struggling vehicles, fighting to form three lanes on a one lane track. Ladakh is in India after all and no mountain road here has less then three lanes no matter how narrow, and no matter how precipitous the surrounding cliffs there is always one lane going up, one going down and one for the cars going both up and down. Yet despite the inevitable motorized chaos the system somehow works and the top of Khardung pass is festooned with crisp new prayer flags, impossibly colorful cargo trucks, overflowing toilets and turbaned Sikh families enjoying their first snowball fight. However, this would not be India if the impossible were not also at perched atop this pass and so to complete the picture a group of exhausted Italian cyclists festooned with helmets and spandex completes the picture.

The journey down Khardung pass is profoundly different only in the fact that you are now staring into Pakistan and that modern warriors sit unseen furiously guarding the disputed boarder.  Meanwhile on the road uniformed soldiers and massive green transport trucks mix freely with the chartered Toyota taxis and Royal Enfield motorcycles of the Indian and western tourists.

The flat bottom and meandering river here do nothing to alter the fact that Ladakh is dry and brown. In this regard at least the one side of Khardung pass is much like the other though as we dropped further and further into the valley a pivotal difference emerged: the Nubra valley is hot. The town of Hunder offers tourist camel rides through the sand dunes along the river’s edge and my left arm turned red where I hung it out the passenger side window of our Toyota mini-van. In the valley floor the road is paved and though our diver could have picked up speed he choose instead to delicately manage the endless supply of blind corners and courteously let any trailing vehicles pass us at the nearest place he could pull over. I found this particular detail of our trip even more disorienting than the mad Italian cyclists at 18,000 feet.  Though as our day wore on I relaxed into the idea that our driver was more blind than courteous.

Nothing is free however; our driver’s understandable sense of both propriety and self preservation brought us to a final stream crossing a mere three miles from our final destination of Turtuk. All day the sun had pounded the high altitude snowfields feeding this stream. In the morning what had been a mere trickle now flowed with an intimidating force far beyond our driver’s courage. Putting the mini van in park he simply said, ‘no’ and for the moment the discussion ended. We all watched the stream and contemplated the inevitable question, ‘Well what the hell do we do now?’

In a half-baked answer to our question a small man in a Muslim knit hat and holding a hoe leapt from behind a boulder where he had been enjoying an afternoon nap. Immediately he began swinging his hoe at the road/stream bed in a comical attempt to clear a path. (Apparently the army pays him to keep this little section of road passable.) His efforts were fantastically energetic, utterly futile and tragically comical all at the same time.  It was with the arrival of a high clearance, and fully loaded local bus that our question ‘Well what the hell do we do now?’ answered itself. Our driver agreed to meet us at the stream crossing the next morning and we charged onto the buss.

Or at least we tried to charge onto the bus. Suzanne, perhaps utilizing her super powers honed in the New York subway, managed to push her way onboard. I however, bounced off a solid wall of human flesh. Fortunately, I am not without my own skills. I have learned the art of bus roof riding in Nepal and without missing a beat I leapt to the roof, situated myself on the luggage (fortunately there were no chickens this time) and braced for the journey.

This then is how I found myself ducking tree branches and power lines as I charged the Pakistan border mounted to the roof of a bus with the sun setting in my eyes.

The Bangkok Amulet Market

I was picking the remains of the helmet plastic from my teeth when an email came in regarding my last blog post. It was suggested that I should spend more time riding in tuktuks and taxis and less time on motorbike taxis. Of course, this is sound advice but it also got me thinking. How is it that I survived my last experience?  The only answer that I have been able to come up with is, luck. It was this thought that led me to recall the medallion handing from my driver’s neck -- a giant plastic Buddha encased in more clear plastic. All the taxi drivers in Bangkok wear some kind of medallion but until this moment I had never really considered what I was seeing. Since I am heading to India tomorrow where the traffic can be even crazier I set out with the utmost haste to find a good luck charm of my own.

Fortunately the Bangkok Amulet Market is just a short taxi ride from my hotel and in deference to my friends’ advice I took a taxi with four wheals and air conditioning. When I stepped into the taxi I did so with a rather smug sense of self-satisfaction. This was a brilliant idea. When I stepped out of the taxi and confronted the bewildering array of options I was reminded yet again of my personal shortcomings. Stall after stall of this covered market sat jammed together in an endless mound of trinkets, medallions and amulets. Buyers poured over individual items examining them with a magnifying glasses and an unquestionable sense of purpose. I was at a complete loss. Clearly not just any old amulet would do but at the same time, how to find the right one? Totally overwhelmed, I did the only sensible thing I could think of and had an ice cream and Coke float.

In times of great stress I occasionally fall back on this relic of my childhood. Root beer floats were something that my father used to buy me as a special treat and though my memories of that time are blurred the visceral sensation of being with my father is still completely intact. As the ice cream and bit of frozen cola went down my throat I landed on a strategy for picking my good luck charm.

First I would find a vender who believed in his wares. This vender proved easy to spot as he sat bedazzled in amulets. I reasoned that if he was using the amulets to drum up business and if I bought my amulet from him then his amulets would have been proven to work. His amulets made me purchase from him. As the saying goes, “The nice thing about being rational is that one can rationalize anything.”  I now have an amulet bought from a man with a proven track record of selling working amulets. It is perfect.

…Except for the lingering doubt in the back of my mind. Both my kamikaze taxi driver and my merchant of good fortune sported massive pendants. Mine on the other hand is rather small. Does size matter?

Bangkok Taxi

A friend once told me that all good stories should begin with the phrase: No shit, there I was.

No shit, there I was clinging with a death grip to the back of a pink polka-dotted motorcycle taxi as we flew down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians, and saving untold seconds of travel time by not pausing in the Bangkok traffic. The bike then launched into the air as we jumped the curb and traded the sidewalk for the precious twelve inches of space taken up by the gutter and now bordered by a Samsung advertising sign and an accelerating bus. My motorcycle taxi driver slammed on the brakes as the bus began to casually compact our remaining space in the gutter. Fright crushed the air from my lungs and left my jaw gaping open. Unprepared for the rapid deceleration, my now open mandibles sank into the driver's helmeted head. Unlike the rest of the motorcycle, which was covered in circular pink stickers, my driver’s helmet sported pink triangles. Bits of which, fused with smog and high density plastic, became lodged in my teeth.

Moments after the bus accelerated past us we swerved right and into the flow of traffic. Now trailing the bus I momentarily wondered if I might be able to use the exhaust pipe to pick the bits of plastic from my teeth. We seemed close enough but no sooner had this whimsical thought occurred than we again swung to the right, crossed the yellow line separating us from on coming traffic and sped past the bus. With the exhaust pipe now ruled out as a tooth pick and bits of helmet still lodged in my teeth I considered using my tongue to extract the debris. Swerving left to avoid oncoming traffic and cutting off the bus that once threatened to crush us we banged across two steel plates in the road. My teeth slammed together with an audible clack and the idea of using my tongue to clean the plastic from my teeth died in a bid to minimize future pain and bloody saliva.

When I was teaching one of my nieces to drive I told her that being a good driver had everything to do with good judgment and very little to do with physical skill. By this logic I was a terrible passenger. Good judgment would have found me another way across town, preferably one that did not cause me to question my life expectancy from one moment to the next. My physical skill, on the other hand, furnished me with little more than an iron grip on the bike.

Ahead I saw the traffic light turn red and foolishly sighed with relief. Surely red meant stop and this crazed roller coaster ride would at least pause. As brake lights cascaded toward us the driver again swerved to the left and sought a path between the rows of idling cars. As we accelerated forward I fought to suck my knees in to avoid the sideview mirrors that sliced at us like knives coming simultaneously at us from both the left and right.

Again my ignorance led to me to think a pause would be in order as we burst through the front of the parked cars and were instead confronted with a moving chain of cars traveling perpendicular to us. Perhaps if this new wall of cars had been moving faster, perhaps much faster, then I would have had my pause but my driver saw an opening. Not waiting for the light to turn green, not waiting for an obvious and sane way forward, the pink polka-dotted engine gunned to life and we forced our way through the oncoming traffic.

It could be reasonably asked ‘Why did I feel the need to cross Bangkok on this particular day?’ Unlike so many ‘why’ questions on which I have given up hope this particular question has an answer. I needed my visa extended by a few days and the immigration office and my hotel had little geographically in common. A motorcycle taxi seemed an inexpensive and reasonable way to bridge this problem. It might also be asked ‘why didn’t I get off the rolling death machine after the first thirty seconds when my immediate fate seemed obvious?’ Again this ‘why’ question has an answer: Poor judgment.

Instead of getting off the bike in a fit of common sense I clung to the back thinking that at any moment we would arrive at the government office. However, it was only after half an hour of terror that the massive structure pierced the smog and I allowed myself to relax. I relaxed too soon.

Six lanes of oncoming traffic separated us from the entrance. I saw nothing but a moving wall of angry cars, steel bumpers, and Toyota logos.  I don’t know what my driver saw but I am certain that he did not see an obvious and suitable way around this problem. Instead we went through it. Lurching forward, slamming the breaks and then lurching again we progressed. When we broke free we found ourselves on a wide deserted section of driveway approaching the massive government building.  My sense of disorientation was profound. Stranger still, we slowed to the pace of a baby’s crawl to navigate a small speed bump in the road.

Inside the air-conditioned building the door to the immigration office swung closed and locked. We were one minute too late. It was lunchtime and no amount of sad and sorry looks was going to change that fact. It was now time to wait.

Once hour later lunch ended, two hours after that I had my visa extension, however, still lacking good judgment I caught the same motorcycle taxi back.