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2003-07-20 - Panikhar - Rangdum (Day 96)

We stopped for breakfast at the next village of Parkachick in a beautiful green valley. The local restaurant as a simple hut next to the road, with again only omelet, chapatti and chai but after a tough 20km it was quite good to eat. There were a number of kids who of course all crowded around to watch us and became crazy when Steve pulled out the video camera and I my camera.

As is usually the case, the girls were terribly cute and the boys torn and rumpled little monsters but every time I tried to get a picture of one of the girls, the boys would move to stand in front of the girls or even push them aside. This got annoying to the point where I decided to have some fun, and not for a second believing they would fall for it, I pointed to the ridge above the restaurant and told all the boys to run up there for a picture. Most just looked at me, but one young fool started running and as I raised the camera to prepare to take his picture the rest of the boys fearing being left out of the shot, also took off to the top of the ridge. I waited until they were all up there, took a picture and then pointed to the pasture out in the opposite direction from the darba (restaurant) and said, "Ok, now over there!" - Off they went, running the 1/4 km to the pasture. One more picture, then I pointed back to the ridge, "Now, back there again!" This was starting to be fun! By the time they had started to ignore me I had worn the whole lot out, left them panting and was able to take my pictures of the village girls in peace, and with a big grin on my face at that.

We road around the bases of Kun and Nun and past the glaciers flowing down into the river blow in scenes I would only expect from Alaska. The views were amazing through there was a price to pay to get there. The last of the pavement has disappeared even before the river crossing before Panikhar and the road was now all loose dirt, stones and sand with potholes and bumps filling more of the road then they left flat. The road through Zanskar, such as it was, was still amazing in that even this mess had only been completed 20 years ago, in 1981 and we were traveling through country that had been closed to all but the most ardent caravans willing to cross the snow covered Himalayan peaks since the beginning of time. Even so, the road is only passable from June to early October with the valley completely closed off for the rest of the year. In terms of a place being unspoiled, Zanskar almost defines the term.

However, my stomach was not agreeing with me and by the early afternoon when we completed the 60km ride for the day and pulled into Rangdum I was feeling horrible. I wasn't feeling well to the point where I didn't even notice this hotel was worse then any today in terms of the cloud of dust from the sheets being larger then from any other, the place being completely barren with no water, hot or cold and no blankets. The toilets like the rest of India were squat toilets which are certainly not convenient with diarrhea and to make it worse, the water to wash with (no toilet paper here of course) had to be carried in by bucket from the stream outside. Being sick to the point I did not want to stand, having to go and carry water in by bucket from a stream beyond the hotel to wash myself was not very pleasing.

The hotel had a squad of Indian army guys in it who had just marched through the valley for the last 10 days. The commander of the squad seeing the shape I was in, took pity on me and had the medic fix me up with a pile of pills to deal with the diarrhea, stomach cramps and re-hydration salts to get me back to normal. I spent a lousy afternoon and evening on the hard bed, in my sleeping bag so I would not be sleeping in the dust making runs to the nasty toilet every few minutes.

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