Seven words and a few questions

 

Seven words.  That's all the information we could milk out of the tour agencies about our first high altitude adventure.  They're not so forth coming if you you're not paying for something, but we got our seven words and were ready to take on the 'Baby Trek'!  

Turns out the Baby Trek isn't so babyish though, its just shorter and lower than most of the other treks around here, we only climbed up to about 3800m!  But lets go back to the start.  Sourcing information in India is a time consuming thing as I'm sure you'll hear more about over the next few months.  So we visited a handful of agencies to ask about short treks to get us going and help with a bit of acclimatisation and got all sorts of varying information back which finally resulted in our seven words scrawled on a scrap of paper telling us the start and end of the trek, and also the stopping points.  Finding bus information proved to be a similar experience, but a stop at the bus station put all the other stories to rest and we had a plan, a very vague plan.

Our Swiss buddy Louis leading Soph up the pass

Looking back down the valley, notice the plant life!

Taking a rest at the pass

Our plan was to trek for three days and get back to Leh on Monday.  So we set off on a wander through the valley and over any passes that might get in our way asking the locals for directions to the next village.  We knew which direction we had to head and being a high altitude desert the track was easy enough to find (and follow), just stick to the flattened bit of dirt, not the loose, rocky bit of dirt.

On top of the world? not quite, standing at 3800m

You never know who you'll meet on the track

Did our well laid plans come together you may be wondering?  The answer is a definate YES, phew!  No map was needed, the tent could have been left behind, our lungs didn't scream out too loudly, the sun shone and our two boots marched on through the Himalaya.

To give you a bit more information about the baby trek, it is a trail that leads from village to village.  In India, there doesn't seem to be any 'empty space', the people manage to make a living in all sorts of places and enjoy doing it.  You'd think farming in such a high and dry place would be impossible, not in India!  As we were passing through villages, there were homestays available everywhere you looked, in fact people would down tools in the fields and approach us looking for our business.  Everyone was very friendly and obliging of our numerous and repeated questions, and the homestays were about the same price as pitching your tent.

We've gotta get up there?

Made it up there!

Being invited into people homes is an amazing experience no matter where you are and it was great to see how the locals live and make a living.  We were able to help out making yak butter, harvest the barley in the fields after a quick 'Chang' break (local homemade barley beer) and laugh along with Grandmas dancing around the kitchen/ living area.  Everything seemed to just fall into place, even getting home again!

Tea break, complete with Chang barley beer, then I was put to work

Yak butter in the making

Roof top views from our homestay

Our friendly and very entertaining hosts

Our home for the night! Nice!

We decided to walk a bit further to Nurla, a town on the 'highway' (busier dirt road) and hitch a ride back rather than wait till morning for the daily bus.  Local directions and estimations varied from 15 minutes to two hours, so we really had no idea, just a hope.  Turns out that two hours was about right, we emerged onto the 'highway' in front of a shop full of locals doing nothing at all really, but they took great pleasure in telling us that Nurla has more buses heading to Leh and the next was in 20 minutes!  Just enough time for a bowl of noodles!  

Not quite a mountain summit, but a lot easier!

Our two boots...... and a Swiss guy.