Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Our trek to the Nubra Valley was going very well. The Basco Valley on
the way was filled with
friendly people and beautiful lush farmland. The second day I was hit
by food poisoning. The second night along with my misery came an
amazing thunderstorm and constant rain. To be clear the lightening
seemed more like a strobe. Unfortunately Hans' tent is not even
remotely waterproof. We spent a l;ot of last night sitting upright
avoiding drips. In fact the zipper doesn't even work so I spent a lot
of the day feeling ants crawl up and down my legs as I went through
bouts of fever and chills.

Morning came and the antibiotics had kicked in but I was still very
weak so I decided to go back while Hans went on ahead. The valley we
had come up was almost unrecognizable.
About 60% of the Basco Valley had been wiped out by mudslides. The
road or what was left of it was barely passable for a hiker and the
flat bits were knee deep in mud. The worst devastation was in the
center of the valley where groups of villagers were combing crushed
houses and mud flows for survivors.
These were the places that children had run ahead of us to show us the
way. The villagers had been so kind. I wish I could have done
something to elp but walking was hard enough.

Once the road was passable I hitched a lift in a car so tiny I could
barely fit in it. The driver informed me three had died in the village
last night. It must have been chaos their roofs and walls are made of
mud so many of the houses leaked or simply caved in. Others were
washed away. The crops were crushed by the hail. The hail was still a
foot deep in places.
The main highway was no better. Massive boulders and ankle deep mud
littered the road. Houses were only half standing. As I cleared the
first area of devastation a fellow in an army jeep beckoned for me to
hop in. He ferried me and some locals to the next mudflow. We went
through the army base and on roads into the desert were the flow was
the thinnest. From there a massive army truck picked us up and drove
us through smaller slides to a missing bridge. It was a constant line
of people climbing down to
the water and hopping from old bridge piece to bridge piece to reach
the other side. The road back that I remember as a good two lane
highway resembled a mud track often covered with rock.

Back in Leh the streets are mud. A considerable number of buildings
are still traditional mud construction and they literally melt in the
rain. It isn't supposed to rain here. Or at least it has never done
this before according to the locals.

It has been a long day. The hum of diesel generators and a satellite
connection are the only things that are keeping this connection alive.
All the roads out of Leh are blocked for weeks or at least until the
army can work its magic. This really is a frontier town. An area where
man can not tame nature long enough to maintain a single road.