Day 13 5 May Tibetan refugees, wildlife and nomads

Photo above - Nomad goatherd near Lake Tso Moriri.

Survived a cold night at 4500m

Well, got through the night. It was cold but the sun was shining first thing in the morning. I went for a walk around the village, and up to the stupa at the top of the hill. This is the first time I have felt a bit out of breath due to the altitude on this trip. At 4500m/15,000ft you really feel it if you start going up any kind of slope or some steps. But after all, we are effectively more than halfway up Everest here.

Looking for wildlife

We had breakfast, then set off at 9am to look around the local area for wildlife and nomads! We set off along the lake the way we had come in yesterday. In the first few km we saw marmots, several different kinds of birds to far off to photograph, and more Skiang, the wild ponies.

Tibetan refugee village

At a junction we turned left to visit Sumdho, the Tibetan refugee village we drove passed yesterday. Although there are still Tibetans fleeing over the border into India, in this village, everybody is related to ancestors who fled in the 1950s when China took over Tibet. We took a walk around the village, and decided to try our luck at the primary school as there did not seem to be many people about to talk to. The head teacher greeted us and said we could sit in on the class. There were about 30 children and two teachers. Most of them were learning how to write the Tibetan script. It is ironic that in Tibet, the Chinese government refuses to let Tibetan be taught, yet here in another country, the people are free to keep alive their culture. A lot of the children had that ruddy complexion typical of people who are born and live at very high altitude. We walked around a bit more but could not find anyone to talk with.

More wildlife

Drove on down the single track road and came across a valley white with salt deposits. Here we saw Black Neck Cranes, then further down Yak, goats and a nomad goat herd who moved off any time we came near her. The ground here is very sandy with wiry grass and lots of large bumps. Not quite sure how it could have formed like this, but have seen it before in Tibet.

We then went back to the Tibetan refugee village to have a small lunch in the cafe/store there. The lady who ran it was very friendly, and she told us that her husband had fled Tibet when he was just five years old.

In search of nomads

We then started heading back to the hotel. We went over the same pass and saw a tow truck getting ready to pull the wrecked car we had seen yesterday, out of the ravine. We stopped at the small frozen lake we saw yesterday, to walk down to the edge and try and take a reflection shot in the still water. It was only really half successful. We did see a fox running along the lake edge, but it was too far away to photograph.

At the head of Lake Tso Moriri we turned left on to a side road in search of nomads. It did not take us long to spot a collection of tents in the distance across the sandy emptiness. We did some off roading and arrived at a spread collection of about six tents. At first it seemed there was no one around, but then we spotted a woman trying to secure her tent flap on the wind. It turns out her, her grandmother, and two children are the only ones in the camp, looking after it while the others are nomading! Her grandmother was inside the tent weaving a rug. They have very little outside their tents, clothes and livestock. They used solar panels for power, and at this site they had a hand water pump to extract water from below ground. Apparently they do not wish to use the cabins that the Indian government supplied and which are only a few miles away.

We then retired to the hotel, where my room was still colder than outside. Tomorrow we head back to Leh, and unfortunately not via the really high pass that I had hoped as it is still blocked with snow. My last full day in Ladakh.