To work.

So, there we were stranded at the Leh military airport. But, it was all good. We knew name of the doctor who was working with us at the Sonam Norboo Memorial Hospital (SNM). As has been the case with everyone we have met in India, people were very generous in helping us out by calling people they knew as well as the hospital in order to try and straighten things out. In the end, we hopped a cab to the hospital, where we wandered around until we managed to find someone who knew the where abouts of Dr. Iqbal. He is a great guy, very friendly and enthusiastic and did not seem phased that we had barged in on his seeing patients and he soon had a ride coming for us to take us to the guest house, where we meet up with the rest of the team.
We spent the first day in Leh, lying around acclimatizing. One of our team was having a hard time with the altitude and I was glad that I had taken Diamox. Even so, it is amazing how much it impacts you. My face and hands were constantly tingling and to climb the one flight of stairs made me feel like I had been downing two packs a day for 20-plus years. Next day was not much better, but we managed a walk of about a kilometer and a trip to the hospital by cab for our meeting with the Chief Medical Officer and other staff.
The hospital is an interesting place; busy and quirky. They wash down the floors with diesel, which is apparently pretty common in a lot of countries, but I found the fumes nauseating. The door bell to enter the offices of the CMO plays the ‘Wish you a merry Christmas’ jingle. I couldn’t figure out where the tune was coming from and, against the formality of the meeting, it was pretty strange. We toured the pediatric rehabilitation ward on which we will be working for most of the time we are here. It was partially completed, with bits of old equipment and stuff still in boxes. Job one: organizing and tidying. We were able to see some issues with the way the unit was designed and start to offer some suggestions, but Dolma, the physiotherapist who works on the unit, was already way ahead.
Dolma and the rehab assistant, Ditchun, are awesome. Very knowledgeable and passionate about what they do, and pragmatic about the system they work in. It has taken years to get the unit to the point where it is, and yet is still not open to patients. When something does move forward, how it moves seems to be on the opinion of someone in Delhi, rather than that of Dolma and Ditchen. Dolma doesn’t appear to back down too much to the authority of the doctors, speaking her mind, but always laughing and smiling. It will be a great opportunity to work with them and I am sure I’ll learn a lot from them.
The day following the meeting, some of the team headed back down to the hospital to help get the unit in order. When we got there, a lot of cleaning up had already taken place. The plan is that we will be doing mass assessments in a couple of weeks; a radio announcement has gone out throughout Ladakh to inform parents to bring their disabled children in three days a week for the remainder of the month. It was a productive day, and we managed to make lots of changes and negotiate solutions. Dr Iqbal had a big list of tasks made and while we were there, the changes were well underway.
Now, I am off to buy some clothes as all my stuff is dirty and we are heading on our first village outreach tomorrow. We will be gone for about a week, so reporting in may be difficult, but it should be awesome, and the primary reason I first wanted to come to Ladakh.

Poor Planning.

(Note: still not able to upload my on pics so these ones I 'borrowed' . Thanks to whom ever took them.)

With the rest of the team already up in Leh, only Doug and I were left in Delhi. We spent the day touring around the Old Delhi Market as well as the Digambar Jain Temple and Jama Masjid Mosque. Really cool places. We got to climb to the top of the minaret at the mosque, the walls of which are black from people rubbing against them of for 460 years. The heat was unbelievable and you are not allowed to wear shoes. Even walking on the strips of carpet that were laid down as a path across the scalding stones was barely tolerable. That sapped the last of my energy so it was back to the hotel to watch some world cup.

We had a wake up call for 3 am so that we could make sure we had plenty time to make the journey across the city and pass security for the flight to Leh at 6:00am. The cab ride was insane. Formula 1 all the way, tires squealing on the round-abouts. But, we got there early; 24 hours early. When we arrived at the airport, the army guy at the entrance pointed out that our flight was booked for the next day so we couldn’t enter the airport. Stupid. It is probably down to the lost Friday. However, we managed to find the Kingfisher Airlines ticket counter and change the tickets to that day, for a small fee, so off we went.

Flying from Delhi to Leh is probably the most amazing flight anywhere. On the left side of the airplane, you can look out over the Karakoram Range; on the other side, you are looking at the Great Himalaya Range. All 14 of the world’s mountains are somewhere in these mountains; truly the roof of the world. Not to mention, you are flying into the Indus River Valley, the river from which India takes its name.

One thing about flying into the roof of the world is that you can expect some turbulence. Take-off was HELL. However, it was nothing compared to the landing. The airport in Leh is a military base and so the runways are designed for military pilots, who are obviously crazy. Approach is basically a quick descent from 30000m into a gap between two mountains. It is very disconcerting to be looking out the window up at a mountain slope, may be 500 m away, and you are in a big, lumbering Air Bus jet. You are also keenly aware that, in addition to the mountain beside you, there are also mountains on the other side and worse, in front of you. Rather than hit the mountain in front, the pilot banks hard, more of a cork screw thing, into another gap with a rocky hill may be 200 m of the wing tip, then you are on the ground. Miraculous.

The altitude hit me as soon as I stepped of the plane. I could feel how shallow the air was and by the time I got into the terminal, I was feeling a bit anxious about the lack of air. You are not sure if it is getting more difficult to breath and, if it does, what could you do about it? The whole world around you has less air. Its intimidating. But not as intimidating as the situation we found ourselves in. Stuck at a military airport near the disputed Pakistan border with no contact, no ride, no phone (because we had arrived a day earlier than our previously arranged ride. All part of the poor planning, but that is just how we roll)…to be continued.

June 24 and 26. No June 25.

Okay, first attempt to complete today’s blog entry frustratingly failed at the upload stage. Attempt number two. This is a better Internet place than the first one but I’ll make sure from now on to back up to Word before posting….

Six of us left Vancouver on Thursday evening, flying through the night, over the arctic and crossing Greenland to Heathrow. We picked up the seventh member of the team, Janice at the airport in London and departed, four hours later for second flight through the night, over Europe, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, landing early in the morning on Saturday in Delhi. It is strange to travel that far over two nights. It’s like Friday never existed but was replaced by a mass of Saturday. I don’t sleep on planes. I spent much of the time on the first leg doing squats and lunges at the back of the plane or peering out into the darkness on the second leg. I might have dozed a bit on the London-Delhi stretch, but mostly when we were holding in the line-up to take-off and there was little chance we’d crash. By the time I got to sleep last night, I’d been up for about 48hrs but felt pretty good, all things considered.

That time between sleeps spanned the trip to school for last day of classes, writing my final exam of the program, getting to the airport, the flights, passing through Indian customs, taking a wild ride in a cab from the airport to the Tibetan Colony in Delhi where we are staying, taking an even wilder auto rickshaw ride to the Red Fort in Old Delhi, running around snapping pictures in the 40C heat, auto rickshaw adventure back to the hotel, nice dinner, a relaxing read, and then early to bed. A productive day.


The Tibean Refugee Colony in which we are staying is a very interesting warren of little shops and homes with a labyrinth of little alleys connecting the 5 or 6 story buildings. It is quiet and peaceful, compared to the madness of the roads that surround it. The auto rickshaw rides, especially, give you the experience of the roads of Old Delhi, a chaotic, fluid madness of trucks, mopeds, and buses that you’d normally expect on a 3 lane divided highway, plus the bicycles, oxen-pulled carts, auto rickshaws, peddle rickshaws, pedestrians, and occasional elephant. The moped stunts especially seem absurdly ridiculously dangerous but, thanks to the every present safety device, the horn, things actually seem to move along amazingly well.



A few of us had taken the auto rickshaw to the Old Fort as most of the group were flying up to Leh today so wanted to get some sight-seeing in. The fort was very cool (interesting, not actually ‘cool’ at 40C). It is massive, and the architecture is spectacular, though I understand the Brits razed large parts to build their barracks. Any pictures that are included in this post, I stole from the net as I haven’t been able to hook my camera up yet, but hopefully those give you a visual.

The plan for the rest of the day is to auto rickshaw back to the Fort area where there is a giant market. We’ve been tasked with finding toys that we can use on the paediatric ward in Leh and that seems like an interesting place to do the shopping, better than the massive malls of New Delhi. After that, a little world cup which is on in the evening here v. the early morning back home. I think it is Germany v. England tonight. Tomorrow, we fly up to Leh. We are hoping to get seats on the left side of the plane so we might see K2. If not, I am sure it will all be good. See you in Leh.

Ross

-1 Day

Here is a little information about Leh, the town we will be based in for the placement.

Leh has for centuries been an important stopover on trade routes along the Indus Valley between Tibet to the east, Kashmir to the west and also between India and China. Now, the main overland approach to Ladakh is from the Kashmir valley via the 434-km. Srinagar-Leh road, which remains open for traffic from early June to November. The most dramatic part of this road journey is the ascent up the 3,505 m (11,500 ft.) high Zoji-la, the pass in the Great Himalayan Wall that serves as the gateway to Ladakh.

The town is still dominated by the now ruined Leh Palace, former home of the royal family of Ladakh, built by King Sengge Namgyal (1612-1642). 77.3 % of Leh’s population is Buddhist, 13.8 % Muslim, 8.2% Hindu and 0.8% others.

-2 Days

Things to do in Ladakh:

1. Stok Kangri, a 6120m non-technical scramble. Just a walk up, really. May be, depending on time, may be....

-3 Days

A little information about Ladakh:

Ladakh is a region of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Republic of India. It is the highest plateau of Kashmir, with much of it being over 3,000 m (9,800 ft) and spans the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges and the upper Indus River valley. Ladakh is is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Kashmir, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent. Ladakh borders Tibet to the east, the Lahaul and Spiti to the south, the Vale of Kashmir, Jammu and Baltiyul regions to the west, and the trans–Kunlun territory of East Turkistan to the far north. Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and culture. It is sometimes called "Little Tibet" as it has been strongly influenced by Tibetan culture.

-4 Days

Welcome! I am in process of packing, organizing, making lists, paying bills, all in preparation for a 58 day trip to Ladakh, India. The first few weeks will be spent completing a paediatric placement with a team from Sunny Hill Health Centre. I'll be following that up with some travelling, to places as yet undecided. During the trip, I am hoping to get some time to post pictures and stories here. Departure is on Thursday, June 24: Vancouver to London to Delhi to Leh. Hopefully, you'll be able to drop to check on how things are going and post your comments. Thanks!

-Ross