Ladakh 2008. – Alessandra Cestaro
Everyone who experienced this unique, eye-opening and
unforgettable expedition will agree in saying that Ladakh is another world to
ours. It is impossible to describe what this trip enriched us with through the
use of words alone. Anyhow, I will do the best I can to share thirty ISM’s
students’ experiences with other members of our school community.
Every year the ISM organizes an expedition to an
‘unusual’ country, somewhere in the world you would not usually visit with your
parents. This year, Ladakh (Northern Indian Region) was re-proposed after its
success two years ago. Many wished to attend the expedition, but only the first
twenty-six managed to become protagonists of this amazing experience,
accompanied by the courageous triplet of teachers: Mrs. Allmann, Mrs. Barton
and a tribute to Mr.Hambo (who is now long-gone but always in our hearts).
Delhi was special to us. We were thrown into Delhi’s
chaotic reality, so different and at the same time so similar to our own, at
the very beginning and at the very end of our 3-week Indian experience. Delhi’s
airport welcomed us after 15 hours travelling. We immediately noticed the gaps
in the airport’s roof as well as too many mosquitoes sneaking through these and
cramming around light. That was when every one of us thirty grabbed the
repellent and covered himself all over with it. What a fuss we made right from
the start! However, this first “traumatizing experience” was the beginning of
an amazing experience. We grabbed our luggage and entered cosmopolitan Delhi
searching for our bus.
We were welcomed by our guides who gave each of us an
orange flower-necklace and how did every one of us look good with them on! We
took a very brief tour of the city’s central area with the bus and it was
enough to understand that Delhi had something magic about it as well as some
other characteristics scaring us. We saw dozens and dozens of people sleeping
on the street, at bus stops, at the entrance of public gardens, trying to fight
the night as best as they could. We drove beside cows and a couple of elephants
which were common parts of the every-day life there. We saw the Indian Gate and
the railway station diffracted by the day’s first rays of light – infinite
shades of colour mingling with each other, lighting up every hidden corner of
the city.
4.00 am local time: Delhi was already awake and this
Indian dawn was sharing all of the city’s secrets with our sixty European eyes.
We reached the station to catch the train and it
looked nothing like Milano Centrale: men sweating to carry tons of luggage, the
smell of curry and spices filling our nostrils, but most shocking of all: the
number of people on the platforms – too many! As I first reached the station I
really thought I was in the middle of a civil protest or manifestation, it was
incredible to see so many people simply walking down the street. Workers
sleeping on their trucks for the last five minutes before starting a new
working day.
We were so excited we couldn’t wait any longer for our
journey to start.
Soon enough we left India’s capital city with a
7-hour-train-journey (-20° C on the train thanks to the ‘moderate’ air
conditioning) and headed to Amritsar. This sacred city was followed by visits
to the cities of Dharamsala, Manali and Leh with two rounds of
5000-metres-height-trekking, in the Himalayas’ heart, in between. We found
ourselves sneaking into a completely different culture, full of mysticism,
mistery, fascinating scenes and beliefs so essentially different to those of
our society.
The Indian sky covered itself with magic as this
culture continuously unfolded itself to us, sharing more and more of its unique
secrets. We did feel a bit out of place and invasive at times: especially when
we were sneaking into underground candle-light monasteries in Manali to see
monks writing or orating religious texts in Indi. We also felt invasive when
crawling silently into Buddhist monasteries with our unsatisfiable cameras
(Franchi’s and Bianchi’s especially) at 5.30 in the morning after having taken
a wash in a river near Tsomoriri.
Other times we were scared by enormous white-haired
and red-eyed rabbits or gigantic yaks and cows which walked around villages and
cities uncaringly. We experienced fear the first night in camp when we thought
we would have died of hypothermia during the night - but that same night we
fought the cold and the darkness thanks to Hambo’s physics lessons in front our
self-made fireplace and our singing all together on the rocks. Nobody will ever
forget cramming thirty people in one tent to play cards and squeeze all
together to fight the cold air creeping in our bones.
All together we managed to overcome fear and we became
confident we could make it through four days, without bathing nor having a
shower - although someone thought she’d
take a wash by falling into the river (activity which Elena clearly found
entertaining!). Our team spirit allowed us to challenge ourselves further and
discover the Indian culture and way of life more and more in depth as time went
by: we almost even gave up on being disgusted by chicken tandoori (which only
Achille and Ricky would eat sickening amounts of) and chicken curry.
Treks and alterned monasteries visits allowed us to
remain astonished by such a difference in culture from ours. I remember all of
us being astonished by the poverty, the population density, the streets so
dirty, but at the same time amazed by the charm brought by the simplicity of
people’s lives mixed to the colours of the dawns and six-pm-sunsets high up in
the Himalayas, near Stok Kangrila. These amazing colours painting the massive
mountains were our reward (together with the tea and biscuits at the camps) for
our 5-hour-treks under an extremely strong sun to reach the different camping
locations guided by the Sherpas (of whom we remember Topgas being the
best.) The trekking was extremely tiring
as Chicco (Mattia) would surely be able to confirm (Chicco fainted after a long
trek. We soon found out this happened due to his lack of enthusiasm towards the
boiled egg, baked potato, mango juice and Indian-style-panino making up his
packed-lunch.)
Amazement in front of such religious devotion and in
front of the breath-taking beauty of the Buddha’s gigantic gold-tinged statues
in the monasteries and the unique experiences of camping in the Himalayas
(including the sky full of stars, no one will never ever forget) were frame to
our discovery of a magic world: a place, a culture to which we would all
jealously want to belong to (without giving up pizza and pasta for curry
however!).
We would never classify curry as being better than
pizza, but as milanese teens and fashion-experts, we can surely say that Indian
clothes are stylish! It was not only women who became obsessed with shopping:
Achille, Morten, Giaxy, Archie and Bisi were also running frenetically about
city centres from shop to shop enriching themselves with new-bought traditional
items. We ran around from street to street, each road full with unrolling
bazaars selling everything of anything (: typical incense, medicines, natural
herb-based local products, gadgets, books, carpets, shoes, jewellery and
postcards). We moved back and forth from the city centre and the hotel with the
tuc-tucs: a sort of three-wheeled vehicle that substitutes our traditional
less-amusing taxi.
Our
shopping sessions were everlasting. Only one thing was able to stop us, or
rather two things: Mr Hambleton’s requests for company at McDonald’s and the
heat. Humidity and heat were killing us. I remember myself seriously melting on
those Indian pathways! Curiosity was too much, so I went to look back for the
humidity degree in New Delhi on July 29th and found out it was in
fact 89%, 41°C. Thank us well now you know we were around buying souvenirs for
you all in those climatic conditions!
Then came our last day in Delhi. The most curious of
us left the hotel early in the morning to visit the Red Fort and in the
afternoon Humayun’s tomb. Our last night in Delhi, we all dressed up with our
new purchases: everyone looked more Indian than the local people, I swear! And
as a group we went to celebrate Cri’s birthday at an Indian restaurant, where
the food for once was have to say, delicious!
Looking back to the different steps of our wonderful
experience, it is inevitable to admit that it was the best journey of my whole
life! However, we are all totally aware that India has so much more to offer - an entire life wouldn’t be enough to
accomplish the challenges offered by its mountains, it wouldn’t be enough to
see all the beautiful landscapes (or better – moonscapes!) Ladakh offers.
India’s beauty lies in its cities, in its people and in their lifestyles, in
its history, within its mountains and behind every hidden corner, which is home
to something magic.
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