Sujai Kumar
Thats the daily air force plane banking above the Spituk Gompa (Gompa = monastery, not in picture)
to line up for a landing. At take off time, all planes head straight for the hill on which the gompa sits, and
veer away at the last minute to clear the hill and get out of the Indus valley. For some reason, the timing
of the daily prayers is almost always exactly three minutes before the take off time of these flights
What color the Ladakhi landscape lacks in terms of greenery and vegetation is more than made up for
by the rocks in the area. Waking up to the sight of purple mountains lets you believe at least one
impossible thing before breakfast.
This is the standard, default setting for views in most of Ladakh, since there is very little, if any, rain
beyond the great himalayan range. All greenery is restricted to the river valleys which are the only
places with an assured supply of water.
SECMOL stands alone in the desert and the nearest village away from the river is at least 7 km.
These views are from the ridge just behind the campus.
View upriver from the SECMOL campus. The horizontal cut in the mountain (right of centre) is the
dirt track which stretches for 3 km till the main Leh-Srinagar highway. The SECMOL office in Leh
strongly advises travelers to take a lift from a SECMOL vehicle the first time as the alk is very
unnerving for someone whos never been on that route before. 2 km on the track and you start
wondering if youre ever going to reach anywhere.
View of the SECMOL main building with classrooms, resource rooms and a central hall. This south
facade faces the (strong and clear) sun all year round while the north side is bermed into the wall of
the mountain behind. Plastic sheets unroll over diagonal frames to keep the rooms warm thanks to
the greenhouse effect even in the middle of winter when temperatures hit minus 40 degrees C. Solar
panels provide electricity for the buildings and for pumping water up from the Indus 40 m below
the cliff on which the building sits.
Sometime in the evening, on a cloudy day at monsoon time. The clouds swoop in overhead but
dont shed any rain because theres nothing left in them after crossing three mountain ranges to the
south of ladakh.
Light playing on the Zanskar range every evening at SECMOL.
Looking upriver from the SECMOL campus, the view is vaguely grand canyonesque as the cliff
opposite catches the setting sun.
Back of the residential block. Sonam Wangchuk (the brains behind the whole operation) grinning
as he lugs in water from the spring to make tea... there is no piped water anywhere except in the
main kitchen and two of the bathrooms.
The Indus valley is almost 3-4 km wide at Shey (in the picture), about 15 km upriver from Leh.
Getting high on grass, although popular at Manali, hasn't yet caught on as much in the Ladakh region...
The Indus valley narrows from its expansive width to this cramped 50 ft gorge downriver from Leh,
just past the SECMOL campus. Tourists and trekkers need to be cautious on the trail above
the gorge as the river is deep, fast, furious and goes all the way to Karachi.
Picked this picture up from someone's personal archives - and now wish
I had gone to Zanskar as well.
We went to Pangong Tso (Tso = Lake) as well, on the Indo-China border, which was incredible
but those photographs were taken on film, not as bits and bytes so it'll be a while before those are sent.