World's Highest Pass

Nubra

The wind is blowing but it’s not too cold-I can feel my fingers. This is the most remote and inaccessible place I’ve ever been, but then again what defines remoteness? Is it the distance you are from communication, from people, from a hospital? Nubra is considered one of the more remote places of Ladakh. We had to drive 8 hours yesterday to arrive here, over the highest motorable road in the entire world at over 18,300 feet. Looking around it’s difficult to fathom the idea that Pakistan is just beyond the mountains in the distance. It’s a reality of how interconnected our world really is. Getting here was quite the journey. We had to get a permit to come here because of its close proximity to Pakistan. The road coming here was the sketchiest road I’ve ever driven on in my life! The driver swerved a few times, crashing into the side snow banks that kept us safe from the thousand foot vertical drop beneath us. Our jeep got stuck multiple times causing the driver to dig under the snow for dirt to throw underneath the tires and have us help push from behind to get a running start. All around the mountains were blanketed in the most beautiful snow I’ve ever seen. All I could think about for the 8 hours was shredding down the perfectly untouched powder on my board; a snowboarder/skier’s heaven with bigger bowls than in any video I’ve seen. There was a military camp stationed at the highest point of the pass and the only cars you see around here are giant dark green military trucks. The officers wouldn’t let us stop to get out to take photographs of the sign because of how late it was getting. The close the road off from Nubra every other day, allowing vehicles to enter road from Leh. This morning we saw a few of the neighbor’s camels, which were gigantic by the way! We then walked through the sand dunes, which looked like giant waves one after the other of smooth sand. I even flipped off one of them! The main “city” in Nubra offers one street of a few tailors, a music shop and Tibetan restaurants. I tried to picture the street 30 years ago when there were no cars, jeans, stereos or plastic trash lining the street. What a different life these people must have led. We visited two spectacular monasteries and were stopped a few times by the military to check our permits during the drive.

Less than 100 kilometers away lies Siachen Glacier, a glacier perched in the war-wracked border between here and Pakistan. One of my professors back at UVM has been working with the UN to turn the glacier and the surrounding area into a shared peace park hoping to build trust and connections between the countries and at the same time, preserve an extremely important ecosystem.

Tsering Dolma, a teacher at SECMOL, grew up here in Nubra and I was lucky enough to talk a little to her about the glacier before I came. Her father was offered a job considered to be quite a prominent job in Ladakh working for the government as a cook at the military camp on the glacier. She noted that he was only awarded this job because he saved three officers from drowning in the Siachen River and since then has been working for the military to pay for her and her other siblings to receive an education. Supposedly every single family in Nubra has at least one of their family members working as “porters” for the military camp on the glacier, transporting food and equipment from camp to camp by foot due to of the lack of roads and the fact that the military officers are not as physically adapted to the extreme conditions as native Ladakhis are being from Southern parts of India. I asked her if I could perhaps visit the glacier and with eyebrows raised she said, “Not a single woman has ever visited the glacier, it’s a man’s place.” That’s when I realized this really is an entirely different world to the one back home; a place where women don’t know how to swim because society doesn’t allow them to show their legs, their arms or their necks. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in Yemen, Afganistan or even the neighboring state of Kashmir where Muslim women can’t show their faces let alone leave their homes by themselves. I don’t think women in Ladakh are nearly as confined as they are in other parts of the world even other parts of India but compared to the US, their rights are much more limited. This is one of the reasons why I love SECMOL so much. There is an ENORMOUS difference in the Ladakhi girls that live at SECMOL and Ladakhi girls I meet during homestays or in town. The girls at SECMOL will make fun of the boys, lifting the backs of their shirts up if the boys tease them for showing skin while the average Ladakhi girl will look down at the ground while speaking to you. SECMOL stands for Student Educational Cultural Movement of Ladakh and I think it does an extremely good job at building confidence among its students. The rest of my stay in Nubra was an eye opener for how much we take for granted in our developed rich world in terms of food, transportation and even education where here children have to walk up to 3 hours just to go to school and find their teacher only shows up at 3 or 4 our of the five days of school. The ride back to SECMOL over the high pass was again an adventure. We had to wait an extra day to return as the road was closed due to a severe snow storm. This time we were permitted to stop and get out of the cars. I said a small “prayer” at the stupa situated right next to the military camp. Taking in a deep breath of the wind overlooking the snowy surroundings I realized this is most likely the closest I will ever be to the heaven above in my life.