I have written all good things about people of Ladakh in my earlier posts in this series. Ladakhis are usually very warm and cheerful people and always carry an infectious smile (Read: Ladakh – Good Samaritans and Ladakh – Cheerful People). But in my two months of wandering in the mountain country, not every experience was good.
While in Ladakh, we had made an attempt to travel by public transport as much as possible. But there were a few exceptions, like the time we hired a bike to get to Pangong Lake to ensure that we could stop and go as we wished, or when we took a cab to get us to Tso Moriri Lake in time for a festival. The cab dropped us at Korzok Village on the bank of the lake and returned to Leh. Knowing that the date of arrival of next bus is still many days away (read about public transport in Ladakh, where I talk about buses to some places being available at an interval of every 10 days), we scouted for options to get back to Leh.
Tso Moriri Lake
Our initial plan was to look for seats to share in a returning cab or even a small truck. Since this was festival time, the inflow of tourists was higher than normal and there was a good chance to find taxis returning to Leh with some seats empty. After looking around at all the hangouts in the village, we found a group of four Israelis willing to take us back with them to Leh. These people had taken a cab from Leh to Tso Moriri and were planning to get back to town next morning, stopping for a night at Tso Kar. It suited us well. We had not planned a visit to Tso Kar earlier, but it would be good to get a glimpse of the lake, even if it is for just one evening. Although it was not necessary, we informed their driver Tashi that we would be joining the group on the next part of the journey. In a semi-inebriated condition that evening, Tashi smiled and nodded cheerfully.
Celebrations – Korzok Gustor Festival on the banks on Tso Moriri
The next morning, we packed our bags and waited to hear from the group of Israelis when they are ready. At about 11am, one of them walked into our guest house to deliver a bad news – ‘Tashi is refusing to take you two in the cab!’ For a moment we were worried. Because we had managed to get transport yesterday, we did not bother to look further. It meant getting stranded in Korzok for at least a day, or more if there is no transport available even on the next day.
What ensued was a long argument between Tashi and us. His case was that the cab, a Tata Sumo, would not be able to pull a load of additional people in the mountain roads. It did not seem to make sense. Drivers take 10 passengers along the Manali – Leh highway in Tata Sumos every day, while here it would be just six people including us today. And if he did not want to take us, he should have refused yesterday evening when we volunteered to inform him about us joining the group. After a short exchange of words with Tashi that actually left us struggling to breathe in Tso Moriri’s this air, Tashi suddenly obliged but refused to talk to us any more.
Later in the evening when we reached Tso Kar, Tashi reminded of us struggling to accelerate in a steep slope on the way where he had to ask all of us to get out and walk a short distance. Tashi had attempted to go off road and take a steep short cut, but the cab had refused to go further. He recalled the incident in support of his argument in the morning. Now in a better mood, he also said he was very upset because we had raised our voices in Tso Moriri.
That morning, we had tried to keep a calm and worked hard to keep our voices low even when we expressed unhappiness with Tashi and argued that he can’t refuse to take us. But having walked briskly to his cab and blabbering a few sentences breathless, talking further was a struggle and we might have sounded discourteous as we spoke with difficulty, almost chokingly. I explained it to Tashi and apologized if we had sounded rude. In a region where people are so friendly that anyone getting angry is almost unimaginable, we might have sounded as if we had crossed some limits.
We finally made amends with Tashi, who opened up a bit after this conversation in Tso Kar. But it still remains a puzzle why he agreed to take us in the first place and refused later. Perhaps it was the effect of whiskey, which kept him in a generous mood when we spoke to him first!
About two weeks after we left Tso Moriri, we were to have some more uncomfortable experiences while trekking in the heart of Zanskar. That’s for another post.
