Well, I'm trying unsuccessfully to post pictures. I have 36 gems from the last two weeks such that I could show you rather than tell you about my latest adventures, but these adventures have brought me to the remote Spiti Valley, and things are primitive here.
This is an amazing place, the Spiti Valley, cradled in 6000 meter peeks, glacial rivers, and remote beyond remote villages. Kaza, my home base with the Spiti Ecosphere project, is the biggest "city" within a days journey either way, and let me tell you this place is small and primitive. Flush toilets and running water are scarce, and few people are speaking English. But "primitive" should not insult this place; indeed the problems here in Kaza are actually a cause of the small degree of modernization that's occurred here. Life in the villages where farming, building, and living are done in the traditional way is simply beautiful.
In the last week I have been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in these small villages (one with just 2 houses!) and have gotten to experience, even as an outsider who can't speak the language, a great deal of the Spiti culture. Families here are so generous and cooperative- charecteristics they've developed for survival in a harsh land. And their meathods for farming and building I've found remarkably ingenuitive.
Ah, old cliches come true; it would take a thousand words to tell you the things I've been able to capture in pictures. I'm going to cut this post off now and hope I can get pictures up in the near future.
I'm happy, I'm healthy, and I think often of friends and family and wish the same for you all.
Much Love, Ethan
On the Manali side of the Himalaya, looking unknowingly above the clouds at the range I would be crossing, to the high desert of Spiti.
This village of two houses, Salung, lies 45 minutes from Kaza by motorcycle way up in a tributary valley of Spiti.
Typical local archetecture of Spiti: a mud house and on the roof drying brush for winter's firewood.
A scene from the street in Kaza.
**New Pictures!**
I've figured out I can post about 2 pictures at a time, so slowly slowly more pictures will be here. Keep checking!
In Langza, the village (4,400 meters!) I stayed for a few days, my guide's family is building a new house in the traditional way: from mud. They were seemingly confused when I told them people are learning to do this in America; the way of "progress" in Spiti is building from concrete which is hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. The mud house is much better suited to the desert environment here!
Two more pictures from Langza. First are "mani stones", or stones with Tibetan prayers (most commonly Om mani padme hum) carved into them, that are piled at the entrance to villages. It's impressive to see a large pile of devotion; a person gets the idea that many of these carved stones are very old and others are very new. Then is the large and brightly painted Buddha statue sitting above the village. It's a new statue, finished a couple years ago, and all the members of the village pitched in for its construction.
Pardon the anachronism, but these three pictures come from the camping trip I took with Dylan, Cheri, and Ritter (friends from Bend, OR) before crossing over to the "Dry Side" (The Himalaya create a rain shadow; one side is very wet during monsoon while Ladakh and Spiti is a high desert). The four of us spent two nights at "Lamadug", a high meadow above Old Manali just under what looked like from below an easily summitable peak. Dylan and I attempted to bag it, but got foiled a 100 meters from the top by steep snow and an unstable cornice. As you can see, Ritter the 14 month old is extremely adorable, and our campsite was excruciatingly beautiful.
2 comments:
ethan, thanks again for sharing, for everything. i'm happy to see and hear you've found your place. smiles and laughter and light to you, too. be well!
Ethan I can't think of a better world for you and your lenses to be in! I feel blessed just to have a peak.
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