Deachen and Kunzang

Rumbak Field Trip, August 2003

By Kunzang Dolma and Deachen Angmo

It was 6 o’clock in the morning when we woke up and started getting ready. I was waiting there with my pack when a man asked me to come up to the office if I am a Moravian student. When I went up I saw a man working on the laptop. He was Mr. Rinchen. Then I came out and saw Deachen, my friend who is also in the Maryul Roots & Shoots club, coming and then Darla (SLC Education Director), and Doug and Alicia (visitors from the Wildlife Conservation Network in America). Then we got into the jeep and at around 11 o’clock we reached a place called Jingchan.

On our way to Jingchan we saw some Urials – thanks to Mr. Jigmet. They were 5 or 6 in number. I don’t know how Mr. Jigmet was able to find those urials out. Well! That’s why we call them nature guides. They know where to look for animals. Urial is an endangered animal. In Ladakh, we call it Shapo. It was light brown in colour. They had big horns.

We loaded our luggage on three horses or ponies. I don’t know what to call them. The ponyman said that he was in a hurry, so he will go before and unload all the luggage at the given place. After lot of walking we reached Parachute Café and there we saw a solar water boiler. It boiled water with the help of solar energy.

There, after a long talk on solar water boiler we had black tea. That was the first time I had black tea instead of milk tea. Usually I don’t have black tea, I prefer milk, jasmine, and rosewood tea. But it was tasty. We asked the two girls – sorry! I should call them Acheylays (Ladakhi word used for an older girl) why the water is not being boiled on the solar water boiler and they told us that no sun was there plus they have a stock of mineral water so first they wanted to finish the stock.

Then they told us that they are also going to Rumbak and they are closing their café because it was the time to do so. Deachen, Alicia and I started walking but when we heard Darla and Doug talking and introducing themselves and us, we came back to the café, said bye-bye – Jullay to them. Then we finally started walking. After a lot of walking we reached Rumbak.

Our luggage was unloaded at Chunpo’s place, and a woman said that it was Tsoskar’s and their turn to receive the tourists. I translated that to Darla and she said first she wanted to check all the rooms. So firstly we went to this woman’s house and the room was beautiful. Two carpets were laid opposite to each other, 3 choktses (tables) were there in the room. Everything was all right except for one window which was broken, but heavy curtains were there. There was no electricity in the whole village and people live on solar light generated by solar panels. Then Darla asked me that she wanted to see the toilet. It was a Ladakhi toilet and we use them and they are good as they don’t waste and pollute the water plus they provide us natural manure for the fields.

Then we went to see other houses, all of them were very good. Doug and Alicia decided to stay at Rigzin Angmo’s place. We decided to stay at Chunpo’s place and Darla stayed at Tsewang Dolma’s place – Sorry! Tsang Doma as Darla calls her. We came in the room and then we were served khambher – (Ladakhi chapatti) and tea. She asked us to have some curd. Deachen thought that the curd will be tasty, so she asked her to bring curd. But the curd was not tasty, or say it tasted horrible. We had to leave the bowl full of curd. We got dressed up.

Outside, a British guy was talking to Doug. We decided to meet at 10 o’clock in the morning near the small hospital – as it is called. Then we came back to our place, had tea and khambher and then dinner. She asked us what she can serve for dinner, and it was Deachan (who loves meat) to struggle hard for rice with many vegetables mixed together. From the previous experience of curd I thought that meal will not be good, but it was a pleasant surprise to have a good, tasty dinner. And then we went to sleep and woke up at 9 o’clock in the morning. We washed our hair, feet, etc. We had our breakfast. Then we had to hurry; we were late because Deachen was admiring herself in the mirror.

Then we met the nature guides and walked. I came to know that we forgot the bird book. We rushed back to our place and got the book. We studied some plants. The plants we saw on 23rd of August are as follows: Clematis vernayi, Rosa webbiana, Myricaria squamosa, Hypericum oblongifolium, Hippophae, Pedicularis longiflora, Rumex, Rhubarb, Potentilla anserina(?), Lonicera spinosa, Astragalus grahamianus(?), Stachys tibetica, Onapordum acanthium, Tanacetum tibeticum, Dracocephaalum, Primula, Geranium wallichianum, Heracleum candicans, Lindelofia stylosa, Nepeta podostachys, Oxytropia lapponica

Then we saw some blue sheep, local name of which is napo. They were grayish in colour. It had cylindrical horns curved outward. We saw many birds. They were: Horned lark (male), black redstart (male), fire-fronted serin, yellow billed chough, chukar, plumbeous water redstart.

We had our lunch and walked back home. She was eagerly waiting for us. We had our tea. But our host, Mrs. Tsering Dolkar, was very talkative. She told us a long saga. We had Sku for dinner. In the night we studied the books about plants and birds and then we went to sleep.

On 24th of August, we got up early in the morning; that’s 7 o’clock. I was using the binoculars and I saw something on the mountain very far. We rushed to bring the scope from Darla. But what!! It was just a rock. We were very disappointed but Deachen was still looking for animals through the scope. But she wasn’t able to find any animals. Then we went to the so-called hospital and we were not late. We then decided to take the route of Ganda-La. When we were walking, we saw some blue sheep, napo. I think they were females. The plants we saw on 24th were: Lonicera spinosa, Cuscuta europea, Lomatogonium carinthiacum, Aquilegia fragrans, Cirsium verutum?, Ribes orientale.

Birds we saw on 24th were: House sparrow, hill pigeon, hen harrier, chukar.

And then it was evening. We packed our bags and came back to our place. It was our last day. That night we spent too much time talking about all the happenings that took place in the 3 days. We had a very tasty and heavy dinner and went to sleep.

It was 25th of August when we had to say good-bye to Rumbak. Really! We weren’t feeling like coming back, but we had to. We packed our bags and Darla came and she took some photographs. We had a cup of tea with her. And with a heavy heart we said good-bye to Rumbak and came back. On our way to Leh we saw an animal called pica. We looked for snow leopard’s scrapes and luckily we found some and we were happy. Then at around 1:30 we reached our sweet home.

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