My eyes opened in the fashion they normally do when I'm cold, tired and otherwise unhappy with waking up to a gloomy day, but today wasn't gloomy, in fact it was a new and exciting day, because today were heading out once again on our ever escalating journey of madness. It was too early to talk about what time it was, even Vinay seemed parched for sleep, and Blake and I... well we just kept our heads down and our feet moving, that always seemed to work for us.
Our next destination was Srinagar the capital city of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of India, this is really the only other destination we could choose, because there was no way in hell we were going back the way we came, and although Varsha, Nilma and Vinay wanted to stay a bit longer in Leh, they decided on leaving with us after a short (convincing) made with sad faces, heart warming eyes and a bit of whatever guilt ridden bad scenario babbling that we were able to imagine up, needless to say we were happy they reconsidered.
Breakfast was held back at the German Bakery and we all had hearty meals, from there we headed for the bus station. When we got there it was packed with people running around, to us it seemed the perfect time to be leaving, for those around us it was the perfect time to arrive, so it all worked out. Before we left I found myself in need of using the facilities, and ohh man... I found a facility alright, as I walked between two buildings at the far end of the station I passed a time tested, weather hardened Indian women, possibly in her mid 70's, with a cynical look on her face that read rather impressively as "You Are NOT prepared!" as I passed her I looked back to make sure she wasn't a delusion or mirage caused by the thin air and the high altitude, and sure enough there she was, walking off into some other plane of existence I will likely never know. The putrid smell of human excrement violently snapped me back to reality as I drew within 20 meters of the plateaued rectangular building that stood before me.If you asked me now I couldn't tell you why I just didn't piss on the fence to the left of the building where no one would have seen me nor would anyone have cared, but for some... lets call it "ridiculous" reason I went in. I was convinced that there could be no more vile a stench, no more ghastly an odor than that of the one outside the door I was standing in front of, that was of course until I opened the door and went inside, there waiting for anyone bat shit crazy enough to enter was what I have come to call a "presence" a presence that was born from the finality of a thousand finalities, and caused by the passing and massing of endless darkness, "literally" within us all.I immediately stepped outside and swear to this day, had anyone been there to see me I must have been green as the grass, or blue as the ocean, either way I was in bad shape. At this point any reasonable person with the slightest comprehension of right/wrong decision making would have easily gone with plan B and pissed on the fence, but I was determined, that old women wasn't going to win, I wasn't going to let her laugh all the way to the bank at my expense, so I mustered all the will power I could and breathed in as deep as humanly possible, for the next minute could very well be my last.I stormed in with every intention of making it inn and out with a single breath, but after 10 seconds the fact that I had greatly underestimated the power I was up against, became all too clear, halfway through I started to exhale and consequently inhale, this combined with my bodies greater need for oxygen at 11,483 feet made the remainder of my experience within the walls of that radical outhouse an unpleasant one. There was no need to violently run out at max speed, in hopes of saving myself from (more) pain, It was obviously too late, I was already infected... I walked out of the door down the alley and took 3 deep breaths as soon as I felt a far enough distance had been placed between me and whatever I just experienced could be called. Ironically I was standing right next to the garbage pit for the bus station when I took those deep breaths, but even that smell seemed like daisy's in the summer breeze next to the true terror of the pits of despair.My struggle unbeknownst to the others, I walked morosely back to our seats at the station, with my head and my shoulders down, Blake could feel my gloomy presence from a mile away and gave me a heavy stare then asked me what was up? I lifted my head and sure enough the devils grin scared my face "You are Not prepared!" I said, now with a feeling of actual excitement to go along with my smile, I led him back to the pit. We took one step into the room together and the next step promptly out, "I hate you Danny" he said, "me too Blake, me too"Shortly there after the Bus started up, we got on and the endless cycle of buses, trains, taxis and planes went on. No matter how long we traveled and the bus went, the scenery wouldn't change, mountains is all there was, that is what I though for the first 9 hours, of which 2 and a half had been spent broken down. Blake, myself and a man from Sweden were the only foreigners on the bus and as such we were required to be taken outside to check in at every military outpost and meet face to face with the Commanding Officer present, there were 4 such outposts and each one was more dismal and hopeless than the last, for every time we stopped it drew closer and closer to the dead of night, where the temperature drops dramatically.You can imagine how we felt, being the only people on the bus required to leave our warm sleeping bags and chance of sleep over and over, just so that a face could go along with our passports. I understand the need for the security, seeing as how at this point were within shooting range of Pakistan, and the relations between them and India is just as cold as the ice on road and the chill in the air, that said I suppose it made the experience more interesting for us than for the rest of the people on the bus. We got to shake the officers hands and see the soldiers sleeping on the floor of the very old wooden cottage, with the fire lit furnace at the center of the room.At 3 in the morning I thought our bus had broken down for the third time, but this would actually be our midway resting area until we set off again in the morning, after all no one wanted to see the driver go 24 hours without sleep, especially on the roads we were on, although he would gladly do it for the right price, an all too common mind set here in India. Just as everyone was settling down and starting to sleep a voice blasted out across some invisible loud speaker, it wasn't so close that you could tell which direction it was coming from but it was definitely close enough. The area we were in was all Muslim and as such obeys all laws of the faith, which apparently includes a man chanting prayers at 3 am every night across the whole valley.I did my best to sleep, but his sharp high and low chanting was hard to block out of my mind, especially after 9 hours of nothing to listen to but the rickety bouncing and knocking around of the bus. Morning came and I wasn't so much waking up as I was coming too, the start of the engine was what really helped me open my eyes. Learning from our experiences from Minali to Leh we quickly grabbed the seats at the middle of this and every other mod of transportation we used, and we were all to happy with the results. It was another super early morning start as we set off again for Srinigar, but at 5 in the morning we came to what will likely forever be the craziest traffic jam of my life.I find it hard to describe what happened because there's no example to compare it with, so imagine this, a mixture of over 100 buses, gasoline tankers, semi's, trucks and other very large and very dangerous vehicles are back to back on a dirt road "with no railing or protective guard" around a super windy, curving road, like you see in those enterprise car commercials only to the extreme, then Imagine over 100 more trucks and semi's coming from the opposite direction all on some insane deadline (speculative) to reach their destinations. All this and now imagine the road is muddy, icy and barely 20 feet across at it's (widest) point, it was basically a one way road, the kind you might drive on while in Europe somewhere.It all came to a grinding halt the second one of the trucks went on too high a grain and spilt his solid steel beams across the narrowest corner in the hillside, the whole time I was watching the event, the theme song to apocalypse now played on loop in my mind. Watching all this unfold and seeing the Indians scurry about feverishly trying to get the blood of the great beast moving again. I dumbfoundedly watched in awe as nothing I could do or say would pay even the slightest appreciation to this experience, an hour later movement once again beneath our feet, and so we went, passed the blockade of the cliffs of insanity and down the mountain side, into the valley of grass and snow until finally we stopped again, only an hour from Srinigar.This time it was the military and the police, what we eventually found out was that a type of marshal law had been declared and curfew set in place because 2 Muslim women had been raped and killed in Srinigar and the police or military, unclear which group, was accused of the crime. Luckily for us one of the Muslim guys on our bus was some hotshot vip so instead of 6 hours of wait it was more like 2, during which time Blake and I ate Penut butter and dried apricots then passed out with our heads to our packs on the roof of the bus. I heard my name being called and Blake holding out his hand to help me up, 5 minutes later the bus started up and within an hour we arrived in Srinigar and got our first glimpse of the city on the lake...