The Messiah Secret - James Becker [94]
It hadn’t the same sense of frantic urgency as Mumbai either, and outside the terminal building the sense of tranquillity deepened. The scenery was spectacular, mountains, hills and valleys extending in all directions. There was what looked like a monastery on the side of one hill that Bronson had actually seen before – it had flashed past the wing of the aircraft, alarmingly close, as the plane had come in to land.
But there was no sign of the town of Leh itself.
‘Is this the right place?’ Bronson asked, a little breathlessly.
‘Yes. The airport’s about seven miles south of the town, so we’ll have to take a cab there. Now, just a warning. We’re up at about eleven and a half thousand feet here, so don’t over-exert yourself – it’ll take time to acclimatize to that altitude. Within about twenty-four hours we should be feeling fine again.’
‘I’m already out of breath,’ Bronson said. ‘But at least it’s nothing like as hot here as it was back in Mumbai.’
‘That’s the low humidity. The temperature’s probably not a lot different; it just feels a lot cooler.’
The cab ride didn’t take long, but the road was far from the smoothest surface Bronson had ever driven along. From the research he’d done before they left Cairo, he knew that in the winter much of the area was impassable because of thick snow, and he guessed that the harsh weather conditions contributed to the very broken and potholed road surface.
‘It’s bigger than I expected,’ Bronson said, as the cab – an elderly Mitsubishi four-by-four – drove down Main Bazaar Road, where there seemed to be plenty of shops and restaurants, including a vehicle hire outlet, then turned off into Fort Road and pulled up beside the kerb.
‘Hotel, guest house, here,’ the driver said, gesticulating in both directions along the street as he lifted their bags out of the boot.
‘Jule,’ Angela said, bowing slightly.
‘Joo-lay?’ Bronson asked, mimicking Angela’s pronunciation. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s perhaps the single most useful word in the Ladakhi language,’ she replied. ‘It’s a kind of multi-purpose word that can be translated as “hello”, “goodbye”, “please” or “thank you”. What it means really depends on the context and the circumstances.’
As the taxi drove away, they looked up and down the street. There were numerous signs outside the buildings indicating the locations of guest houses, small hotels and various restaurants.
‘This is great,’ Bronson said. ‘My kind of place!’
‘Just don’t expect too much, Chris. En-suite and five-star these hotels aren’t, but all the reports I’ve read say that they’re good and clean, and the owners are usually very welcoming.’
They chose one of the bigger guest houses, and after Angela’s prediction about the lack of facilities, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the twin room they chose had got an en-suite bathroom, or rather a shower room, with running hot and cold water. They left their bags in their room, then walked back outside. They had several things to do, and not much time to do them in.
‘The first thing we must find is a travel agent,’ Angela said. ‘We’ve got to get the Inner Line entry permits so we can visit the Nubra Valley.’
There were a number of travel agents in the Main Bazaar Road. They chose one, who promised that their documents would be ready for them if they returned at the end of the afternoon.
They then walked on to the car hire agency Bronson had spotted on the way into Leh. They already knew that the two most common forms of transport hired by tourists in the area were motorcycles – trail-bikes, in fact – and four-by-four jeeps.
Bronson finally settled on a Nissan Patrol with a diesel engine – big, tough and hopefully unbreakable – with extra fuel cans strapped inside the rear compartment, and with two spare wheels and tyres. It looked like the kind of truck that could cross the Sahara Desert without the slightest problem.
He