{"id":289,"date":"2015-04-30T17:21:24","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T17:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/?page_id=289"},"modified":"2015-05-09T04:00:37","modified_gmt":"2015-05-09T04:00:37","slug":"motorbike-practice","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/?page_id=289","title":{"rendered":"Chang La (5289 m), a pass south of Leh on a hired 350 Enfield"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chang La, a pass east of Karu, passing Chemne on the way<\/h4>\n

An Indian Army man hitching a ride up the Chang La on\u00a0a front-end-loading BRO tractor hops off to make my picture while wearing my ‘Too Black’ jumper near the summit. The hired Enfield is strong up the too-many-to-even-guess number of switchbacks, while a monastery set on a hillock far off the road at Chemre is the next closest town. I fear I exhaust my fuel, with an Indina Oil petrol station along with a heavy military presence just further back in Karu; I hold in the clutch and kill the motor, coasting the entire decent while periodically releasing into a roll-start at any odd incline.<\/p>\n

CHEMNE<\/p>\n

\"Along<\/a>
Along paved road east of Karu, the village Chemne and monastery set atop a hillock in the background. In the foreground right, a glorious example of the architecture typical to Ladakh, with mud-brick, stone for load bearing supports, infilled with light (and uninsulated) timber framed casement windows. The detail of the headers is intricate; even new, noticeably machine cut wood work has a particular dental-like molding. The roof is constructed using hundreds of [willow] branches with exposed, corded ends, and often, outside of Leh, the roof is further insulated with a store of stacked hey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CHANG LA<\/p>\n

\"India's<\/a>
India’s Chang la (5289 m), wearing a second hand jacket from Canada, vacuum sealed and sent to India via a port in Gujarat in perfect, compressed cubes. It is a baseball\/softball pullover that reads “too black”, an apparent pun that would have otherwise outlived its useful life but for an American on the other end.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A chorten, or stupa, near the summit of India’s Chang La pass (5290m, 17,350 feet), Northeast of Karu and only 60km for Pangong Lake in Ladakh, India.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Into<\/a>
Into the snow cap of Chang La, the approach from the Chemne and Karu side is visible in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Near<\/a>
Near the summit of Changla, a high pass east of Karu towards the Chinese boarder. A small hillock monastery can be seen from the road several km before the climb, likely Chemne.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Prayer<\/a>
Prayer flags and a chorten mark the general top of Chang La. A BRO marker is a bit further along.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chang La, a pass east of Karu, passing Chemne on the way An Indian Army man hitching a ride up the Chang La on\u00a0a front-end-loading BRO tractor hops off to make my picture while wearing my ‘Too Black’ jumper near the summit. The hired Enfield is strong up the too-many-to-even-guess number of switchbacks, while a … Continue reading Chang La (5289 m), a pass south of Leh on a hired 350 Enfield<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215,"parent":27,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-289","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/289\/revisions\/413"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}