The night before was such an experience that we were praying that our next destinations should not be as biting cold as Rangdum was! Thankfully Padum our next destination wasn’t. It was cool & pleasant, but definitely not unbearable as Rangdum.
We saw the Rangdum Gompa on our way. Rangdum Gompa is the oldest Gompa and therefore has a very rich heritage. We then passed the Rangdum Gompa Museum.
Unmarried ladies in Rangdum are called as ‘chomo’ & men are called ‘lama’.
We then saw the Panzilla Gompa on our way. Immediately after that, we saw the Darang-Darang Glacier. Its a beautiful snow clad glacier and below it runs a river that seems to form the shape of the letter ‘S’.
The roads on the way are extremely bad and therefore we got too tired after reaching Padum. Padum is a place that comes in the Zanskar Belt & is also governed by the Zanskar Union.
Its a small town and we checked into our hotel – Hotel Ibex. It’s probably the best hotel in Padum & after checking into our room, we dropped our baggage & headed to the hotel restaurant for tea & refreshments as we were quite a bit tired.
I had Mok-Thuk (A Tibetan Soup with momo’s) & my friend Sachin had Tomato-Garlic Cheese Macaroni for dinner. We then had a nice Mixed Fruit Custard for Dinner and since it wasn’t too late we decided to chat.
After a while…all of a sudden, it came to Sachin’s notice that someone outside our room was peeping through the glass window of our room and could see us conversing with each other as the curtains of our rooms couldn’t be closed fully and one could see from the corners what was happening inside.
Immediately Sachin brought this to my attention & I slowly went close to the shadow of the person standing outside. He could also see that someone was standing outside trying to see what’s going on inside. The shadow slowly moved to the right and this confirmed that there was someone outside the room planning or plotting something against us.
It could also be that the person was just plain interested in what was happening inside and didn’t have any other intentions! I then ran immediately to open the door & see who the person was so as to catch him red-handed.
However, the person had already disappeared by then. Now we both were in a spot of bother. We were carrying very high end camera gear & equipment, we had good deal of cash with us & such a thing happening at this time of the night was really scary & life threatening.
We had already not slept well last night because of the cold weather at Rangdum & this incident only made matters worse for both of us.
It was my 1st tour without family & therefore Sachin decided to take lead in this situation. We practically had no weapon or equipment with which we could save ourselves & we also had to tackle the situation very calmly & as matured people.
First thing Sachin told me to do was to close the curtains fully so that no outsider could see what was happening inside.
Unfortunately though, the curtains were very short and not enough to hide the entire place inside it. So we thought of a novel idea! We removed a safety pin from one of our bags and tied the curtains in such a way that no one could see from outside what was happening inside.
Then we checked if our main door was locked or not. It was locked but it was only on one latch on the top. So a good force would easily break open the door for the thief to get in. It needed more safety and protection.
So we rested my big bag leaning against the main door and kept Sachin’s big bag behind it to act as support. This would not be a foolproof strategy but it would certainly make the job of the intruder a bit more difficult.
Sachin also told me to get hold of 2 forks which were there already in our room. We also got hold of pepper powder so that we could throw it on the thief’s face if by any chance he managed to barge in. It also occurred to us that we needed a torch.
So we removed 2 torches from our bags for seeing in the dark and also for our safety. It was also important to hide our important valuables and cash safely. So we opened Sachin’s big bag and made a secret place in it where we could hide all our valuables and cash.
We then locked the bag properly & hid the key to the bag under the sole of Sachin’s left shoe!!! What a strategy that was!!!
The one important thing that remained was to hide our Camera Backpack. It was huge but Sachin thought that if we put the bag below one of our bed further down inside, it wouldn’t be easily seen and accessible.
All this & so much more for just saving ourselves from a possible theft. While we were doing all of this, we were also slowly looking out through the curtains by opening them a little to see if we could see anyone but there wasn’t a trace of a single person.
What a night this turned out to be. After all this, we tried sleeping but for long, we couldn’t sleep because of what had happened.
We both started discussing that after all this fail proof planning there was no need to worry anymore because the thief, even if he wishes to get in will require time to do that and in the mean time we can shout “Thief – Thief” very loudly so that our neighbors & even the hotel management staff comes to our rescue & the thief gets caught.
After this….it took us a while to sleep but finally we hit the slumber at last. This was a night which will be forever unforgettable. We realised the importance of being more particular & careful of our own selves and our belongings.
We also realised that anything can happen even in the best of Hotels & we must be prepared for taking our own care.
This incident made us stronger…
Here is a Slideshow version of the above pics.
Captures from Art Pixel Photography (Amit Desai)
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