This is a long-overdue post but for the last 8 days we have been in the Rumbak Valley about 3 or 400 metres higher than Leh and about 90 minutes drive away, further up in the mountains and completely off-grid without access to cell coverage or internet. We returned to Leh yesterday and I write this in our hotel, snow-bound as our flight to Delhi has been cancelled by a blizzard until, with luck, tomorrow.

As I mentioned in my last post, our first two days in Leh were meant to be ‘rest’ days. The altitude protocol requires that we spend those days inactive and resting so as to acclimate to the altitude. However, we spent our first two days doing everything but resting…

This post and the ones following in the next few days have all been written retrospectively since for most of the time since our arrival we have been off-grid, with no cell or internet service.

We arrived in Delhi late in the evening of Sunday February 16 after a lucky escape from the weather in Toronto, a snowstorm that had begun in the early afternoon of February 15 and which was piling up heavy snow on roads and runways.

We have not been in Delhi for about 12 years and so had forgotten the insanity of Delhi traffic. Let me be not be judgmental…Indian drivers are a very creative lot. They add one more lane to the designated design of any road, so an eastbound stretch of road that was designed with 2 lanes magically contains 3 lanes of cars, as well as buses and motorcycles. It’s not that there is room for 3 lanes but rather that every inch of road is utilised as drivers squeeze in and out of lanes, slide by each other and tuck into any slight opening…

I write this as we get ready to leave for the airport on our way to Ladakh in the Himalayan section of northern India. Our goal is to track and photograph snow leopards, an endangered species who are only found at high altitudes in this region.   

Weather for the Toronto area is calling for significant amounts of snow overnight tonight and through Sunday and, as our flight leaves at 20:00 I worry that we may not get away before the flight interruptions begin. I’ve firmly latched on to this particular worry…

I have received a number of sharp email nudges from readers who wondered why I left everyone suspended mid-journey on my recent Patagonia trip. Not the first time I have done this I know, but in this instance returning from Argentina and right into the midst of the holiday scramble, my journal writing priorities were turned on their heads. So let me close out the trip and the year as we all launch ourselves into 2025.

When last heard from we had completed a 4 day stint in an eco-camp in La Posta de Los Toldos in the ReWilding Argentina nature reserve. After another long day’s 12 hour drive we reached our destination for our last four days on the road, Los Alerces National Park. As an aside and since I’m writing this well after the fact, when I returned to Toronto Hugh emailed us to let us know that we covered 3700 kilometres of driving on our trip…didn’t come as as even a slight surprise…

How to describe two and a half weeks in the Serengeti and in Zambia? Not easily done.

Why did I wait so long to file dispatches? We were off the grid for virtually all of that time and although we were nominally able to access wifi at intervals during that period, the signal was so fragile and we were so tired from our expeditions that mustering the patience to deal with a ragged wifi connection required more than we could manage. Hence my reporting dilemma. So, rather than a documentary, I’ll try to capture some, a very few, of the many bright spots that immediately rise to the top of the memory heap…

As has become depressingly normal, we now begin a new travel adventure without having competed documenting the last one. When last heard from we were leaving our ship in Hokkaido and on our way to a week in Tokyo, which turned out to be the highlight of our trip. In fact, we enjoyed Tokyo so well that we are planning to go back next year. We had added it on to our boat trip around Japan in a classic ‘since we’re there we might as well..’ moment but unfortunately that was as far as our thinking took us, the boat trip captured the majority of our attention. Fortunately we had sufficient forethought to make a hotel booking but our, or at least V’s, normal research and planning for our week’s Tokyo sojourn was conspicuous by its absence. Nonetheless we had a fabulous time and unhindered as we were by any commitments, with the exception of a couple of restaurant reservations, we wandered, discovered and thoroughly enjoyed…

A quick word before I begin, apologies for my rambling discursions in my last two posts, I’m well aware of my tendency to drift rapidly off course at any given opportunity so to get back on course let me tell you a little about the nature of this trip. This is the second time we have travelled with Abercrombie & Kent, who charter Ponant ships for their expeditions, although I also travelled with Ponant on my Antartica trip in 2022. It’s unlikely that we will do another one of these trips, not because of any shortcomings of the voyages but simply because of our primary reason for taking them has been met to our satisfaction.

We are not cruisers by nature but we have taken these trips for two reasons; they allow us to access places and events that we would not ordinarily be able to access by any other means and they are created as expedition trips, not cruises. We have travelled with A&K to Greenland and the Arctic and now on this trip, to small ports and cities around the coast of Japan. In both instances, the ports and sites we visit would either be completely inaccessible or at the least, very difficult to reach. And because they are built as expeditions, they dive deeply into local culture, arts, music and history and require active participation…

Overnight from Hiroshima on April 1, we sailed to Uwajima, a very small town on a very small bay at the southernmost point on Shikoku Island and one of the most important locations for the Japanese pearl industry.

Before I talk about this, an aside. As you may have noticed, I have described a couple of the ports as being small towns, small ports. Because of the relatively small size of the ship we are able to travel to and dock in ports that see cargo ships but very few passenger boats since most cruise ships would not be able to be accommodated, simply too large. One of the benefits of this is that our ship is treated as a very big deal by the towns that we visit and we are often greeted by townspeople coming down to the dock to look at the ship along with delegates from the town and local school bands playing a welcome. When we leave there is always a farewell event on dockside, bands and dancers and everyone quite literally waving until the ship disappears from view. As a courtesy we are asked to reciprocate, so everyone crowds their balconies on departure and waves in return.

Now Uwajima, which in addition to pearls also has a local and very prized potato growing agricultural presence. Who knew, but apparently potatoes do feature in some parts of Japanese cuisine…