Ladakh – People – The Good Samaritans
A punctured bike got us stranded in Likir Village, but we were helped by complete strangers to get back to Leh that evening.
I was unsure what to do when I discovered the flat tyre. I had no clue about fixing punctures and there was no place in Likir to get it fixed either. When I called Namgyal, the person who rented us the bike, he suggested that we take the bike to the highway and flag a truck. But Likir is a few kilometers away from the highway and I wasn’t even sure if we could push the bike so far. Without any fuss, Namgyal agreed to send one of his mechanics to Likir. Incidentally Likir is 60km away from Leh. “Give the mechanic some tip,” he said, “otherwise it should not be problem.”
In the next thirty minutes however, I had managed to get the bike to the main road and started flagging trucks. With no cell-phone signals available, we could not inform Namgyal about our progress.
It was a while before we could find a truck heading towards Leh. A few BRO trucks passed us, but none were heading towards Leh. One of them stopped to ask us what the problem was, but they were only going a short distance ahead. An army jawan in the truck got down and started flagging vehicles for us.
An empty truck on its way to Leh stopped a few minutes later. After a brief discussion with the jawan, the driver agreed to take us and the bike to Leh. The jawan and the cleaner assisted us in lifting the bike into the truck. After saying ‘thank you’ and ‘good bye’ to the friendly army man, we were quickly on our way to Leh. We decided to look out for Namgyal’s man on the way, stop him and ask him to return to Leh.
The driver was a talkative person from Punjab who had a good experience of driving in the Ladakh region. He spoke for a long time talking about his life in Ladakh and asked questions about our journeys. He seemed to enjoy being in Ladakh and driving through its mountainous regions. Infact he was one of the few immigrants I had seen who did not complain about the harsh terrain and difficult life. His favourite place was in Nubra Valley beyond Hunder, where, he described, the mountains are tall and steep. But we discovered another reason later – his wife happened to be from those parts! This area in Ladakh was out-of-bounds during my visit, but was recently thrown open to visitors by the Government of India.
As we talked, we saw two men on an Enfield carrying a spare tyre going in the opposite direction, suddenly crossing us at a steep curve. They had gone past us before we could even wave at them.
We reached Leh just after sun down. Our troubles however did not end there. The trucker’s destination was just before the town, but he agreed to drive in a bit and find a mechanic for us. The first puncture-shop guy refused to help us, as he primarily worked on truck tyres and did not know how to remove a two-wheeler’s rear wheel. The truck driver came to our rescue again. He drove us to a bike mechanic’s shop, one owned by a friend of his, a few hundred meters ahead. The plan was to get the mechanic to remove the wheel, take it to the puncture shop, get it back to the mechanic’s shop again and then re-assemble the wheel.
Having worked this arrangement, the truck driver took leave from us. At the end of all this, he refused to take any money for his help!
The mechanic looked at the bike and sternly said that he normally never touches the bikes taken on rent, but he was doing this since the driver was a good friend of his. Having said that, we got into a conversation and found out that he worked in Bangalore for a few years. Sometimes I wonder if there comes a day when everyone you meet anywhere in the world would have worked in Bangalore some time or the other. Never mind, he now took an extra interest in the work. After he removed the wheel, we took it to the puncture shop, got it fixed and returned back. And then it was a déjà vu. He refused to take any money!
We finally reached Namgyal’s bike shop just before he was to close for the day. The news from the folks who had gone to Likir was that they searched all around for us and were finally about to head back. I apologized for the trouble and explained him what happened. So how much should we pay him for the services of those who went looking for us? Well, he refused to take any money!