WHAT HAVE SEAHORSES TO DO WITH UNIVERSAL MAGIC?

Leh with Leh Palace in the background.

In the summer of 2004, I made plans to travel from my Himalayan hometown of Dharamsala to the remote village of Leh in the former kingdom of Ladakh. In order to get there, one needs to conquer muddy, rocky and none-existing bad northbound jeep tracks and cross a number of high mountain passes. This time I also planned to cross the world’s highest motorable mountain pass, the Kardung-la, north of Leh.

From Dharamsala, which is located in the foothills of the southern-most Himalayan range, the journey takes about 5 days in a sturdy four-wheel-drive jeep with the foot pressed down on the accelerator pedal and the stick-shift mostly in first gear. Good thing is that I had such a jeep and knew the route across those high mountains pretty well. In previous years I had driven to Leh in order to avoid the torrential monsoon rains that tend to hit Dharamsala from June till September. The monsoon clouds are too heavy to cross the peaks of the first Himalayan range, leaving Dharamsala constantly covered in the clouds, and the Ladakh Valley in the north a very arid moon-like landscape.

On the third day I arrived in Manali with my British travel companion Ann, who I didn’t allow to steer my jeep, so I was to drive the entire journey myself. In Manali, I was told by local Indians that no woman had ever driven across the Himalayan ranges, but I told them I had done it a few times before, so that record had already been broken... by me... a woman.

Ann and I spent our fourth night in a tented encampment at an altitude of over 18.000 feet. The lack of oxygen made us suffer from insomnia so Ann and I were chatting a bit in bed, covered by half a dozen blankets, plus my travel duvet, and wearing woolen hats and gloves. I told her that I felt a bit of pride, thinking that I was very probably the only woman who drove a jeep across half a dozen Himalayan mountain ranges. I had seen women walking the route, or by means of horseback-riding, yakback-riding, scootering and I had even seen some Dutch people bicycling to Leh, but I had yet to encounter a woman steering a jeep. The only people crossing those mountain ranges on four or more wheels were experienced Indian jeep, lorry or military truck drivers.

I admire women who stand out, make a change, do something that most women wouldn’t even consider doing; women who change the world into a better place.
I have my idols. Apart from Barbra Streisand and a few other celebrities, there is another woman who captures my attention. That night I told my companion about a girl that I had seen on BBC-television some four years back, shortly before I moved from the Netherlands to India. She was concerned about the well-being of seahorses and managed a seahorse preservation project somewhere in the Pacific. "I love seahorses. Aren’t they incredible creatures of nature?"

I told my friend that since I saw that girl on television I had the wish to meet her, to produce an article in one form or another, creating awareness of the plight of the seahorses and write about this incredible woman’s mission. "But what is more: because of this girl, I was able to lose my fear of stepping out of my comfort zone, getting out of my box, build enough courage to leave my familiar life in the Netherlands behind me and commence a new adventure. Only weeks after seeing the seahorse-girl on television, I got on a plane to Asia and started a new life. I owe her more than you can think of."
“Do you know her name and where she is? Have you contacted her?” Ann asked me.
“No, it’s been a while that I saw her on television. She spoke English and had blond hair... I think. Could have been dark blond hair, bleached in the sun and sea water. I never got to tracking her down. But I told you about the workings of the universe. One day I may stand in a Chinese pharmacy in Beijing or Bangkok staring in horror at at a glass jar full of dried seahorses and standing next to a girl with blond hair whom I recognise as the seahorse-girl I saw on TV. It may take years or a few days, but if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. There's a lot of magic in the universe. Or... I should Google 'seahorses' and see what turns up. Never thought about that... hmm!”

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The next day we continued the journey. Ten hours later we started descending into the Ladakh Valley and driving across the over 12,000 feet high plateau toward the former capital of the former kingdom of Leh. The place looks a bit like the old Lhasa before the Chinese occupied Tibet and changed the ancient capital into a modern Chinese city.

Ann and I found a pleasant guestroom below the dilapidated Leh Palace that was perched against a mountain. It was abandoned by the royal family already in the 19th century when they moved into the nearby Palace of Stok. The last King died there in 1974, but his wife and decendants still inhabited the palace.

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The next day we woke up early and had breakfast in town. My companion and I were discussing the plans for that day. We could take a hike up the hill and visit Leh Palace. I had been inside the palace the previous year and was baffled to observe the royal toilet, which was a small room with a hole in a mud-floor. We could perhaps take it easy, adjust to the altitude, and just have a walk around town. We could take the jeep to Tikse Monastery, about a 30-minute drive south of Leh. I had never been to Stok Palace before, which is only a short drive from Tikse Monastery. I had heard the old queen was still alive and the decendants of the royal family still took up residence in the rooms on the top floor.

Suddenly a western middle-aged woman in a blue jacket came up to us. “Excuse me, ladies. Do you have any idea how I can get to Stok Palace by public transportation?”
I frowned. “Public transportation? Sorry, I happen to have my own set of wheels so I have no idea about public transportation in this area, really.”
“Do you think there is a bus station here?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sorry. I am not the right person to answer that question.” I turned to Ann. “Isn’t that interesting? I know every bloody jeep track in the Himalayas, but I can’t even help a woman getting on a bus in Leh.”
I turned back to the woman. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t know about busses. You may need to consider hiring a jeep with chauffeur to get you to Stok. However, this is your lucky day. If you sit down with my friend and me and have a coffee while we finish our breakfast, I can offer you a ride. I have a Maruti-Suzuki jeep and my friend and I were just thinking about going to Stok Palace. Would you like to join us?”

Half an hour later, the lady climbed into the jeep and we sped off, leaving a cloud of dust behind us. Her name was Jane, a woman from Canada, and she started telling me about her expedition to Leh. In return I told her I was a writer and Free Tibet activist, residing in the hometown of the Dalai Lama. "Born in the Netherlands, but I matured in Asia," I grinned.

Jane complained about the dry air in Ladakh that caused her skin to crack. "My skin feels like parchment."
“When you’re facing the sun at this altitude, you burn your face while your back freezes off your body,” I replied. “The Ladakhi women use a very thick green cream with a texture of Vaseline, but it works really well. It prevents us ladies from aging ten years in one week in this harsh climate. I have almost run out of my last year’s batch of Tibetan high-altitude mountain cream but half-way to Stok there is a branch of the Tibetan Mentsekhang Hospital and they sell that stuff in their shop. Can’t get anything better than that stuff. You’d better stock up on some of that product. It’s good. Very good.”

After leaving the Mentsekhang, we continued to Stok Palace. It looked deserted. We knocked on the door but nothing happened for a few minutes. We stood idle for a while but then suddenly the door of the courtyard opened and a very old man wearing a chuba and a hat came out to greet us in Ladakhi. "Joolay".
“Joolay! Is Her Majesty at home?” I asked.
“Sorry. The Queen no longer receives visitors.”
“O, bummer! Well, is it possible to have a look around then? We would love to see some of the inside of the Palace.”
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“Sure,” the old man replied and he took us inside, showing us around a few rooms that had ancient furniture and old black and white pictures of the royal family on the wall. There was also a photo of Lde, one of the sons of the king and queen of Leh. A few years back, an old lama in Dharamsala had told me about my previous incarnation, a Tibetan nobleman called Pantau. He used to be friends with Prince Lde. For that reason alone I had been interested in meeting the Queen and ask her about Lde and his Tibetan friend Pantau. The Dalai Lama himself renamed me Pantau, in honour of my previous body’s good deeds as a freedom fighter. Both Lde and Pantau died in the early 1960s.

Suddenly, our fellow-traveller took out her camera but the old man with the hat told her that it was not allowed to take any photos inside the palace. Jane looked visibly disappointed. “Can I just take a picture of you then?” she asked. The man looked surprised. “Why would you want to take a photo of me? I am just an old man. Nobody special. I just work here. Cleaning the floors, opening the door, attending to the Queen. I am nobody.”

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“Well, I would like to take a picture of you because of your hat. It says “seahorse” on your hat. My daughter is crazy about seahorses and I thought it would be nice to show her a photo of a man in Ladakh who is wearing a hat that says seahorse.”

I turned my head towards the woman who was finally given permission to take one photo of the man with the hat. I thought her request was unusual but interesting. I took out my small digital camera and secretly took a picture of the man while he was posing for Jane.

I told the man the story about Prince Lde being friends with my previous incarnation, Pantau. “Did you know Prince Lde personally? Have you ever met Pantau from Tibet?" I asked him. "I was told that Lde and Pantau were very good friends," I continued. "I have information that Pantau visited the palace in the 1950's. The Queen may know about their friendship.”

The old man looked three-hundred years old, perhaps he had known both Lde and Pantau. "No, I am sorry. I haven't met either one of them. I am nobody. I just clean the floors and open the door."

I nodded understandingly. “Can I take a photo of that portrait on the wall of Lde?" I asked him. "My previous incarnation and the Prince were... let's say... very special friends. It would mean a lot to me. Perhaps there are some pictures laying around somewhere of Pantau and Lde."

"I am not sure about that. I don't think we have such photos."

"Well, it would mean a lot to me if I can at least take a photo of the Prince's portrait.” Unfortunately the answer was “No. No photographing allowed inside the palace.”

After our brief visit the man requested us to leave the palace.

Outside, my friend Ann, our fellow-daytripper Jane and I sat down on a white-washed wall.
“Well, that wasn’t the greatest experience I had. I feel a bit disappointed," I said. "I had been looking forward to visiting this palace and speaking to the Queen. At least I got a photo of one of the Queen’s aides, but oy vey, this fahcockteh experience is giving me shpilkes in my genecktigazoink! It's making me all farklempt now.”
“I am glad that I was able to take a picture of that man and his seahorse hat. My daughter will be pleased.”
“So your daughter is verruckt about seahorses, right? Interestingly, two nights ago I was discussing seahorses with Ann in a tent on the Sarchu plateau. Shortly before I moved to India I saw a documentary on television about a girl who had set up a preservation project for seahorses on some island here in the Pacific. She went to China and everything to do research on Chinese people who think that eating dried seahorses give them some health benefits. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but I always wanted to visit her on that island and observe her working there and write about her. She inspired me to change my life and move to Asia. I think her name was Sandra or Samantha or Amanda or something like that.”
“The Philippines,” the woman replied.
“Pardon?”
“She carried out that seahorse project in the Philippines. And the girl’s name is Amanda Vincent. She’s a marine biologist. I am Jane Vincent. I am Amanda’s mother.”

I am always surprised about the workings of the matrix of the universe, but wasn’t it Goethe who said that when you’re committed, the universe conspires to assist you?

Perhaps I wasn’t able to meet the Queen of Leh or take a picture of the black and white portrait of Prince Lde, but meeting the mother of Dr. Amanda C.J. Vincent PhD, made up for it in a very big way. Wasn't this more than a coincidence?

Despite meeting Amanda's mother in the remote Himalayan valley of Ladakh, I never wrote about her wonderful daughter… until now.

If you want to learn more about Amanda’s amazing work, please visit Project Seahorse at http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/team.html

Below: Jane Vincent, the mother of Amanda Vincent, in front of the Japanese temple outside Leh in 2004.

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Shortly after I posted this story I had the pleasure of receiving the following email.

Dear Pantau/Veronique,

What a lovely surprise to find your email in the midst of an otherwise predictable day. I enjoyed reading your blog - and seeing a lovely photo of my mother - and was delighted to find that you, too, are keen on seahorses, marine life and good causes. My mother ended up buying me a seahorse hat like the one the custodian / doorkeeper was wearing. Thanks for putting our website in your blog. We are still hard at work in fishing communities in the Philippines, but are also cooperating productively with traditional Chinese medicine markets / consumers and policy makers. The oceans are still a mess but at least more people are starting to care. I wish you all good luck with your own projects and dreams. Life is never dull.

Warm regards,

Amanda