Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire
The featured photo shows the strange landscape that surrounded us near Pangong Tso, at a height of 4300 meters above sea level. But the loop of road in the photo was a sign that showed us that we were not in an undiscovered land. Our only discoveries happened when we lost our way by following a GPS map too closely. And such discoveries were never a true venture into the unknown. There was always a local inhabitant who would set us back on track. When we look back and read the founding mythologies of Western colonialism we see the same signs: Vasco da Gama had the help of a Gujarati pilot in his voyage of “discovery”, Willem Janszoon was trying to follow the coast of Irian (now known as New Guinea) when he reached Australia by mistake, Christopher Colombus followed the flight paths of Pacific Golden Plovers to Guanahani (now called San Salvador) which he mistook for India.
Premature certainty is the enemy of truth
Ermias Joseph Asghedom
In the 21st century we finally know that all new lands were already discovered by our non-human Hominid forebears as they walked across the world. But it is still a little disappointment when you come to a lake at an altitude of 4300 meters and find a line of electric scooters parked there. Still, it is better than a landscape without tourists across which empty packet of biscuits and crisps blows in the wind. Much better to come to this empty land and see a tent pitched by a transhumanist sheep-herder, even though the tent is made of factory produced fabric. (We saw them in the pastures near Muglib village in Ladakh, our first encounter with them after Kashmir). These photos are signs that industrial economy reaches everywhere on earth. And in the few places which are still out of reach of this economy, industrial pollution still manages to reach.
Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.
Of uncertain origin, attributed to Neils Bohr, Yogi Berra, and others
Then again, there are the clear signs which create uncertainty. In Ladakh our hopes of finding an ancient untouched land were always dashed. In the marketplace in Leh, a schoolboy engrossed in his phone with a large take-away cup of a fizzy drink next to him told us that maybe the traditional ware displayed in shops around him were made by people immersed in modernity. On a dusty street in Kargil, The Family took a portrait of three old men sitting by the road, as old men across the world do, but maybe they were not people out of time at all. Next to them a food cart sold momos, chowmein, and samosa, just like food carts in Allahabad or Bengaluru. Wherever we go there are signs of the flat earth of modern times.
Doubt everything. Find your own light.
Gautama Buddha
A long morning’s drive over Wari La ended at this little restaurant in Agham village, one in a cluster of four. We’d seen very few cars on the road, but many cars and motorbikes were parked here. Bikers seem to love stickers which give their details: they had left signs of their passing on the window of this kitchen (the second photo above is a closer look at the same window). I wonder whether this is better than building small stone cairns at the side of the road. Perhaps it is. Again here industrial food-like substances put in an appearance, warning us that the humble rajma chawal may be the safest food to eat.
The only certainty is that nothing is certain
Pliny the Elder
The stories that we tell about how far we have travelled are also full of uncertainty. We saw two signs at the Chang La, both put up by the same organization, which gave two different heights of the top of the pass. The higher altitude (5360 meters) is borne out by modern GPS measurements. That really makes it the world’s 10th highest pass, and one meter (!) higher than Khardung La. This contradicts all the tourist information that you get about Ladakh (if you are interested then you can read more about this controversy in the Wikipedia article on Khardung La). But is a one meter difference in altitude credible? Although enthusiasts will tell you that a modern phone has this sensitivity (once you take into account Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity), I keep my mind open and only use the two or three most significant digits of these signs.
Don't hold your breath 
