Back to Leh

Old Leh

We’d come back to Leh because we’d started to miss the comforts of civilization: a bathroom that consisted of more than a dirt floor with a hole in it;

Leh valley

beer; menus with more options than than dahl and thupka; electricity; and nightly entertainment options other than “kitchen sitting.” As soon as we got back to town, though, with its noise and hustle and bustle and desperate shop keepers hassling us to check out their stores everywhere we walked, we realized we’d probably made a mistake and should have extended our walk in paradise.

Leh was closing up for the year. It gets extremely cold in Ladakh in the winter and the roads leading to other parts of India all close due to snow and ice. It was late September and we were hearing reports of hundreds of travelers stranded up at some of the passes on the road leading to Manali, trapped for several days now without sufficient food and warm clothing by unexpected storms that had shut down the roads with heavy snowfall. An avalanche had also swept a car off the road and killed several people. The only other way out was to fly.

Denae and I always try to be frugal, but India has made us downright miserly. Most things are really cheap here, so

The road to the pass

the idea of dropping $250 for the plane tickets from Leh to Delhi was a little hard to swallow; that kind of money goes a long way here. But we considered the road reports we’d heard, along with the somewhat remote but real risk of death and the certainty of 2-3 days of horribly uncomfortable bus travel if we left by road. The flight lasted an hour and fifteen minutes; in the end it was a pretty easy choice and we booked our plane tickets for several days later.

We spent our remaining days in Leh narrowing down our choices for the best Tibetan restaurant, playing cards, reading and wandering around the city. We liked to go to the area called Old Leh, with its narrow and twisting alleyways between centuries old mud brick buildings where we could walk for hours, finding hidden Buddhist chortens and prayer wheels built into random walls. We finally paid the admission fee to enter Leh Palace and spent some time wandering with our flashlight, trying to imagine the huge and drafty building when it was less dilapidated and filled with monks and Ladakhi royalty.

We were having a good time but were a little bored, so we’d been looking forward to our prearranged meeting with Nicolas and Caroline a couple days before we flew out. They told us stories from their trek after we parted ways, making us more than a little jealous, and they had an idea: a local travel agency sold jeep trips to the top of the nearby Khardung La, which at 18,380′ is the highest motorable pass in the world. Did we want to join them? Yes we did, so the next morning we piled into the jeep and were on our way.

It was a beautiful day and the views from the drive were amazing. We could look down and see the valley with Leh at the center of it, getting smaller and smaller as we kept going higher. By now we we’d been at altitude long enough that we felt great even at the top of the pass, without any of the breathless dizziness we’d experienced coming to Ladakh when we’d gone over the second highest motorable pass in the world. This was an especially good thing considering the manner in which we were descending back down to Leh; we weren’t going in the jeep, we were riding mountain bikes. This was of course the real draw of the trip, biking down about 7,000 vertical feet spread over 25 miles. Standing in the snow as the bikes were unloaded we were all a little nervous.

The first section of road was unpaved, bumpy and strewn with puddles, slush and ice. We biked slowly here. It was kind of surreal to look out on a scene that made me feel like I should be skiing or climbing a mountain, but instead be bumping down a high altitude road on a mountain bike. Soon the road smoothed out a bit and the snow and ice disappeared. We picked up speed, trying not to slip out on the corners. Eventually the road changed to asphalt which felt smooth as butter despite more patches and ruts than your average goat trail, and here we really opened the throttle. I tucked myself into the most aerodynamic position I could and just flew down the seemingly endless section of downhill, yelling for the sheer joy of the experience. The marmots poking around in the rocks passed by in a barely seen blur. It was absolutely thrilling and exhilarating; one of the best things we’ve ever done, although Denae qualifies this by saying she had more fun before she slid out in a turn and came close to sliding off the edge of the road, after which she went a little slower and the fun was mixed with a bit more caution. We rode clear back to Leh, said our farewells to Nicolas and Caroline, and got ready for our flight early the next morning. We were going back to Delhi, but planned to immediately carry on to Chandigarh and then Mcleod Ganj.

Caroline, Nicolas, Andy and Denae at the highest motorable pass in the world

Our trek in Ladakh

Standing among Buddhist stupas in Ladakh

Our guest house in Lehker, built in the typical Ladakhi architectural style

When we reached Lehker, we had to make a choice: Canadian or Swiss. We’d had two foreign couples sitting near us on the bus, and had had interesting conversations with both of them. When a local told us that we’d just passed our destination, all six of us scrambled off the bus, dodging flying propane tanks from the roof, and found ourselves in the rain staring at the bus’s receding taillights. The choice came when the Canadians with their comfortingly familiar accents and understanding of pop culture references decided to try and find a guest house they’d read about, and the relatively exotic Swiss couple went for the closest guest house they could find to escape the rain. We chose adventure, and went with the Swiss.

Sitting down to our evening meal of rice and dahl (lentils), we compared American and Swiss food, culture, and politics with our new friends Nicolas and Caroline. They were on their second trip to India; their first had been a yearlong stint

The very cool outdoor Buddha in Lehker

in Chennai where Nicolas was a student and Caroline, in one of the many such instances that make us feel like self-centered slackers, had been a volunteer midwife at some local hospitals. They were planning to do the same trek as us, plus a continuation of several days and over a very high pass. We got along well and decided to head out together the next day.

That morning we weren’t sure that we’d be going anywhere, because a nice little storm blew in and carpeted the ground with snow. It was cold and windy, and our basic trail runner shoes and lack of gear had us wondering if the trek was over before it had even begun. Luckily, though, the sun was soon shining and as the snow melted we found ourselves walking past the huge outdoor Buddha statue at the Lehker gompa. We made our way through green fields and orchards where we stopped to gather fallen apricots with an elderly man who showed us how to choose the best ones. The path headed uphill and, breathing heavily in the thin air, we made it to the top of a steep pass and savored the downhill section. The mountain scenery all through the day, and indeed every day of the trek, was jaw droppingly amazing, and we marveled to each other that this was hands down the most beautiful setting we’d ever hiked in.

From our guest house rooftop in Yangthang... Not bad eh?

Our chai lady sitting in front of her collection of pots and pans

Mid way through the day we opened up the sack lunches our guest house had packed us and found the stale bread and rock hard biscuits inedible, so when we came to a tiny settlement of a few houses we were happy to accept the offer of chai and cookies from the woman frantically waving us down. Nicolas and Caroline, who had been ahead of us, had ended up at the woman’s toothless next door neighbor and apparent business rival. They were the only two people we saw in the village. After our bellies were filled with chai and we’d tried and failed to break through the Ladakhi-English language barrier with our host, we tracked down our hiking buddies next door. The normally more linguistically adept Swiss were having no better luck communicating with their host, as they kept having apples and toasted grains thrust upon them despite their protests of fullness. Having spotted some carrots and onions being carried about, they also suspected a stew was being prepared. The day’s walk being only half over, we decided to make our escape.

We were pretty worn out by this point, and certainly not sufficiently acclimatized, but we managed to crawl our way up

Nicolas and Caroline

one final pass to make it the tiny village of Yangthang where we spent the night. This picturesque and pastoral little hamlet seemed to contain about twenty five residents, most of whom spent their day working in the fields or working with the various farm animals wandering about. We really liked our guest house here; it had an incredible view from the rooftop terrace area and we’d barely set down our packs before someone delivered a hot thermos of tea.

One of our favorite aspects of the trek was staying at these small guest houses, which were really just large family homes with an extra bedroom or two that could be rented out. They cost next to nothing: about $5 per person with three meals and unlimited tea included, and we really got to experience Ladakhi living. In the evenings we’d hang out in the traditional kitchen with the family, sitting on cushions and watching the mother cook us very simple but delicious meals from scratch which we ate off of low tables. The kids would either be doing homework or helping with family chores, and if grandparents were around they were usually drinking butter tea while they spun a kind of hand held prayer wheel. Everyone seemed to be happy and healthy, although the constantly working women invariably looked much older than they really were.

The next morning we set off on a day hike to Rizong, where we would check out the local gompa and then return to

Hemis Shukpachu

our guest house before nightfall. We packed the essentials but not a lunch, as we were assured that we could buy food at the gompa, and set off on the route following a small river that showed evidence of recent flooding. In fact the flooding had been very bad, a result of a huge rainstorm that came through several weeks earlier causing landslides and flash floods. It had also almost completely wiped out the trail to Rizong, so we spent the day walking through the riverbed and across steep rocky slopes, along with the occasional wobbly tree branch over the river, which we had to cross over and over again throughout the day.

It was fun but tiring, and we staggered uphill to the Rizong gompa fueled by a small breakfast and the odd windfall apricot we’d found along the way. We were ready for a mid-day feast, but unfortunately it was not to be. For reasons we were never quite sure of, Rizong had no food available, and it wasn’t until we’d tracked down a monk to show us the interior Buddha statues that we managed to beg some butter tea mixed with sampa (barley flour), a staple of the monk’s diet but only semipalatable for westerners. We

Rock art

were so hungry by this time that it actually tasted pretty good, and drinking butter tea with a Ladakhi speaking monk in a medieval looking wood fired kitchen was a pretty amazing experience in itself. Afterwards we met up with a kiwi volunteer teacher who showed us the way from the monastery down to the Chullichan nunnery where she’d been living and teaching for the past few weeks. We wound our way down a gully filled with silt and rocks, which before the floods had apparently been an orchard, quite a blow to this isolated area where agriculture doesn’t come easy. The return trip to our guest house seemed to go a lot faster than we’d expected, and we felt we’d earned our dahl and rice that evening.

The next day we set out for Hemis Shukpachu, a slightly larger village where the 13 year old girl from our guest house in Yangthang walked two hours there and back six days a week to go to school, after getting up early to milk the cow. It took us three hours to get there. Here we found our favorite guest house of the trip; a smaller home with a very agreeable family complete with ancient grandparents wearing the distinctive traditional Ladakhi clothing. That night we watched Nicolas help churn butter inside a wooden

Rizong gompa peaking out from between some hills

barrel using a paddle that was threaded through two wooden rings and twisted by a cloth strap wrapped around it. We really enjoyed the atmosphere in the house, and were sad to leave the following day.

We were headed for the village of Temisgam, but somewhere along the way we made a wrong turn and realized we’d been heading downhill for far too long. Not wanting to backtrack up the steep hills we’d descended, we pressed on figuring we’d hit the road eventually and probably cut half a day off our trek, but when we got the bottom of the gully we’d been following we realized we’d made a serious miscalculation. We were overlooking what appeared to be a military base with no one in sight, and could either continue on or backtrack up several thousand feet of terrain to get back to where we’d started from. We chose to press on, and it took about an hour of some of the creepiest walking we’d ever done to make it through the completely deserted base. It looked like it was meant to hold several thousand soldiers, but we didn’t see a soul as we walked through apparent testing grounds (sticking to vehicle tracks and watching for unexploded ordinance, and listening to Nicolas say he could smell gunpowder) and toward the barracks complex in the distance. At one point we heard a helicopter and pondered the significance of being Americans trespassing on an Indian military base only a few miles from the Pakistan and China borders. The ladies of the group managed to stay a bit calmer than the men, and Nicolas and I heard some giggling behind us as we jumped at sounds like shell shocked veterans.

Yangthang village

Eventually our ordeal ended when we came to the main entrance, where a few soldiers impassively watched us approach and then gave us a quick cup of tea and bustled us down to the highway. There they flagged down a passing semi truck and forced the driver to reluctantly accept four bulky hitchhikers and their backpacks into the cab, and we went for a cramped but short ride on to Nurla. This was a small crossroads town that marked the end of our trek; Nicolas and Karoline continued on and we made arrangements to meet up later in Leh. We hopped on a bus which played an engrossing Bollywood teen movie complete with the usual melodramatic fantasy scenes with song and dance numbers, and constantly teased the audience that the protagonists would finally kiss. They never do though; apparently it’s much too scandalous. After the three hour bus ride we still don’t know how it ends.

Leh

Working on the destruction and reconstruction of Leh Palace

Where’s Leh? Click here.

After arriving to the Leh bus stand tired and after dark we decided to take a tout up on his offer of going to look at his guest house with a free ride in a taxi to get there. The guest house turned out to be just what we were looking for, run by a friendly family, and the right price. We spent the next couple of days trying to acclimatise to the 3,500 m. (11,483 ft.) altitude and taking long walks around Leh. We walked the long line of shops selling Pashmina and Kashmiri shawls every day on the way to the city center, and looked at a few Tibetan refugee markets. There was beautiful turquoise, coral, and pearl jewelry, but the prices were as much if not more than back home and we decided to spend our money on all the delicious Tibetan food instead.

Where ever you walk in Leh the impressive nine story Leh Palace is always looming over you. One of the mornings that we walked up to the palace we noticed a bunch of Ladakhi locals tearing down the walls of one building and throwing the clay bricks into a pile where a woman was adding more water and clay from the hillside to form more bricks. After watching the workers for a while a Polish woman wandered up the hillside and told us about the renovations going on at the palace. She was a volunteer who had come for the summer to help the Ladakhis by making architectural plans and ordering supplies for the workers, while the workers tore down the walls originally built in the mid 17th century and put the walls back up again using basically the exact same clay and dirt. It was a pretty amazing process to watch.

Imposing Leh palace

Leh is kind of a small town and eventually we got a bit antsy and decided that a trek would be a great way to see the gorgeous countryside of Ladakh. Following the advice of some Belgian house mates we decided on walking the four days from Lekher to Nurla where we wouldn’t need a guide and after staying in small village guest houses we could catch a local bus back to Leh.

Mud bricks drying in the sun at Shey palace

We unpacked all of our worldly belongings from our backpacks with the exception of a pair of clothes each, the first aid kit, and the water filter and left a full duffel bag with the mother of the guest house to look after while we were gone. Our first stop was Shey Palace and gompa (Buddhist temple) where we saw more clay bricks laid out to dry in the sun the same as they were five hundred years ago and had a great view out over the valley. The same afternoon we decided to walk a few kilometers down the road to the town of Thicksey where there is a very large gompa housing around one hundred monks. It was nearing the end of the season and we were lucky enough to get there three days before the monastery closed up to tourists. They offered simple but clean rooms with a spectacular view, and the quiet peacefulness reminded me of sleeping up in an isolated fire tower back home. The power outages that has us resorting to candles also contributed to the rustic feel.

The following morning Andy and I got up early to go watch all of the young monks perform their morning puja (prayer)

Morning Puja ceremony at Thicksey gompa

which involved lots of musical noise with the banging of drums, chanting, and the playing of some sort of ancient looking horn. Another important aspect of the puja was the eating of butter tea with sompa (barley flour) and little monks were running around with huge tea kettles, almost too heavy to carry, filling up the older monk’s bowls then passing back by again with huge containers of barley flour. Some of the younger monks were getting fidgety after sitting still for so long and after getting a little too rowdy they ended up being yelled at by an older monk. It was pretty funny to us how little boys the world over act pretty much the same, even if they are monks.

After grabbing some breakfast at the only restaurant around we walked down to the road and hopped on a local bus heading back to Leh, where we then caught another local bus to the start of our trek at Lehker.

Beautiful Thicksey gompa