We have been looking forward to getting back into the mountains for a few weeks now. Itching to get back into those hiking boots and having that tired shaky leg feeling after a day of walking across rugged terrain. Since our honeymoon to Nepal in 2008 we fell in love with the Himalayas, which run through Nepal but also through Northern India. We went to the city of Leh in Ladakh to start our journey back into the Himalayas. We flew from Bangalore to Delhi, where we had a wonderful nights sleep on food court benches in the airport (No, I'm not being sarcastic!), and then flew to Leh where we spent our first day a bit shaky with a little headache as our bodies adjusted to the altitude of 3500m. The term "Restive Ladakh" is used to describe this area because it is a peaceful place surrounded by turmoil and unrest. It is located in the North-Western corner of India with neighbours such as China, Tibet (I refuse to acknowledge it as part of China), Kashmir and Pakistan. Not the most quiet and peaceful neighbours. The people here look like Tibetans, in fact many are Tibetan refugees, but sound Indian and still use the head waggle! The people here are mainly Buddhist and you immediately know this just by looking around. Gompas, stupas, mani walls and prayer flags a plenty. They sit high on the top of these incredible steep rocky outcrops where years of rain has not been good to their foundations or their future. A lot of these monestaries we saw had some parts that were just crumbling away with erosion.
Right in center of Leh city there are three very noteable structures: the old Leh palace, the monestary and the Shanti Stupa. The palace and the monestary sit next to each other on a rocky ridge right above the old town. It was a pretty cool experience to just wander around through the restored palace ruins (assuming it is structurally sound...six storeys of mud brick and twig re-bar construction).
Then we went up to the monestary, located just above the palace on the same ridge, but unfortuntely we could not visit the inside; however, we did get an amazing view of Leh, the old mud brick city and incredible mountains as a backdrop.
The Shanti Stupa sits on the opposite end of the city on another rocky peak with yet another amazing view of the valley.
Leh is a dusty and colourful town full of character.
The mountains here are so different than anything we have seen before: they are arid and rocky with sand covering all the valley bottoms. The different purples, yellows and greens, and odd formations in these mountains are so unique. It makes me wish I knew more about geology! We met up with an Aussie mom and daughter, and another Canadian to do a two day trip to visit some famous monestaries in the area. We drove 100km back and forth to the city of Lamayuru with our noses glued to the windows. It took us an entire day to drive 100km and visit three monestaries; we must have asked our driver to stop every 5km just to take photos!
The final drive up to Lamayuru was pretty scary! The road did switch backs up the side of the mountain where it has had some evident erosion and rock slides recently. Our driver was great, he calmly and slowly handled the sketchy narrow sections where we had maybe 10cm of clearance to a crumbling shoulder and a 1000m drop (It probably helped that I was leaning in the opposite direction of the cliff though)!!!
The landscape in this area changed to some pretty unique sandstone(?) spires. One spot was aptly named Moonland.
We found the people in Ladakh to be incredibly warm and kind; some of the nicest people we have met on our trip. After travelling for so long, you can't help but become jaded to sudden kindness from locals. We find we are always looking for their angle; how are they going to rip us off here? But in Ladakh we realized that we were unecessarily keeping our guard up. For example, we took a wrong road to get back to our guesthouse and realized it about 15 minutes after leaving the main road. This meant we had to walk back 15 minutes to the main road, then around to the other road, which would have been another 40 minutes before we arrived back at our guesthouse. Right as we were standing there realizing our error, an old man asked if he could help and then a couple in a car stopped to see what was going on as well. The old man and the couple talked in Ladakhi for a while and then next thing we know, we're being ushered into the car. They drove us up a side street, then the woman got out and lead us by foot through tiny paths between houses and fields for about 5 minutes until we arrived at a paved path. She pointed in the correct direction, smiled and then walked back to her waiting husband in the car! Another great example, was the family at our guest house. We stayed at the Sangto Green Guesthouse in Leh and after almost 10 nights, we were so sad to leave. We felt we had become part of the family! Sumita and Sunder took us under their wings and ensured we were comfortable, that we were getting fair prices, recommended things to visit and made sure we were well fed. The dinners were always delicious and filling, all home cooked by Sumita nightly with help from her eldest daughter and an employee. By the end of our time there, we were hanging out in the family kitchen and living area in the evenings enjoying Chhang (a barley based alcoholic drink from a local village). We will miss the warm people of Leh!
The other big surprise was in the food. We were seeing dishes that we saw back in Sichuan in China: Momos (typical Tibetan dumpling) and noodle soups. We realized that this is from the large Tibetan refugee population here. The other nice surprise was Indian food! That probably sounds a bit odd considering we had a lot of amazing Indian food in Bangalore, but what I didn't appreciate until coming here was the variety of Indian food in India. It varies so much from state to state. Each state has a different culture, different language and different cuisine. So what we know in Canada as "Indian" food (palak paneer, naan, aloo gobi, butter chicken, tandoori chicken) is all food from Punjab, located in the north. All delicious! Every time we told Indians we are from Canada, we would always be told "oh there are a lot of Punjab's in Canada"!
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| Momos! |
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| Tibetan noodle soup. |
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| Chhang |
