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Published: January 16th 2009
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At about 10,000 ft above sea level, you do feel quite literally on top of the world in Ladakh. And curiously, there's also almost some sort of palpable sense here of being close to the horizon where heaven and earth meet. The air is pure. The location remote. And the snow on the encompassing mountains is dazzling white. This place is a veritable mountain Shangri La.
The flight up was very exciting. The aircraft passed through mountain corridors meaning that looking out the windows on either side all you could see was wall after wall of sheer rockface.
Soon after arrival, I started suffering some mild symptoms of altitude sickness - headaches, fatigue and breathlessness. The rarefied mountain air gets to most visitors eventually and luckily I had packed with me appropriate medication to combat the symptoms. The important thing was to spend time acclimatising which I did for approx 24 hours before doing anything particularly arduous.
I stayed in the town of Leh where fortunately I found accommodation, rather last minute, at the Old Ladakh Guesthouse. The town was bustling with tourists and most guest houses were packed out. I was intrigued to find that visitors tended
to be either French or Israeli. Ladakh seems to be a popular destination for them - especially Israeli young people for whom, apparently, coming here before/after military service is like a rite of passage.
In Leh, some of the major sights I visited were as follows: (1) Leh Palace - built right into the mountainside, the palace looks distinctly Tibetan. I liked the impressive views over Leh. (2) Namgyal Tsemo Gompa - after an exhausting climb up the mountainside which, given the altitude, left me feeling really rather lightheaded, I eventually made it to the gompa. Gompa basically means a place of Buddhist learning, spiritual practices and rites and can also mean a monastery/nunnery. Inside is a huge image of the historical Buddha. It was surprisingly dark and eerie inside. (3) Chowkhang - I was able to sit in the prayer hall here and observe one of the monks completing various recitals of the Buddhist sutras. As one of the principal gompas in Leh and located right behind the Main Bazaar, the gompa played music on massive loudspeakers at 5/6am each morning inviting the faithful to observe puja (prayers). The music can be heard throughout the whole town and
while it did rather annoyingly wake me without fail every single morning of my stay in Ladakh, the music was actually rather enchanting and I ended up buying a CD of it which I've since posted back home and can't wait to listen to.
Apart from exploring Leh, I also did a two day guided tour into the Nubra Valley. Setting off early on day one of the tour, we ascended higher in higher into the mountains and eventually found ourselves on the Khardung La pass - the highest motorable pass in the world. I was on the tour with an Israeli family. They were beside themselves when we got to the top to find that it was snowing! They had never experienced snow before. For me, it was strange standing in the snow in India after sweating it out so long in the burning heat of Delhi.
The valley itself was stunning. Such spectacular landscape. We visited the gompa at Diskit. Here, locals were building a 50m high Maitreya Buddha. Incredible location with views right across the valley - not difficult to be inspired here! We then visited the gompa at Hunder. It was a highly amusing
experience. We walked in while one of the monks was making puja. He then invited us to interact with him but we didn't speak Ladakhi and he didn't seem to speak English or Hebrew. He tried to explain himself using huge gestures which were plainly designed for comedic effect. Together, we laughed and laughed. And despite none of us having a clue what the next person was on about it, we came away with the feeling we had actually shared some sort of meaningful fellowship with this guy.
Our hostel in Diskit was in a fantastic setting - so serene! The mountains, the wild gardens, the brilliant blue sky - it was incredibly picturesque. I don't think I've ever felt more remote from the rest of the world than as I did here.
On day two of our trip, we visited another gompa and got playing with some of the local children nearby. They don't see a lot of westerners and they seemed quite taken with us - especially as we were handing out chocolate. Feet fixed solidly to the ground and with endearingly perplexed expressions on their face, they seemed utterly dumbstruck at us being there. It
was very amusing.
In all, I loved every minute in Ladakh. Certainly, I would never return to India again without paying it a visit. It's a special place. The way of life. The friendliness of the locals. And the stunning mountain backdrop. I can't wait to go back one day.
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