"Monk"y Business

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November 21st 2007

Published: December 21st 2007

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Sarah and Yuri

Flying into Leh

Isn't this amazing?

I would first like to start out by giving Yuri credit for the title (:

After Delhi we headed very far North to a very different part of India! My dad had traveled here in the 90’s and suggested that we go as well! Our flight was supposed to leave at 5:50 am. We were SHOCKED at how many people were at the airport at 4:30!! I’m not sure why, but most of our flights in India left very early in the morning. We have red eyes, they have “too early” flights! We went through all of the normal check in procedures and then figured we were done. However, after sitting in the gate area for a few minutes we noticed that they were calling Leh passengers to identify their bags. Huh, what does that mean? It literally meant that we needed to go out onto the tarmac where they had placed the luggage and tell the man that those bags were indeed ours and it would be OK to put them on the airplane! None of the passengers for flights going to other places needed to do this. Only the ones for Leh! Basically it is because Leh is

View into Leh II

close to a politicaly unstable Kashmir/Pakistan, you name it!

As we looked around the waiting area, it became VERY obvious which passengers were going to Leh. They were the ones wearing large, down jackets and hats! Unfortunately our warmies had already been approved to board the airplane before us so we were NOT well equipped to be landing in Leh! I think there were probably 20 people on that plane at the MOST! The guide books essentially say that November is a great time to visit India…….except for Ladakh! For that reason, I think we were the only crazy tourists on the plane. The locals were probably wondering what we were doing!

When we landed it was -14 degrees Celsius or something crazy like that! The air was so crisp and clean though. Such a stark contrast to the air in Delhi. We wouldn’t be blowing brown boogers here! Oh, I’m not sure if I got a chance to tell you about that. I’m so sorry! The air was SO DIRTY in Delhi that when we blew our noses………..well you know the rest of the story! It was so disgusting. As, I was saying, Leh was NOT like

The runway

Because Leh sits amongst massive mountains, the landing is not cut and dry. We essentially flew over the runway, went around a mountain and into a valley that led us back to the runway! It was really cool. Yuri slept through the entire thing!

this and we were all very happy to be there. After passing the 5 gentleman with very large machine gun looking weapons, we caught a cab to the Oriental guest house. The guide books had some great suggestions for hotels and guest houses, in the summer. However, almost all of these places close down in the winter. The Oriental guest house was pretty much our only option so we were all saying prayers that it would be decent. A beautiful young Tibetan girl greeted us and showed us to our room. She explained that the pipes were frozen so we would not be able to use any of the plumping. Yes, this includes the sink, shower and toilet! There was also no heating in the room but they did have portable propane heaters that were an additional charge. Bring on the charge!! The term “charge” doesn’t even seem Ok to use when I think about how much the entire bill ended up being. More on that later. Anyhow, at first glance we were not sure how we were going to like our little guest house but that quickly changed. The lovely Tibetan girl took us down to the family kitchen

Classic!

I just love this sign. It's what every tourist crap shop needs to say but doesn't!

and made us some great tea. She told us that we needed to drink lots of tea or water to make sure we didn’t get altitude sickness. It was 11,500 feet there! Exhaustion set in quickly due to our crazy Agra trip the day before so we fired up that heater and took a nap in our new room!

We all felt a bit crappy when we woke up that afternoon. Looking back, it was probably due to the altitude but we did not recognize that at the time. We took a walk to Leh (about 15 minutes away) and wandered through the Sunday market on the streets. There weren’t any other Mazungus (the word for white people in Swahili. We have been using it since Tanzania) but the locals didn’t really pay much attention to us. This was already quite different from Delhi where they STARED at Molly and I. Due to the apparent lack of open restaurants in town, we decided to take our new Tibetan friend up on her offer and eat at the house that evening. We ate the rest of our meals at the house! It was delicious!

We decided that it probably

Sunday market

We arrived on a Sunday so we got to see the streets filled with people selling everything from spices to hats. Most of the shoppers seemed to be interested in the warm jackets for the winter.

wouldn’t be a very good idea to leave our little heater on while sleeping. It was so painful to turn it off though! Are you wondering how we used the restroom and bathed ourselves yet? I never clarified that did I? Well, they supplied us with HUGE buckets of water in the bathroom for washing toothpaste down the sink and “deposits” down the toilet. The toilet was actually fairly labor intensive though. You had to fill the back of the toilet every time you wanted to flush it. Makes you appreciate the way our toilets magically fill themselves! After doing this a few times we remembered the good old saying “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down” from when we were little! (:

On our first full day we did a gompa tour. A gompa is a Budhist monestary. We went to three total but the Thiskey gompa was our favorite. It was there that we met a monk that showed us around and invited us back for morning prayer. He was one of three monks in charge of making butter tea in the morning and also fixing lunch and dinner. Just after meeting

Prayer flags

These flags are in one of the prayer rooms at the first gompa we visited.

him in the courtyard, he took us to the kitchen to show us around and offered us some butter tea. We had heard about butter tea several times since arriving in Leh but hadn't tasted it yet. It tastes just like it sounds! At first it was quite yummy but after a few sips I felt like I was drinking melted butter. Our lips had this waxy film on them after our first cup. One cup was about all I could handle because I could feel my stomach starting to protest a bit. Molly and Yuri did a bit better with it I think.

In addition to meeting our monk friend, we also ran into a group of students on a field trip to the gompa. They were running up the stairs behind us, busily turning all of the prayer wheels on the way! When they saw my camera, one of the girls ran up to me and asked if I would take pictures of them. They all gathered in a big group and I snapped away, showing them the picture each time. The girl didn't speak much English but she said something about an address. I thought that

Offerings

maybe she had an email address that I could send the pictures to so I got a pen and paper out for her to write on. What I got back might be one of the cutest things in this world! She wrote her name, her village and her street! No real address so I am not sure what I could ever do with the thing! I wish it had been more though so I could actually send her pictures.

We went back to watch prayer the following morning at 7 am. It was FREEZING cold so we had no problem waking up! We sat against the back wall of the prayer room and watched as the monks, both young and old, filed in. This gompa was also a school for young monks so a bit more lively than others I'm sure. The young men seemed to RUN in for prayer instead of walking. About five of them were assigned to go to the kitchen and collect the butter tea to be served during prayer. We also got a cup to have some butter tea! I took one sip and literally almost threw up. I wish that wasn't the case,

Inside the prayer room

We had to take our shoes off to enter the prayer room and the floor was freezing. Such wimps, I know.

but it was. I just couldn't handle it. Yuri had to drink it for me. ): I know that is terrible but I figured that it would be better than throwing up during their lovely prayers! There was one older monk singing (I'm not sure if that is what it should actually be called) into a microphone and the others would either sing with him or say something in response to him. We had no idea what they were saying but it was beautiful. At certain points those same five “tea” boys would get up and offer everyone more butter tea. Us included! I cringed at this site because I thought that it would be rude to decline more tea. Luckily I saw another Muzungu politely decline with a quick wave of her hand, so I did the same. Crisis adverted! In addition to butter tea, the monks also enjoyed something that looked a lot like oatmeal. It had a name, but I have no idea what that was! The boys would also take that around to the monks. Each of them would scoop some into a bowl and then it looked like they might add some butter tea to

Molly at the gompa!

it. The 6 year old monk-in-training sitting in front of us chose to make small balls with his breakfast and roll it between his hands! We all really enjoyed watching him! After they were done, they would use a cloth to clean the tea cup and bowl out and then put it back under the shelf. And then all of a sudden, everyone got up and left!

We had no idea what was going on during prayer, but what is obvious in those monestaries is how simpley the monks live their lives. For us, it was a reminder of what you DON'T need to be happy in life. We really enjoyed our time there.

With that being said, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for things we DON'T need (:

That evening we had the coolest dinner I think I have ever had. These little bundles of goodness were called momos. They were basically a thin crepe-looking material wrapped around vegetables. Look up a picture on google. They are cool!

In true India form, our flight left VERY early in the morning and we were headed for Darjeeling, India! See you there (:

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