(continued from previous blog entry) Not far west from Leh lies the village of Phyang, separated from the capital city by one of those seemingly endless ridges of mountains which make Ladakh a land of interconnected valleys. Originally, the provincial government had planned to build a road through Phyang to connect it with the Nubra valley in the north, but the villagers had opposed the idea and eventually the road came to be built near Gangles village instead, across the now famous Khardung La mountain pass. Instead the main reason to visit Phyang is the goempa located here. The highway out of Leh is lined by military camps and several units have their homes here. Bases are swamped with buildings in various state of construction, corrugated steel storage facilities and hordes of the ubiquitous Ashok-Leyland trucks
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