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Published: August 2nd 2006
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Still again
I thought things cant get better and they did.
So I’m off from Daramsala towards Leh in Ladakh it took us 2 days in a jeep to get there, riding on the second highest motor way in the world. The road was crazy. We passed through high mountain passes, huge platos of grass, sneak like roads going down from the pass. Really cool, but 2 days in a jeep was a bit too much. Then we reach the Indus valley, which is all yellow and deserty, with snow Peak Mountains above it, the strong running Indus river at the bottom, and soon after we reach Leh. Leh turned out to be the most modern city I've seen in India, actually its not really India the people are different, the Language is different, the calture and the vibe is different. ( if you want to check where it is, try http://maps.google.com/ and type Leh, Ladakh in the window and then swich to satellite view)
The city is all clean and ecologically friendly, the food variety is great (I had a wonderful Thai green curry yesterday), almost everyone speaks English, there lods of foreigners from all over the world not only
Israel. The thing is that every thing has to be trucked or flown here since they don’t produce much here except some Vegtable and the best Apricot in the world, and still you can got all the goodies you might imagine. I have spent few days here chilling in the terrific hostel, which is in the middle of a huge garden. And after few day of astonishment we went out to Nubra valley which is to north of Leh, We is Me a French girl that i met in the jeep ride from malanli, Yeal a friend from Israel and her dad. Since we were invited by Yeal her dad to join them in the brand new Tata jeep with A/C and a Sony stereo system we had to say yes. The road goes through the highest mountain pass in the world at 5600 meter, which was cool especially on the way back when I was clear of fog. We reach Nubra valley and were all surprise to see how green beautiful it is. We installed ourselves in a guesthouse with a bunch of bikers on old royal Enfield. The town we stayed was called Diskit, and i was trying
to explain what its is to us (any suggestions welcome). From there we walked a few hours to an area by the river, which has those desert like sand dunes. It was so much fun playing with the sand running, jumping, getting sand everywhere, fucking cool. We spent the night there and in the morning went to a Gompa (Buddhist monastery) which is about 700 meter higher then the village but the steep climb was well worth it, we sew all kinds of Tanka painting, and great views. After that we went back to guesthouse, took our bags and hitched to the next town, Hunder. We got a lift that brought us to another gompa, which was suppose to be pretty but was closed. So on the way to town we (me and a French girl) came across this couple that told us about a new tent resort, which was newly open. When we reach there, it turn out that its not yet open and if we'll stay there we'll be the first guest. Of course we said yes especially sine the place was situated in garden with apple and apricot trees which we could easy pick and eat. The
The way from Manali
riders on the storm place had State of the Art facilities like I have never seen before in India (as i said its not India over here), we put our staff and tried again to go to the Gompa which was open this time by an elderly monk (who was quite funny guy), the Gompa and the painting were beautiful, but the most interesting was a mother fucking huge Buddha like 5 meters high, and nest to it there was another big Buddha with 1000 hands, and an eye in each one. The following day we woke up really early and climbed a mountain which over looks the valley and met Yeal and Dad, around noon and took the ride back to Leh.
This is what happened few days ago, but a really funny thing happened yesterday. I woke up a bit restless in the morning, did bits and pieces and went to the Bus station with no particular place in mind to go to. As it happened 😊 the only bus around was going not to far from a nice Gompa, and as the two Israeli girls that were already sitting in the bus told me , today there a special Poga (religious
ceremony) going on there today. I checked the map for a sec and decided to go on it. The place is about 60 km from Leh and I figured I’ll be there about 2 hours later and find some way to come back in the before evening time (it was 11 am). As soon as we left Leh I had a bad feeling about the timing of the journey, the bus had a dead engine and wasn't driving more then 40 kph. Anyway, this was a small problem; the bigger one was that along the way it had a flat tire, which took an extra hour to fix. So about 3 pm we were dropped ( me ,and Isreali girli girls) about 5 km from the gompa. We walk the steep track to the gompa itself and it was true there was a big ceremony going on near the place. The gompa itself is very onl 14 century or so and all nice and beautiful and this time there was and an even bigger Buddha statue from gold.
However it was close to 5 pm, I’m there with shorts and a T-shirt and I need to get back to Leh
before dark. I was bit stressed, then I ask a group of Czeck people if they are going to Leh and they said I could join, so I took a ride in their jeep all the way back including a visit to another gompa on the way, cool.. When I got back I met some people for dinner (I didn’t eat a thing all day). After that I went down town to meet Yeal and by the time I got there it started raining so we waited a bit for it to stop. After a while, I decided that if I have survived the Netherlands I can surely manage here and started walking , unfortunately my wonderful 6 years old Scapa shoes have a small crack in the sole and after 10 min one of my feet was wet, anywayz i figured I’ll catch a taxi back. As always in India when you need something you can not find it and when you don't need it there’s plenty. So there was no taxi to be found so by the time I got to the area I live in I was soaked. but its only water, right. As I got close
The way from Manali
crazy me, i must win the Unimaas t shirt competition to my destination, there was a big crowd so I joined them. Apparently the rain was stronger then I thought especially up in the mountains and the small creek that is just next to the road, became a river and was the entire road to my guesthouse away. On top of that all kinds of other water channels became bigger and the whole place was in strong current. The crowd was gathered to watch the people working in damming the river. I had stupidly tried to cross it and jumped straight to water up to my knees. Only water. Then i was wet and cold and with now way to go back to the guesthouse. At the end things turn out to be just fine I managed to get back and slept in my bed.
Ok for this time, its probably one of the last posting, since in heading back to Israel on the 10. Maybe I can post from there. “Boaz in the war zone”.
Till next
Boaz
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petra
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grate ladakh
your pictures bring back the best memories of thisbeautiful land...go further and bring me more more more :)