Leh is a hippy sort of place. It makes me want to backcomb my hair, wear those baggy crotch harem pants & talk about eco-sustainability, whatever that is. It is not dislike glastonbury but with less cider & more sunshine. The slower pace has meant we have had a very chilled out stay.
"Julley" is a word you hear everywhere here. Wonderfully all purpose it means hello, goodbye, please & thank you in Ladakhi. It somehow seems fitting that the friendly locals want to make things easy for you.
But being so remote, life in Ladakh is not always so easy. They only get about 6 inches of rain a year so Leh is sustained by a clever irrigation system which keeps things green & growing whilst the mountains all around remain startlingly dry & arid. The town all but closes down in the harsh winter with locals surviving on dried vegetables, grown in their garden in the summer and rice which can be purchased at the small market year round.
Thankfully Leh is somewhat more hospitable in the summer but we are still frequently reminded of how remote we are. Electricity is sporadic at best. The last few days there has been little more than a few hours in total. This has only become really annoying when you would like a hot shower, which is dependent on your electric boiler... And unlike in Delhi, where there is little difference between the hot and cold taps, the cold taps here feel as though they are full of melted snow from the Himalayas (which may or may not be true).
One day we decided to venture out for a trip to Pangong Tso Lake, south of Leh. We were reliably informed that it would take just 4, maybe 5 hours to get there and decided it would be better to have a big day rather than stay overnight in the rather basic & very expensive tents they have there. The journey started off in typical Indian style, with the driver 45mins late, allegedly because of a 'petrol shortage'. Then followed an argument between the other Indian tourists joining us on our trip about who would sit in the back of the jeep; with one couple refusing to do there fair share of sitting in the back. We then had to stop at an ATM in town because one guy hadn't thought to bring any money with him. THEN we had to stop for petrol, and it became apparent there wasn't any shortage & the driver had simply not been bothered to get out of bed. DEEP BREATH!
In any case, when we eventually got going the journey was a bit of an experience in itself. We kept winding higher and higher up these tiny mountain roads, more than worthy of an episode of top gear. Chris, I am sure was certain we would plummet to our deaths but the rather witty road signs "Go slow. I am curveaous", "I love you, but not so fast" & the ever wise "better late than never" kept things light hearted. At the highest point (5000m+) we stopped for breakfast & enjoyed watching wealthy Indians revert to small children at their first experience of snow.
It must be said however that the novelty of the journey did wear off, by the time that 6 hours later, we arrived. The lake was incredibly beautiful - almost Caribbean like in it's different shades of tropical blues and greens, surrounded by the mountains in varying shades of orange & brown. However all too soon it was time to make the rather long journey back.
Hopefully we might be able to load some pictures at some point.
Amongst other things we have visited a LOT of Buddhist monasteries. After a while they are all kind of the same inside but the view is always spectacular & worth the steep climb. Prayer flags flutter in the breeze at the top, spreading good karma. Disconcertingly they also cover rickety bridges... I would much rather they fixed the bridge rather than hoped for the best with good karma but alas that is not the Ladakhi way!
Tomorrow we fly back to Delhi and then travel by train to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) before moving on to Thailand...
