Ancient Monastery and Ladahki Toilets …Amazing Views of Indus Valley and The Shay Festival
We had decided to take a short day trip by jeep from Leh to see the surrounding countryside. We met a very cute young Israeli couple, Merav and Gidi, aged 23 and 27 and they decided to join us. We left at 8 AM and were promised a trip to see a couple (only a couple as per our request) of gompas which are monasteries and the then visit in a couple of villages, see the official king of Ladakh (the state in which Leh is the capitol) palace and also have lunch at a normal restaurant. That was the plan for the day and we were supposed to be back at 4 which sounded fine to us...We had one day left after that to rest before leaving Leh yesterday on Friday to come back to Delhi.
The jeep picked us up right on time at our hotel and the second couple along the way by their hotel and we set off down the road. We traveled through changing countryside until we got to the area of the Indus river which is green and flourishing, a valley between two mountain ranges, on the left side looking very much like the Arava road approach to Eilat and on the other side, amazingly beautiful mountains in red and green colors of stone striped diagonally as if someone had painted them. Again, basically impossible to describe but take my word for it, it was absolutely stunning.
We drove along very happily eating rolls we had bought the evening before and dried apricots (just a word here about these apricots...they grow wild all over the Leh area and you can pick them directly from the trees...sweet as honey with no pesticides of any kind...and then many of them are locally sun dried...they look terrible...all brown and shriveled and with the pit...but they literally melt like sugar in your mouth. We also had fresh apricot juice to drink everyday....I've never tasted anything quite like it before in my life...if I had room, I would have brought some home)
...and drinking water and chatting and enjoying the wonderful cool mountain air...first stop was a Gompa all the way on the top of a mountain with a village and fields stretched out below it...something you might imagine out of a middle age novel or movie...the colors of the fields ranged from bright to dark green and were interspaced with beautiful golden wheat fields in swirling patterns, again, as if painted for our benefit...the wheat was being harvested (all by hand of course) and was stacked in beautiful round stacks giving more beauty to the scene stretched out below us. The monastery was very authentic, not putting on airs for tourists , and a novice lama was very thrilled to show us around. It's been there for centuries but is continually being refurbished and painted and maintained by generation after generation. All hand carving and hand paintings which are unbelievable but doubt will come out in the few pictures I attempted shooting. !
You have to understand that the monastery is not built ON the mountain, it is carved INTO the mountain and you just keep walking up and up through caverns and more levels...fascinating...We even saw two workers carving by hand using primitive tools intricate wood carvings for the ceiling of a room which was being redone. There was also some old tibetan guy with a big smile on his face carrying clay type bricks from down below all the way up to the roof up all these steps, up and down and over and over and all the time singing...also tried to photograph him...I 've tried photographing all kind s of unusual and interesting people and faces but don't know how good I am with a camera...time will tell
Well, we then finally had our fill and left and back down the mountain and up another one to see another very famous monastery call Hemis, which turned out to be just a tourist showplace built in 1987 and we didn't even stop to look. But were quite hungry and there was a restaurant there, and for the first time, we forgot we were in India and assumed you can eat anyway you stop along the road...haha...we ordered and when the food arrived, well, A. and Merav ate but Gidi and I had a little more sense, and despite the fact that we were very hungry, did not eat...won't go into details but Merav and A. did not feel very good the rest of the day.
Also...one more type of toilet I haven't yet described since it is basically indescribable...you have to be there to really experience it with the humming of the flies and the pungent aroma!!! But it is called a Ladakhi toilet and is basically just a mound of dirt with a hole dug through it inside a wooden room with no light so you can't even really see where the hole is which accounts for part of the aroma...I think no more need be added, but it was also a kind of interesting experience...sometimes you just have to go!
From there we traveled through a village, saw a local rug weaving cooperative as well as a local clinic and then our driver said all of a sudden there is a festival in a local town.
The Shay Festival!
This has got to have been the highlight of our trip so far as far as seeing local people and definitely not planned. It seems this guy , once a year, goes into a trance and becomes an oracle who can solve all the problems of the villagers and we were there just as he was beginning his trance. All the villages were there in their best clothing, beautiful local costumes and there was music played by drummers and pipers also entranced...don't think any words or pictures will describe what we saw or felt but it was certainly worth the whole trip for the hour or so we spent there.
Won’t go into further details but the rest of the day went by with no normal food and we finally got back to leh and had a very nice dinner and then slept like the dead until evening.
The next day, our last day in Leh, we hung around alot with Merav and Gidi, I ate the best custard of my life in a little restaurant on the rooftop above a bubbling mountain brook covered with cedar like trees...just a very pleasant and quiet day...the kind of days I would like to go back to Leh for...
In the evening we met all our newly found friends in Leh for a farewell dinner which was very nice a and we were given a special honor and blessing by the restaurant people where we had eaten most of our meals for a good life and good journey...all in all a very nice end to a very nice 10 days.
The jeep picked us up right on time at our hotel and the second couple along the way by their hotel and we set off down the road. We traveled through changing countryside until we got to the area of the Indus river which is green and flourishing, a valley between two mountain ranges, on the left side looking very much like the Arava road approach to Eilat and on the other side, amazingly beautiful mountains in red and green colors of stone striped diagonally as if someone had painted them. Again, basically impossible to describe but take my word for it, it was absolutely stunning.
We drove along very happily eating rolls we had bought the evening before and dried apricots (just a word here about these apricots...they grow wild all over the Leh area and you can pick them directly from the trees...sweet as honey with no pesticides of any kind...and then many of them are locally sun dried...they look terrible...all brown and shriveled and with the pit...but they literally melt like sugar in your mouth. We also had fresh apricot juice to drink everyday....I've never tasted anything quite like it before in my life...if I had room, I would have brought some home)
...and drinking water and chatting and enjoying the wonderful cool mountain air...first stop was a Gompa all the way on the top of a mountain with a village and fields stretched out below it...something you might imagine out of a middle age novel or movie...the colors of the fields ranged from bright to dark green and were interspaced with beautiful golden wheat fields in swirling patterns, again, as if painted for our benefit...the wheat was being harvested (all by hand of course) and was stacked in beautiful round stacks giving more beauty to the scene stretched out below us. The monastery was very authentic, not putting on airs for tourists , and a novice lama was very thrilled to show us around. It's been there for centuries but is continually being refurbished and painted and maintained by generation after generation. All hand carving and hand paintings which are unbelievable but doubt will come out in the few pictures I attempted shooting. !
You have to understand that the monastery is not built ON the mountain, it is carved INTO the mountain and you just keep walking up and up through caverns and more levels...fascinating...We even saw two workers carving by hand using primitive tools intricate wood carvings for the ceiling of a room which was being redone. There was also some old tibetan guy with a big smile on his face carrying clay type bricks from down below all the way up to the roof up all these steps, up and down and over and over and all the time singing...also tried to photograph him...I 've tried photographing all kind s of unusual and interesting people and faces but don't know how good I am with a camera...time will tell
Well, we then finally had our fill and left and back down the mountain and up another one to see another very famous monastery call Hemis, which turned out to be just a tourist showplace built in 1987 and we didn't even stop to look. But were quite hungry and there was a restaurant there, and for the first time, we forgot we were in India and assumed you can eat anyway you stop along the road...haha...we ordered and when the food arrived, well, A. and Merav ate but Gidi and I had a little more sense, and despite the fact that we were very hungry, did not eat...won't go into details but Merav and A. did not feel very good the rest of the day.
Also...one more type of toilet I haven't yet described since it is basically indescribable...you have to be there to really experience it with the humming of the flies and the pungent aroma!!! But it is called a Ladakhi toilet and is basically just a mound of dirt with a hole dug through it inside a wooden room with no light so you can't even really see where the hole is which accounts for part of the aroma...I think no more need be added, but it was also a kind of interesting experience...sometimes you just have to go!
From there we traveled through a village, saw a local rug weaving cooperative as well as a local clinic and then our driver said all of a sudden there is a festival in a local town.
The Shay Festival!
This has got to have been the highlight of our trip so far as far as seeing local people and definitely not planned. It seems this guy , once a year, goes into a trance and becomes an oracle who can solve all the problems of the villagers and we were there just as he was beginning his trance. All the villages were there in their best clothing, beautiful local costumes and there was music played by drummers and pipers also entranced...don't think any words or pictures will describe what we saw or felt but it was certainly worth the whole trip for the hour or so we spent there.
Won’t go into further details but the rest of the day went by with no normal food and we finally got back to leh and had a very nice dinner and then slept like the dead until evening.
The next day, our last day in Leh, we hung around alot with Merav and Gidi, I ate the best custard of my life in a little restaurant on the rooftop above a bubbling mountain brook covered with cedar like trees...just a very pleasant and quiet day...the kind of days I would like to go back to Leh for...
In the evening we met all our newly found friends in Leh for a farewell dinner which was very nice a and we were given a special honor and blessing by the restaurant people where we had eaten most of our meals for a good life and good journey...all in all a very nice end to a very nice 10 days.
posted by Jane @ 3:07 PM
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