For Labor Day weekend, six of us headed out to lovely Leh, Ladakh for a restful vacation in the Himalayas. Mollie and David flew up from Hyderabad; Heather, Austin and I represented the Gurgaon crew, and Austin's friend Jenni joined us from the States.
When you fly into Leh, you arrive at an air force base. There are two flights every morning between Delhi and Leh, and that's about it in terms of ingress and egress. Leh is in a high valley which is bordered on all sides by steep mountain ranges. As you come in, the plane banks sharply into the scoop of the valley, tracing a wingtip toward the sweep of the Indus river. Our first day in Leh, we mainly stayed in town and visited sites nearby: Leh Palace, Stok Palace, Shanti Stupa, a temple and the main bazar. Because the elevation is so high, it's not considered wise to do much on your first day, and we definitely were huffing and puffing a bit climbing steps.
Leh has a distinctly different feel from the rest of India that I've seen. It is very arid with huge snow-capped mountains surrounding small villages, monasteries and towns. The aesthetic is much more East Asian in terms of style and color pallette, and the people have features more similar to Tibetan or Chinese people. Weather-wise, Leh is considerably cooler than what we're used to in Delhi. Even in early September, we were somewhat bundled up in the evenings and early mornings. For me, it felt more like home. Even the flowers in the gardens are the same ones we would grow at home - bright, bolting, zinnias, dahlias, cosmos, and marigolds peeked out of yards everywhere we went. I had the sense the crisp Fall frost would soon put an end to the abounding color, but it was lovely to behold while we were there.
Leh has a distinctly different feel from the rest of India that I've seen. It is very arid with huge snow-capped mountains surrounding small villages, monasteries and towns. The aesthetic is much more East Asian in terms of style and color pallette, and the people have features more similar to Tibetan or Chinese people. Weather-wise, Leh is considerably cooler than what we're used to in Delhi. Even in early September, we were somewhat bundled up in the evenings and early mornings. For me, it felt more like home. Even the flowers in the gardens are the same ones we would grow at home - bright, bolting, zinnias, dahlias, cosmos, and marigolds peeked out of yards everywhere we went. I had the sense the crisp Fall frost would soon put an end to the abounding color, but it was lovely to behold while we were there.
On our second day, we got up at the crack of dawn to drive out to the Nubra Valley. About four hours by car from Leh, Nubra is a hub for trekking, camel safaris, and generally communing with nature. We decided to just do a day trip, but another group from our office went and stayed in the valley itself for a day or two. It's hard to imagine what that might be like to do that - Nubra seems really remote after the hustle and bustle of Delhi. The drive itself is beautiful, crossing the 'world's highest motorable pass,' and wending its way down into the valley. It was so bizarre, after months of warmth, to find ourselves in a snow storm. The high, puffy white clouds, set in azure blue skies over dun-colored peaks scattered with snow, created a vista unlike any I've seen - truly amazing. The drive was also punctuated by a bit of humor, from my traveling companions of course, but also from the signs placed by the local road authority - some excerpts for your reading pleasure:
- Don't gossip, let him drive
- Be gentle on my curve
- I'm curvaceous, go slow
- After whisky, driving risky
- Better Mr. Late, than late Mr.
In Nubra, we took a brief (45 minute) camel safari that was supposed to drop us off at Deskit monastery and instead left us in sand dunes about 2 km away. The camels were bactrian or two-humped camels and very furry. My camel did NOT like his hump touched, and since they were all tied together on short leads, there were a lot of near misses as one camel would tend to tinkle on the foot of the trailing camel's passenger. It may not sound like much fun, but it was. After the safari, we grumpily hoofing it through the dunes to our car and continued on to the the monastery at Diskit. The monks here were friendly and let us come in and observe their midday meal, which smelled great. I can hardly imagine such a solitary life, but the beauty of the surroundings and the solitude do tend to put one in a contemplative mood. We lunched on thukpa and momos in Diskit town and were back on the road back to Leh by mid-afternoon. When we got back to Hotel Lasermo, we were pretty pooped and late-afternoon naps were in order. I hunkered down with my book and a pot of chai until the posse was ready for dinner. Thanks to the Canadian contingent (David), our choice of dinner establishment was made via Canadian rochambeau - instead of rock/paper/scissors, it's cowboy/bear/damsel. We had a good dinner at Summer Harvest and then went early to bed to prepare for another early morning the following day.
On day 3, we set out for Pangong lake around 7am, again with our trusty driver Sonam and the hotel's Scorpio. We drove into the mountains for an hour or so, but near the main pass to cross out of the valley in which Leh sits, we were stymied by snow. Now me, I was ready to skip the lake when the road turned white and we were able to make snowballs at a roadside pit stop. Everyone else, however, was ready to go on, but that didn't last long. Near the top of the pass, the paved road ended and the snow was slick enough that the car was fishtailing a bit - not an amusing experience with no guardrails and hundred-foot drops to one side. We actually left the driver to turn the car around and walked back down to the paved road - "the better part of valour is discretion." In the end, I think the re-route made us better off. Rather than another 4+ hours driving in either direction to see the lake, we stopped at two of the major monasteries, Chemde and Thiksey, on the Leh-Manali road, and had lunch at the Chambra Hotel, which had a lovely garden with picnic tables for us to eat at. The monasteries were beautiful - with very elaborate Buddist paintings and statuary. I wouldn't have wanted to miss that.
All too quickly, our Leh adventure was coming to an end. We ran our last few errands - Ladakhi hats and Kashmiri honey for me - and headed to Dreamland Restaurant for dinner. We were joking that our restaurant choices got incrementally better with each meal, with Summer Harvest, Chambra Hotel, and Dreamland being the three best. After a game of gin over ginger honey lemon tea, we were early to bed so that we could get up bright and early for our 6:50am flight back to Delhi. All in all, I loved Leh. It was really different, and consequently a good break from the rest of India. Since it's snowbound for most of the year, I was glad that we were able to squeeze in this trip before winter sets in for good. I also have to give a shout-out to my traveling companions - Mollie, Heather, Austin, David, and Jenni might be one of the best road-trip posses ever - good humor, jumping and 'Evita' photos, bush-peeing expertise, rocking out to ipod speakers in the car - what more can you ask for?
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