Sanctuary Of Random Keystrokes

Quite literally.

The long, hard mountain drives were beginning to tell on us. Our destination the next day was to be Tsomoriri lake, with a short detour to Tsokar lake thrown in. But the very thought of the seven hour drive gave us cold feet (and it wasn’t even winters yet – ok bad joke). We decided that a vacation that would require another vacation to recover from wasn’t worth it at all. So we spent the next two days in Leh – taking leisurly walks to the market, shopping for a souvenir or two, sampling different cuisines, and reading books borrowed from the guest house’s reasonably well-stocked library over a cup of ginger honey tea in the evenings.

Of course, I spent a good deal of time photographing flowers at our guest house’s garden – something I’d been yearning to do since the day we arrived here.

Soon the morning of our departure to Delhi arrived. Our visit to Ladakh had been full of pleasant surprises, but one last surprise awaited us yet – His Highness The Dalai Lama was on the same flight as us! It caused quite a stir amidst the passengers. Everyone wanted a picture of or with him, some others wanted his autographs – a few pulled out a book written by him, while others grabbed whatever surface a pen would leave ink on. The Dalai Lama made sure that everyone got a chance – he walked all the way to the last seat greeting everyone and doing the best he could to give everyone an opportunity to take a photo.

Nice, law abiding citizens that we are, we had checked in our cameras’ batteries into our check-in baggage. No one at the airport had seemed to know what the correct policy was – the airline staff and the security staff had had contradicting views so it had seemed best to not carry the batteries on board. But given the number of functional cameras we saw being fished out, it would probably have been alright had we taken them with us.

The wife had taken the window seat this time. But it was impossible to not crane my neck and peer through her window for one last look at the beautiful Himalayas.

The drive from Uley to the monastery at Alchi was a short one. The monastery was manned by a lone, old monk. In addition to handling his daily chores, he was also handing out the Rs. 20 ticket that would allow us an entry into the small temples inside the monastery. The temples had tall statues of Buddha and his desciples and walls covered in beautiful paintings – some dating back to 11th or 12th century. Photography inside is prohibited – mostly because the camera’s flash would wreck havoc with the colors of these barely-preserved paintings.

We came across this prayer wheel, a closer inspection of whose photo reveals that its lower spindle is supported inside a can whose contents were once “Tuna In Oil”. If Buddha is the man we know through his teachings, he might not have approved (though I am told that Buddhism need not necessarily imply vegetarianism).

The street leading back from the monastery was lined with souvenir sellers. It is here that I first noticed (and was quite besotted with) lapis lazuli – used in all sorts of trinkets and jewelry. The wife informed that I wasn’t the first person to be so charmed with the stone. Having read the poem, I must say that Yeats meant the poem to be about everything except the stone.

I was again impressed by the very existence of such well tended roads under such difficult conditions. Strangely, they don’t look out of place. The mountains seem to tolerate their presence. The less poetic of us will maintain that it is a truce that the Indian Army has forced the two to sign.

On returning to Leh, we got dropped all the way to the Leh Palace. Summers mean restoration work and large parts of the palace were under repair. The wooden sticks and the drying mud-bricks at the Palace’s terrace looked like they had been spewed out by the various openings in the palace’s walls.

The balconies of the palace offer a wonderful view of the town below.

We walked back to our guest house and spent the rest of the day lazing around. We’d need all the rest before the long, early-morning drive to Pangong lake the next day.

We found it hard to sleep on our first night in Leh. We woke up at least twice and both the times our breathing was heavy like Darth Vader’s. When we finally woke up, it was bright outside and we were feeling remarkably fresh for the amount of sleep we had had. The first thing I did; even before we had breakfast, was to go to our guest house’s terrace and take in the view of the Stok range again. It feels wierd to state this, but so overwhelmed was I with emotions at seeing the mountains, that it felt like I was being reunited with a close friend that I hadn’t seen in years.

We spent most of our second day lazing around in Leh or rather we were taking it easy because our guide never failed to remind us of perils of altitude sickness – though he said we were free to roam about in the market a little. We left around 10:30 in the morning and walked up the Fort Road towards the Leh Palace. As soon as we reached an important junction we saw a restive crowd standing in a neat file on either side of a road – as if awaiting the arrival of someone important. And someone important it was – H. H. the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ladakh was coinciding with ours (though I am sure it was the other way round) and a lot of people had devoutly lined up to watch his cavalcade pass by. We too stood there surprised at the timing of our visit to Ladakh and the market this morning, and within seconds the Dalai Lama’s jeep sped past us.

It took us almost 45 minutes to reach a densely populated (by Ladakh standards) settlement of mud-brick and concerete houses at the base of the Leh Palace. It wasn’t noon yet but the sun was already admonishing us for being over-dressed. The adage about it being possible to get frostbitten and sunburnt at the same time was holding true; only that it inclined heavily towards the sunburnt part. Mutts sat half-asleep and camouflaged in the shade. We took a few pictures of the palace but bookmarked the long, up-hill walk to the palace for another day. We wanted to stay on friendly terms with our lungs.

We traced our steps back to the main market and saw a shop selling a collection of intricately embroidered Tintin t-shirts. A lot of shops in Leh sell embroidered t-shirts – a few throw in an occasional Tintin t-shirt – but this place had the most elaborate collection of detailed Tintin designs.

By this time our grumbling tummies had joined the chorus of complaining body parts (led by the lungs of course). We finally settled at the World Garden Café just opposite the Leh Police Station. The place serves fresh, charcoal-oven-baked pizzas, home-made pasta and hummus-falafel-pita bread among other assortment of dishes from all over the world. A visit is highly recommended.

We went back to our guesthouse for a short siesta and this time I noticed a neat cabbage-patch in the midst of all those flower-beds. The garden at the guest house would continue to fascinate me right till the last day of our trip.

The sun had lost its bite when we left in the evening. The lane that led us from the guesthouse to the main road was lined with trees on one side. The sun was now behind them and their shadows cloned their world in silhouettes on the wall opposite.

The palace and a monastery near it were illuminated by the orange light of the setting sun. It all looked very surreal – electricity polls and wires criss-crossing across the street in front and the palace and the hills behind.

On our way back to the guesthouse we saw a bizarre sign at a telephone booth. The door was open inwards making the sign difficult to click. The shopkeeper saw my predicament, went inside and held the door for me to photograph! One hears about how the various cities are becoming photographer unfriendly – no sign of that here!