It was a worrying sight. My wife, lying upon the bed with an oxygen mask affixed to her face. When she flashed me a peace sign, I knew her spirits were high, were not nearly as high as the 3500 meter elevation that had brought her to this state. It's never a good idea to fly into places of high elevation. Even as I regret write this, I regret that we hadn't undertaken the three day drive from Delhi, up through the Himalayas to this hotel room in Leh.
We'd booked a group tour, but unbeknownst to us, we were the only clients on it, perhaps people scared off by last year's terrorist strike in Kashmir, or the overall distressing state of geopolitical affairs worldwide.
This tour included a day in Delhi, taking in sights that we'd already seen, and in further hindsight, I wish we had just flown into India a couple days earlier, allowing time to cover the old trade route through Manali, Jispa, Sarchu.
I think this will always haunt me, this gap in the map.
But the flight in had its own appeal, cruising low over Himalayan peaks, mainly devoid of snow on this late summer day, yet the empty glacial valleys equally devoid of ice was a sight that that should worry us all. I scanned the cloudy skies to the north, hoping and failing at a glimpse of K2. Then an abrupt left turn into the Leh Valley, whose surrounding hills housed villages surprisingly high, tell-tale due to the strips of green amidst the arid grey seemingly devoid of any vegetation. At the base of these hills stood proud gompas, their cubist buildings coating the top of small hillocks that could only be ancient undersea volcanoes.
Lai Yong rested and recovered over the next couple of days, while I visited the bigger monasteries a short hop from Leh. We'd leave early to avoid the crowds, thin on the ground at the tail end of the season. When we did meet other westerners, they all seemed to be Israelis, motorbiking through the high terrain.
The courtyard of Matho was all ours, as we sat quietly while our guide Surya ran through an explanation of Tibetan Buddhism. It was a good refresher as I hadn't been in this part of the world for eight years, nor had I read much about it. Surya had I shared a common background as yoga teachers, so I well appreciated his uniting Vajrayana with Vedenta, which further plugs some gaps. We ducked in and out of multicolored temple halls, offset by the brilliant white of the higher Himalaya above. The numerous thangka almost brought light to the dim halls, radiating colorful deities. One small room was the seat of the Oracles would would dazzle crowds during Matho's festival by leaping from roof to roof. A new oracle was undergoing training, chanting and swaying before a trio of teachers. We knelt before them, on a floor covered with grains brought by villagers to rest in the monastery until the planting the following spring.
Thiksey Gompa rose across the valley like a mini Potala. It was a steeper climb, tough going with my as yet acclimatized lungs. There were a number of tourists about, far more than I'd seen anywhere else, each undergoing their own challenges with respiration. The main Maitreya statue rose from a story below, with only its head and shoulders looming above us. In another hall, a photo of the Dalai Lama was propped upon a chair, and at first glance it looked as if he were in attendance. This apparition was repeated in all the gompa I'd visit, across the region. The Dalai Lama summers for two months in Leh, and he'd departed mere hours before our own arrival.
Stunning views from the roof were of a broad fertile valley, into which we dropped for lunch, in. the oasis of the Cafe Cloud. There was a basketball hoop beside the car park, and it only took a few shots before I was completely winded. Shey Gompa was just up the tree-lined road, its importance dwarfed by the ruined fortress with which it shared space on the arid hillside. The scale of the landscape was made evident from its heights, in this broad plain between two soaring ranges. The 1200 year old Dhyani Buddhas along the road at the base of temple were a reminder that I was back on the Silk Road, leading to similar statues in far-off Hunza to the west.
I nearly didn't to Hemis Gompa, as the tour company visits only during its famous festival. As we were the only clients on the tour, I was able to choose it over a walk in the Stok Valley nearby. It was the perfect choice, as Hemis appeared in a good number of the books I'd read during the trip. (I was amused that the Rimpoche who makes such a major appearance in Andrew Harvey's brilliant A Journey in Ladakh, I would meet again as a young boy in Beyond the High Himalayas by William O. Douglas, with the reincarnated (and current) Rimpoche turning up in Tim Ward's The Great Dragon's Fleas.) Besides the impressive collection of buildings, Henis is rich in myth, allegedly housing some lost gospels of Jesus, as well as looked upon by the hermitage of 13th century sage Gonbo Dorjey. I opted out of this tough climb to visit instead the museum in one corner of the courtyard, taken with the peace work and travels of the aforementioned current Rimpoche, the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa. To think that I'd nearly no visited this place, a quiet oasis amidst the waves of stone that crested steeply all around...
On the turntable: Vangelis, "The Collection"
The Himalayas have been up already. But when the sun finally pops up... Over the Karakoram It hits the prayer flex. First, it first hits the prayer flags of blah, blah, blah. Bringing them aglow
Preening boys, and singing. I don't think reptile's could live above???? But there was a spotted lizard doing push ups on the rock.
The walls of time . In the dim light of dawn. I felt like I was in Japan, in the peaks of these... hills are wrongly unreachable.
In a new order, so... But as light came out, the rock faces show themselves. You were reminded that you'd be surrounded by walls, high, continuous walls.
And in the places that they dropped, even bigger things appeared. I mean, coated in white.
Passing people, training for the marathon. But there was a definitive... Increase in people in town.
That would be... Marathon to be held. Ah, blah, blah, blah.
A few days hence. Luckily, we'd be leaving town. before it started, but there was a definitive increase in people. On the last day.
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