Ladakh Trip - Day 3 (Leh)

You can read the previous entries

Ladakh Trip - Planning here

Ladakh Trip - Day 1 (Delhi) here

Ladakh Trip - Day 2 (Leh) here

For day 3 we had 3-4 places as part of our itinerary. All of them around Leh, well within an hours distance. We didn't have to wake up early again, so that was a relief, but most of us were up by around 7 any ways, infact me and Jayant were up by 6. No one wanted to lose much time sleeping in this trip I guess. Anchuk was already at front gate with his Innova by 8 am itself, so we had to breeze through our breakfast and get ready as soon as we could.

On the way to Thiksay

First stop for day 3 was:

Thiksay monastery

12 storied Complex

It’s just around 20 km drive from Leh. This is one of the largest monastery in Ladakh area. The monastery consists of 12 storied complex and resembles a famous palace in Tibet. We reached here after 30-40 mins drive. Make sure you keep glasses, cap and bottle of water handy, as the complex is vast and there are several areas inside the complex where you will walk in the bright sun. We unfortunately didn't find any guide (not sure if guides were available) but this is definitely the kind of place, where having a guide makes perfect sense. Else as they say everything will appear to be "Greek and Latin" or in this case Tibetan.

One of the several stupas

The monastery consists of several Stupas, prayer wheels, praying halls. Each of the prayer halls contains several beautiful paintings of Tibetan mythologies and not having a guide meant we could only appreciate the art in terms of what we could see, but not comprehend the significance of any of it. There is also a terrace from where u can view the entire valley which consists of lush green fields, Indus River on one side and barren desert land on the other side.

Valley as seen from terrace in Thiksay

Panoramic view from Thiksay

Thiksay monastery also houses vast collection of ancient Tibetan scrolls consisting of volumes of scriptures. As you go from one prayer hall to another you will see several monks chanting prayer from these ancient scrolls. We tried to speak to few monks who were around and not praying, but they seemed to speak only a little of broken Hindi and English. They did however try their best to explain about the statues of deities that were around, which there were many.

Paintings, paintings everywhere!

After stumbling from one prayer room to another we finally came to one of the main attractions of this place, Maitreya Buddha.

This 50ft statue is housed in a two storied hall. This is the largest status of Maitreya Buddha in whole of Ladakh. This is also unique for the reason it portrays him sitting in a lotus position rather than standing or sitting on high throne. The face of Maitreya Buddha has a calm and serenity about it that you will instantly fall in love with. The image of the statue is widely used and you may have already seen it in promotions of Ladakh tours and packages. The hall as I said earlier consists of two floors, and the second floor is at level with the chest. When we reached this place, there was a big Japanese (we assumed) group of elderly folks that was already occupying the hall, singing out some prayer. We tried our best to be non-intrusive and squeezed in between them and found ourselves a corner where we could stand and appreciate the beauty of the statue.

Calmness and Serenity personified!

To give an idea of scale!

 Next was Tara temple, this building is dedicated within the complex, to Goddess Tara, who in Tibetan Buddhism is worshipped as female equivalent of Buddha. This temple consists of several status of Goddess Tara in different forms, it also houses statues of other deities, which only made it more difficult for us to make out anything. We couldn't tell one from the other for the life of us, only stressing the point more that a guide would have been so helpful in such a place.

Once we were done exploring, we wanted to now have a bit of Ladhaki food specifically Momos, so we headed into a restaurant that is housed just outside Thiksay monastery. Anchuk had spoken highly about the food here, but unfortunately around the time we went in (11 AM) they didn’t have Momos, and as we were not really that hungry we decided to just grab some cold drinks instead and head to next destination.

The next place in our list was the Druk White Lotus School or now famously called Rancho school after Amir Khans character from 3 idiots movie. This is around 15 kms outside Leh and barely 10 minutes’ drive from Thiksay. We were quite surprised that it had already become part of tourist packages. Once we reached there, we got to know that the school was closed as part of vacation. However due to its now tourist status, there will be school admins who will take you on a guided tour around the school complex. The guided tour starts from a hall where there are several photos and newspaper clippings of famous personalities who have paid a visit here. In here we also learnt how in 2012 there was a major flash flood and the school was severely damaged. Post the disaster, all these famous personalities including Amir Khan came in to help the school rebuild. There are several mementoes you can buy here, the proceedings of all which go to rebuilding the school. We were then taken around the complex, showing us the various constructions happening and also explaining how the school is playing an important role for Ladakhi kids. The school sprawls across vast area and takes around 20-30 minutes to go around completely.

Hang unto death!

Ladakhi school art!

As it was vacation time, we didn't get to see any kids, also the restaurant where we hoped to eat Momos turned out to be closed due to vacation. Disappointed again we started to the next place in our list.

Shey Monastery\Palace

Again just about 15kms away from Leh, and hardly 5 mins drive from the school is the complex consisting of a Monastery, Palace and a ruined Fort. Built sometimes in 16th century in Shey village by the king of Ladakh, at its height of power used to be the summer capital of Ladakh. The monastery is famous for its giant copper with gilded gold statue of a seated Shakyamuni Buddha. We however did not spend much time in the monastery or the palace, what we did instead was hike upto the top of the hillock where the ruined fort lies. Make sure you have shoes with good grip as the path to the ruined fort is loose gravel. There is barely a path, as the weather has worn out whatever existed of it, so you will have to improvise to reach the top.  There are colourful prayer flags tied to whatever’s left of the fort and these fluttering flags is what will welcome you to the top of the hillock. The hillock commands a panoramic view of the valley below and you can see several villages. The hike isn’t too tiring as it’s not too steep, and makes up for a good practice for acclimatizing to high altitude, so do give it a try if you visit Shey Palace. 

Stupas at Shey!

Valley as visible from Shey Monastery

A stupa visible from Shey Monastery being renovated

 

Making the climb

Top of the fort

By the time we were done it was around 1 PM, the planned itinerary had just one more place for us to visit and lunch was supposed to be back at hotel with the remaining day all for ourselves back at the hotel. This again was not how we wanted it, so we insisted to Anchuk to take us to some nearby village instead. He initially did not seem too keen on the idea as generally these guys stick to the plan as if it’s the bible. Also, he pointed out that there was not going to be any hotels on the way and we had not packed anything for lunch. Still debating about what to do, we reached the last planned place we had to visit.

Sindhu Ghat

This is a platform that has been built on the banks of river Indus. Sindhu is the historical name of the river Indus. Sindhu Darshan festival is a major festival in Ladakh in the month of June during which thousands of people flock to this place. However, while we visited there was not much to be seen apart from kids enjoying a good bath in the river. We were done looking around in matter of few minutes as there is hardly anything you can do apart from maybe get your feet wet in the river.

We now started back towards our hotel and the debate with Anchuk continued from where we had left before. We managed to convince Anchuk only after we agreed to pay for the extra distance we would travel. We made a quick pit stop to buy some bread jam and snacks as it was already close to 2PM and were not going to get any hotels on the way. 

A monastery visible on the way back to Leh

We were to drive now to a small model village very close to Leh, called Saboo. You need to take a diversion off the main Leh highway to reach this place.  The drive to this village is indeed very beautiful as you will see beautiful fields on either side of the roads and small settlements every now and then amidst the fields. The place Anchuk intended to take us was further down that road after the village ended and the roads starts narrowing and hills on both sides start funnelling. At a place where finally the road ends is where he came to a stop. At this place, you have a beautiful stream of glacial water that flows down from the hills. A small bridge lets you cross over the stream. The water here is icy cold, so not exactly the kind of place where you want to dip your feet in water. The banks of the stream are strewn with rocks and pebbles so there is enough place for you to sit and enjoy the cool breeze and beautiful view or walk upstream to see where the water leads. We tried to do both, initially hiking upstream and after a while just sat and enjoyed the view, listening to the soothing sound of the stream. You will find wild plants with beautiful pink flowers strewn all around the hill sides, this along with the lush green fields through which the stream flows makes it a picture perfect scene. We could see far off that there were tents put up so this is definitely a place where people come camping.

Notice, none of our feet is in water? Icy cold water!

Wild Plants bearing beautiful pink flowers

After an hour or so at this place, it was time for us to head back and not of our own accord I will have to add. Anchuk had to come searching for us upstream as we had wandered off some distance. On the way back, we again made him stop at one of the mustard fields for a quick last photo op before finally bidding farewell to the beautiful village. 

A video of the place:

Saboo is just about 10-15 kms away from Leh, so it was a quick drive back to hotel. Although it was already around 4 pm in the evening, the hotel folks were kind enough to have saved us some lunch. Hungry as we were, we were more than glad to eat whatever they served.  Post lunch, Shilpa and Saritha decided to get some sleep, while we guys decided to make the most of the time while the ladies slept by watching an action movie. Independence Day was what we decided to watch, no better thing than watching humans kick some alien ass, while discussing the minor technicalities of how the hero achieved to interface an apple mac with alien technology to transmit the virus.  After an hour of getting completely bored of whatever was playing in the cable, we decided to risk the wrath of the ladies by waking them up, and I was nominated for this life threatening job. I did however succeed in waking them up, after of course hearing several choicest of abuses and death threats.

In the evening, as we didn't really have any planned activity, we again decided to venture out in search of Momos and thupka(traditional ladakhi dish). We took the same alleyway that me and Abhishek had explored the previous day and started strolling. Abhishek was interested in taking a bike for atleast a day and we enquired about the rates at several of the bike renting stores, the standard price seemed to be in the range of 1-1.5k Rs per day. We however were neutral to his enthusiasm as we had only 2 bikers in our group and suggested Abhishek to take a bike on the last day of the trip instead. 


There were several hotels on this way, but pretty much all of them seemed to be empty, so we assumed they might not be popular and kept walking ahead looking for something better. After 10-15 minutes of walking we did come across one that looked quite popular and decided to try it out. It looked like a popular hangout with both foreigners and Ladkahi folks, and once we had placed orders we were told that it will take atleast 20-30 minutes to deliver. Hoping it will only take as much time as they said, we sat in for a long haul. We saw the food served to us only an hour later and by the time we were done and ready to move it was close to 8 pm. As we had a long drive planned the next day, we decided to head back to hotel and call it a day.

Next day we had the actual road trip beginning with us heading to Nubra valley. To reach Nubra valley, we have to travel via Khardung La pass,which has the claim of being worlds highest moterable road and we were quite excited about it. We had been asked to buy several bottles of Nimbupani as Anchuk had informed us that this will help us with the high altitude. Something you can keep in mind while you plan your trip via Khardungla pass, to buy a bottle of Nimbupani. This along with Diamox tablet(prescribed generally to avoid getting altitude sickness) taken before you start your journey is meant to help with the altitude sickness. More about that in the next post for Day 4 :)

Ladakh Trip - Day 4(Nubra Valley) will follow.