Leh!

Leh is maybe the most amazing place I have ever been. It is a very small town seated in a valley surrounded by the most spectacular mountains I have ever seen. Leh is in the eastern Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir, the most northern state of India, which borders Tibet and Pakistan. Though there is a lot of turmoil lately in other parts of Kashmir, Ladakh itself is very safe and peaceful.

The ride here was exhausting and uncomfortable but also spectacularly beautiful. It usually takes two days of driving to reach Leh from Manali, but I scored and found a mini bus (or large van) to take me in one day. It meant I was picked up from my hotel at 2am, and we arrived in Leh around 7pm. Somehow I thought I would be able to sleep the first few hours of driving, but ohhhh I was wrong. It was absolutely freezing cold, the driver had the windows down to defrost the windshield, and the road was so horrible that I was constantly being thrown around in my seat. It was quite miserable.

Then, around 5am, I looked out the window wondering why the sky was not beginning to lighten since the sun rises around 5:30am. Eventually I realized that in looking out the window, I was looking straight at the side of a dark mountain. I opened my window curtain fully, stuck my head down and looked up at the sky, where I saw the amazing jagged lines of the mountaintops against a light grey sky. And then I knew it was going to be a spectacular day.

At our first stop at a police checkpoint where we presented our passports, I threw on a second pair of pants and was immediately warmer. Also another traveler lent me her extra wool blanket, which worked wonders. Only then did I understand how the rest of the bus was surviving the cold ride with the windows down. As soon as I arrived in Leh I purchased a huge yak-wool blanket for future rides.

The mountains were beautiful beyond words. Manali, our starting point, is a small town in a pine forest about 2000 meters above sea level. There is nothing to do in Manali but smoke pot with Israeli travelers, so I only spent one day in transit there. As soon as the sun rose on our drive out of Manali, we were already above the tree line and into the dry, rocky terrain of northern India. The mountains were all different colors: black, red, and shades of brown and gray and sand. The trickling streams and small lakes that ran deep in the gorges were a soft sky-blue, a reflection of the deep periwinkle color of the clear sky above.

The highest point on the road was around 5300 meters, and boy could I feel it when we were there. I sat panting in my seat in the bus. When we stopped for a late lunch, we were all walking zig-zag from the bus to the food tents set up along the highway. Some people got very sick during the trip, and luckily I felt fine (thanks to my ginger tablets and ginger chews, I believe!).

As we drove into Leh, a magnificent sunset lit the sky and colored all the surrounding mountains. When I arrived in Leh itself, it was dark and I could not see the town. When I awoke the next morning and walked through town, it felt like I had entered another world, or certainly another continent. Everywhere I looked, mountains sprung up around me. Some were jagged and rocky and brown. Others, further away, looked smooth and gray like ripples of sand. Others were capped with snow or huge glaciers. Mountains aside, Leh itself is a wonder. Despite being a touristy town, it still retains its village feel. Many of the buildings are made of mud and bricks, and there are donkeys grazing in fields everywhere. Many Ladakhi women wear traditional dress and sell dried apricots and vegetables under the shade of trees. In the back streets of the old city, fresh Tibetan bread is baked fresh in traditional ovens. I'm in heaven. The only bad experience I've had here was being solicited by a male prostitute.

Every day when I wake up and walk outside my sweet little guest house and into the wildflower garden with spectacular Himalayan views, I remember my parents' arrival in Cusco, Peru, and how they were overwhelmed by the other-worldliness and beauty of the mountain culture where they suddenly found themselves. I feel this way every day.

In addition to numerous Buddhist temples and palaces and mountain views, Leh has many other wonderful things to offer. Since I am traveling alone, which I have come to love, I have complete freedom to pick and choose what I want to do each day. While I was waiting to acclimatize in my first few days, I visited the Ladakh Ecology Center and the Women's Alliance Center to learn about local issues and local efforts to preserve Ladakhi culture and way of life in the face of the many changes and challenges tourism has brought. I also visited a donkey sanctuary (!!) in a village just outside of Leh. Between all these activities, I take breaks at a local eco-friendly organization that sells glasses of fresh juice made from an orange desert berry called seabuck thorn. And, I have created a little routine for myself, wherein I attend a 90-minute yoga class each morning (we perform our sun salutations before a large Buddhist shrine) and a meditation course each afternoon. In short, I am very happy.