In Ladakh....

We're now in Leh (3700m), capital of Ladakh, some 600 kms north of Delhi - Ladack also known as 'Little Tibet' and 'The Land of High Passes' is the highest and most remote part of India, and sits within the province of Jammu & Kashmir - as opposed to the Kashmir region , Ladakh is incredibly safe and conflict-free. Main religions are Muslim (on the western part), while the area around Leh (Eastern part) is strongly and vissibly buddist - buddist monks , monasteries, chortens, stupas, prayer flags can we seen everywhere. In terms of the terrain, it's classified as a 'high altitude desert' with peaks reaching 7000m - the valley sides lack any sort of vegatation, the valley bottoms resemble desert oasis and are a vibrant green.















The 3 day journey on the Manali-Leh Highway (don't envisage dual carriageways, rather end-of the-world mountain tracks) was simply incredible - breathtakingly beautiful from beginning to end! The following description will not do it justice by any means, but here's a few lines to give you some flavour of what it's all about: Snowcapped 7000m+ mountain peaks and glaciers flanking the valley sides, huge waterfalls falling endless thousands of metres to the valley bottom , flat plateuas that stretch further than the eyes can see, deep gorges with snaking turqouise rivers at its base, incredible rock formations (rai, incredible strata), buddist chortens and colourful prayer flags (also called wind horses) marking each of the mountain passes. We acclimatized on route, so by the time we reached the highest pass (5300 m), all I could feel was a slight spinning of the head and a pounding heart beat - the rest was just pure exhiliration! Aside the usual prayer flags, there was also a flag proclaiming 'Basque country independence! ' - Incase you're wondering, I didn't put it up there. The road can also be done by motorbike (we saw a couple), and for the extremely fit by mountain bike - we saw a few Spanish 'nutcases' near the top!


















Leh, itself, is as laid back as it gets - Quote from a book am reading " There is nothing whatever to do. That is Leh's Charm...nothing to do but to slow down, laze , to become one vast transparent eye" . Ok, maybe that's a bit of an extreme statement, but it's certainly really peacefull and quiet.

We've spent the first few days visiting nearby buddist monasteries, most of them perched high on rocky outcrops, and sorting out the next part of our trip - a 5 day camping treck which we start tomorrow...we've been promised cornflakes for breakfast and fire-baked cakes for dessert -mmm, I'll let you know whether their word holds true.

More stories and hopefully some photos (can't do uploads here) when we get back from the treck