Sept 18th
Up at the unoddly hour of 0430, we put on our gear in sleepwalking mode and enter the pitch blackness of Leh, our head torches lighting the way ahead - a local notices us struggling with our overweight backpacks and offers us a lift to the station - we gladly accept. At the station, we find 30+ neatly parked buses, their respective drivers all claiming that they are going to Lamayuru - our guidebooks claims there is only 1 - interesting discrepency. We're clueless until we find the one and only other tourist in the station who is able to clarify things for us.
We have no bus ticket which in Ladack (and many other countries), means you are relegated to the back row seats - the worst whether you're in India, Boliva or Niger: we spent more time in mid-air, our bodies leaving the seat at every bump and turn - this early morning action is doing my stomach no good, and I can feel last night's curry jalfrenzy making it's way up my gullet - an hour later, we stop, I hobble out the bus and am in serious pain - I can hardly walk 5 yards, let alone 5 days of trecking...
After 6 endless hours, we finally make it to Lamayuru, a tiny adobe village perched high on the mountain side and crowned (like most villages in the area), by a buddist gompa(monastery). I take a quick assesment of my stomach, and decide I'll leave the monastery for my next life and instead take out my camera , zoom out to the max, and take a photo instead.
I spend the next few hours lying down, working my way through a packet of alka-selzters - amazingly they do the trick, and by late afternoon, I am cured, and decide that I can't let the monastery pass me by - it's a steep climb. It's ALWAYS 'steep' in Ladakh.
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