There’s a book called “A Cave in the Snow” by Vicki Macenzie. She a woman who meditated for 12 years in a cave above Manali at 13,200 feet, near Keylong. It’s quite a story. I thought of her as I passed Keylong on the way to Kinnaur. Only after spending a night in a tent with 5 blankets in sub-freezing temperatures on the way to Ladakh did I start thinking about her more. Then when I was visiting a monastery in Hemas, above which are many caves where people have been mediating for years, did I come to appreciate her story more than ever. Here I am with all my coats and socks, trying to keep warm after the sun goes down, able to eat and drink warm food and shower with semi-warm water. What a magnificent person she must be.
The elevation of Leh is about that of her cave, maybe a little less, as trees grow. I don’t remember what it says in Lonely Planet. The winter is closing in fast. The roads will close to almost all vehicle traffic in the next 3 weeks. Where the creeks and run-off runs cross exposed areas is frozen in the morning. Soon it will freeze hard, and when the snow falls, people will hunker down for the winter. Right now it’s nice during the day. It’s after the “season”, so the tourist trade in Ladakh is closing down rapidly. There’s a Tibetan Buddhist festival which ends Sept 15, and after that the tourists leave in droves. This leaves the place to the few that are here now and the locals. Even most of the Kashmiri’s leave for the warmer climes of Srinigar and other lower elevations areas of Kashmir.
The drive here was spectacular. The route goes basically east from Manali up into the mountains, over 16,000 ft pass, then down to about 14,000 feet. I was mistaken in my last blog entry. It isn’t 200 km to Leh from Manali. It’s 200 km to this valley floor, then over two more passes and 200 km more to Leh. So, given the poor roads, that’s as far as you can go in a day. It’s there. in Sarchu, where there are tents to sleep in overnight. There are a couple of tent dhaba’s, places with hot food serves, and nothing else. That was one long night. It’s worth it though. The visuals are spectacular. The upper part of Himachal Pradesh and into Ladakh is a moonscape with surrounding snow capped peaks. Search it on the net for pictures. I’ll publish some once I get to a place with fast enough internet connection to do that. I got here after the festival. The good news is it’s not crowded with foreigners. The bad is that some of the well known monasteries are not practicing monasteries anymore. They are more like museums with a few monks around. I went to Hemas yesterday with a couple of Australian women I kind of hooked up with here. Everything except the main chaple was closed up. i wanted to see it’s famous wall sized tangkas, but they are in the closed prayer hall. Also closed was a monastery built into a cave. Oh well. The monks have moved to the monasteries, called gompas here, in Leh, to Tiksay and Shey near here, and as far as Mysore, in south India near Bangalore. Tomorrow I going to take a taxi to Tiksay to sit with the monks chanting prayers, called puja, at 6:30. I’m so humbled I don’t know how to get through this. I’m told it will be alright, just sit in the back and they’ll be fine. I’m sure they will, but will I? It’s another practice opportunity, I keep telling myself. That will last about an hour. Then I’ll go to Shey, between Leh and Tiksay, where there is another practicing monastery, and try to behave myself. I should be back here by about 10.
The people here are quite different from the people of western Kashmir. They are Tibetan, for one thing, as this is a southwestern part of the Tibetan plateau within India. Secondly, they are Buddhist. Buddhists only comprise about 1% of the Indian popuation. That said, there are western Kashmiri’s here. In fact, evening prayers are being called from the mosque as i write. They dress distinctly, speak Ladakhi, and are generally much friendlier and live more slowly. Ties are changing though. Most in Leh dress like westerners. This is happening quickly in India in general. They are acquiring city habits. The people in the countryside often have electricity in their stone houses or yourts. Even the yurt roofs are often now army surplus parachutes. Some don’t like the change, but change happens. It’s the way of the world.
This internet place is closing down, so I’ll have to see if I get lucky tomorrow and can bring up my site. The connections are so slow I couldn’t do it at all yesterday. Until then, or whenever….