India: Leh to Manali 30 Jun-4 Jul

Ledakh to Himachel Pradesh...

The road to Manali 30-31 June

Ido, Gayla and I left Leh for Manali early in the morning, 5.30am to be exact. I was lucky to have two great people who wanted to do the same route with me to Manali, Parvati Valley and then Dharamshala. We were to be picked up by our hired jeep. They were late, and we were grumpy, also when it eventually arrived with a hazy explanation (the driver probably slept late) it turned out not to be a jeep at all which seemed slightly less adventurous, and I thought less of an unstoppable force on the road ahead. But, it seemed pretty comfortable to me. And a private car to drive us 12-15 hours, such opulence. If I had more time to spare I would have opted for a bus all the way to Manali, which would have been around 23 hours or more depending on the state of the already erratic and gruelling road. As it was, I only had another 16 days in India and I wanted to make my way southwards as quickly as possible. 

We were going to take the car o Keylong which passed the most difficult part of the road and then a local bus from on to Manali. And it was only £33! £33 to drive for 12 or more hours in a private, comfortable car. Imagine that. I’d heard that this road was seriously gruelling and very hard work, especially on a great big rickety old bus. In the winter months, it was mostly closed due to snow and landslides of ice and rubble. We set off on the paved roads out of Leh, leaving the town and heading into the windy village roads. There were various checkpoints along the way probably because of the tensions in the area with Kashmir. We stopped just outside Leh and showed our passports to the guard sitting in an old shabby building and he asked us write down our details like name, country and purpose of travel. There are many army bases dotted around, one boasting to be the highest army training ground in the world. We stopped there for some chai and chapati in a dabba. There was a sign – Manali 425km. 23 hours to go 425km! And we were only going to Keylong that day, around half way. The route was through Tanglangla pass, the second highest pass in the world at 5300m. The highest was around the corner en route to Kashmir, and is 5600m. What an exciting road to be taking. 

Check point

Manali 425km, Tanglangla pass 51km. WISH YOU SAFE & HAPPY JOURNEY

Chai shop

Soon the paved roads gave way to dirt and rubble, the hundred tone spectrum of greys that are the mountains of Ledakh. The green oasis’ of villages became less and less and gave way to mountain moonscape as far as the eye could see. The road became a ledge cut into the mountainside, with severe drops on one side and a grey stony wall on the other. We were dozing in and out on the early morning ride but I woke up to brilliant blue sunshine, snow tipped mountains and a valley below us of such magnitude my stomach gave a lurch. We were quite literally driving on the roof of the world. Huge boulders and potholes started appearing in the road, the car dipped and swerved around them like they were nothing. In the West, people would think twice about driving SUV’s over some of these rocks and craters, but our Toyota family car steamed over and around and up and down as if it were nothing. I couldn’t believe that this was the one road, the only one, southwards from Leh. It made Ledakh seem so much more isolated and mystical, to know that only sometimes, you could reach it through this insane road. Small wiry men bundled up with jackets and scarves over their faces worked and slept on the roadside in weary, windblown tents. They were repairing the road after the winter months, painstakingly breaking up all the boulders by hand with a hammer. Some wives and children peeped out of the remote, roadside tents. What these men earned living up here in the freezing high altitude amongst the grey rocks I dreaded to think. They stared sullenly at the car when we went passed but when I smiled and waved at them each one lit up a smile and waved back. That makes me think of something Ido told me... keep smiling in India and everything becomes easy.

We got to Taglangla pass and got out to take some pictures and marvel at the thin pureness of the air and the view of the Indian Himalayas. It was all greys, whites and blues, and it seemed the only other colour came from the thick lines of Buddhist prayer flags hanging from the shrine to mark the start of the pass. I’m guessing these are prayers for protection. The sign read ‘TAGLANGLA, ALTITUDE 5328mt. YOU ARE PASSING THROUGH THE SECOND HIGHEST PASS IN THE WORLD, UNBELIEVABLE IS NOT IT?’. And yes, it was. High altitude is my favourite place to be. The thin air, the feeling of being kilometres in the sky away from the madness of the world below. My head feels so much clearer and more alive there. All the oxygen your body is taking in is to sustain its basic functions. Your brain doesn’t have enough oxygen to stress and worry about the past or future. It’s like reaching a highly evolved meditative state; you are wholly in the present moment.

Our car at the pass

After climbing the pass we began to wind down, down into the valley. A huge, sandy canyon appeared; it looked like there was a small ocean here like the Dead Sea that had been dried up over the past few million years. I’ve truly never seen such a huge expanse of land. It felt like dinosaurs were going to pile into the valley in a stampede, with Pterodactyls swooping in the air. There was movement in the canyon, a herd of cows being led by horsemen. There must have been hundreds of them, all in a straight line but they were tiny, almost to the point of not making them out. It was an unbelievable huge majestic area of land that we were gazing into, I was unable to really take in the scale. Our small eyes weren’t big enough. We drove straight into the valley, a huge sand pit with no road to be seen. Our driver instinctively knew the way, powering through the sand in a straight line. We were more in the middle of nowhere than I’d ever been. Tin houses appeared every now again, one or two on their own, with some scruffy sheep and maybe a dog. How did these people survive here? No plants, no water, no electricity, no nothing. They had to drive for a good few hours before getting to the nearest collection of tents set up for drivers on the route.

The desert like valley

Some house tents in the distance

The road became flat, straight and paved again, before changing without warning to gravel and rocks. We came to one small community, a little village of tents with stoves for tea and noodles, and colourful woollen scarves and gloves for sale. There were hundreds of crows in the air, circling and landing and squawking. There were guys on big old Royal Enfield motorbikes, doing and adventure drive along this crazy road. Every so often there was a lone truck, those really cool, brightly painted, romantic looking long distance Indian trucks. What they must have seen in their time. Horsemen would appear, transporting horses and they transporting packs across the mountain desert. Once, we even saw a lone cyclist. He must have had to carry his bike over the boulders at points. What kind of thigh muscles do you need to cycle this mountain road.

Tent village stop off

The crows in the sky

Mr crow

The road beyond

On and on, up and down, round and round the road went on. Every corner revealed another vast, majestic landscape. Turquoise water from rivers down in the valley glistened in the brilliant sunshine. Soon the brown grey mountain desert became whiter with snow. The roads became wet with the melt from the mountains, with huge thick slabs of ice lining the roadside. The colours and textures were incredible, smooth grey shining rock, white snow drifts, brilliant blue sky, turquoise water, all speckled with light and shade from the immense valleys and cliffs. There were shepherds and their sheep filling up the roads, and we weaved in and out.

Check the teeny truck climbing up below us

WOOOOW

India's long distance trucks

Ido stepping out to investigate some awesome rock formations 

Soon the greys, whites and browns of the mountains became greener. We dropped lower in altitude, then climbed back up again, then dropped back down again. All the time round and round in the car, on the road cut like a shelf into the mountain. Still greener it became and the air more moist and thick. When looking out the window, it felt like you could see an entire mountain from 100m to 4500m, so you had to look way down and then climb your eyes up and crane your neck to see the top. So beautiful, I felt tiny like a speck of an ant gazing at a world huger than I’d ever known it to be.

Another truck climbing 

We made it to the town of Keylong in around 12 hours, much quicker than I thought possible. Our driver drove crazily fast, we all got carsick more than once and also little tense about the safety, but I was yet to see a single accident in India. They seem to drive with a third eye and a sixth sense, and its best to just close your eyes and not think about the thousand metre drop next to you and the huge trucks squeezing by on the road seemingly made for one car at a time. Keylong is a tiny town set into the ledges and slopes of the mountain side. It was green and beautiful that time of year, and a little warm but not hot. There are amazing views of the mountains surrounding the town, and I think there are some great treks to do in the area. There are tiny villages dotted all around the hills, and while the mountains looked friendly and easy to climb, I’m sure there are some vertical areas which might get a bit hairy if you decided just to wander off. We found a guesthouse (Rs 550 for three in a room) and explored the little place in twilight for some food, and found a dabba with some big pots of curries and tasty, sugary sweets. There weren’t many people around the small town, it was a stopover for people travelling the mighty road to Leh or perhaps an adventurous trekker. We found the bus the next morning to Manali, seven hours and costing Rs140 (£1.60). We hurled our bags on top and secured them to the rails. It was going to be a bumpy ride.

Passing time on the bus

The road continued on in the same way, although now we were in a big hulking bus, rubbing thighs with the locals. I had a gruff Indian man next to me, taking up half my chair while he slept. The road looked only big enough for one car yet our big old bus would pass big old trucks, with the wheels two inches from the side of the cliff drop below and into the river that had carved out this huge valley. Boulders, potholes, gravel, even flowing rivers weren’t any match for our bus, it went straight through them. The landscape was the mightiest I’d seen yet, although unfortunately it wasn’t possible to stop the bus every time I wanted to take a picture like with our car. If you looked out the window, you could see a tiny river (actually huge) snaking and twirling its way through the valley. Then you saw the mountainside, and looking higher was more mountainside, then higher, then more until you craned your neck right up to maybe catch a glimpse of the top. Was it possible that we were seeing an entire mountain from bottom to top? The bus crashed and rumbled and did impossible break neck turns on the road that was a shelf cut out of the mountain, up and up and then down and down. Every possible type of vehicle was doing the same, you don’t need a 4x4 the Indians taught me.

Just when the road got the most achingly steep and narrow, a line of cars appeared ahead of us and the bus screeched to a halt. Looking beyond was a long snake of cars, twisting around the mountainside with their wheels ready to dip over the rough edge at any moment. It was a Himalayan traffic jam. We got out and waited, I was thinking how the heck do you sort out a traffic jam or accident on a road like this? There were paragliders swooping around us in the air, probably having the most thrilling high altitude flights of their life. That would scare the life out of me! We got lots of stares from the locals, some taking pictures of us (not so) secretly on their phones. An old mountain lady got off the bus and peed right next to the door, not minding everyone looking on. Somehow, the cars started moving again, this time the cars on the opposite side stopped to let our side passed. I could not believe the tight space the cranking bus was squeezing through, all with a few hundred metres of cliff drop on one side of us. The wheels must have been 1 inch or less from the side, where we would certainly plunge to freefall death with one false move. But, it got through and we glided down the steep layered valley, taking a thousand turns and flopping side to side. And in this way we made it down the valley to Manali.

The seven hour journey took around nine, but I couldn’t believe it wasn’t longer. And guess how many km it is from Keylong to Manali? Only 117km! We were dropped into the bus station in New Manali. After being in the small mountain towns of Ledakh all the people and traffic and noise and pollution was a shock, and the smell of human excrement coming from the drains along the bus station was especially offensive. All three of us and all our luggage squeezed into a tiny auto rickshaw, and we had a lot of stuff. We were heading to Vashisht , a small village of its own on the hillside away from the main town’s rumble.

Manali / Vashisht 1-3 July

We spent three nights in Vashisht. It’s a small hangout for tourists of all descriptions. Ido had been there before and was being our tour guide. We stayed in the guesthouse he knew, Rs250 for big room with bathroom all to myself. The high season for Manali was just finishing and everyone was heading up to Leh where it was cooler. I can imagine it teeming in high season, it would be much too much. It was all tiny lanes and guesthouses piled on top of each other on the mountain side with huge cows living happily in the tiny courtyards. There were many tourist food places and shops selling the same old knickknacks, Tibetan jewellery, woollen hats, gloves and scarves, tourist clothes. It is very pretty there though, a green forest like mountain side with the river running through the valley.

Temple in Vashisht

There was a party on that night July 1^st, ‘Earth Core Festival’ somewhere in a remote location on the other side of the river. We watched the Euro Cup finals in a Korean restaurant, like a living room at the top of a building with cushions and everyone smoking hashish, the most unlikely audience for Football I’ve ever seen. Spain thrashed Italy, even though I bet a beer to Ido that Italy would win (clearly I know nothing about Football). Afterwards, in the early hour of the morning a few of us got picked up by two cars, banging psy-trance and driving grand theft auto style through the empty streets of Manali, slowed down only by the sheep and shepherds crossing. We rumbled over a bridge into a tiny dark path and did a rally drive into the dark hillside, stopping when we heard pounding trance and lasers light up the mountainside. They wanted to charge us Rs1000 to get in, but we refused that seriously silly number and paid Rs500 instead. It was about 2am. We went around a rock and saw a tent set up in beautiful surroundings, with neon lights and lasers and a tent with a bar. I love outdoor parties because they’re outdoors, but then the mess of rubbish and people and the loud unnatural sounds of banging trance almost ruins the outdoors bit, I always feel like the people and what comes with them ruins it. I would rather be in that beautiful spot in the mountains by the river without the party for sure. There were a lot of Indian men, and men in general, hardly any girls which is what is what I find in general in India. There was a camp fire, and people doing some (always funny when you imagine looking at them without the music) jerky dancing. I wandered around more bemused than into it. The sun came up, and the surroundings became more beautiful and the people more haggard looking. Leo, Ido and I sat on rocks in the river and watched the sky lighten around us. 6am, time to go home. A very random, crazy night, exhausted after the long bus ride and all night wanderings in Manali.

Lio, Ido and I - sunrise 

The trance party tent in early morning

The rest of the days were spent seeing Manali old town and doing some shopping in the new town, all of which can be done in one day. I bought some jewellery, bindis, some cheap clothes. India is the place to shop, everything so cheap although the quality or authenticity is never certain. There’s a big park in the middle of the town with huge amazing trees, it feels like you’re in a forest. It’s perfect for sucking in all the air pollution and pouring clean air back into our lungs. We wandered around, got lost in the residential area and had waves from all the sweet school children, girls with plaits and red ribbons in their hair looking after their younger brothers or sisters. There is a beautiful big waterfall a few minutes’ walk in the forest from Vashisht, we jumped from big rock to big rock to get as far into the waterfall valley as we could go and spent a happy afternoon on the cool rocks looking up at the mountains and forest and being sprayed by cold waterfall spray.

School in Manali

Gayla eating corn with the kids

At the waterfall

Mountain man Lio

Ah nature

Artist Lio drawing in the forest chai shop

I liked Manali, but definitely three days was enough for me. It isn’t rural enough to feel like you’re fully in beautiful nature, and the town isn’t big or historical enough to spend days exploring it. Also, too many tourists for me, I can’t imagine what it’s like in high season. There was an Indian tourist staying in our guesthouse, who every time we were sitting on the balcony reading a book or chatting amongst ourselves, would come and sit down uninvited (although not really unwelcome) and wouldn’t say a word, he would just sit with us. He was some kind of businessman, a high caste he mentioned more than once, who had been signed off work due to some illness and told to go on holiday. So here he was in Vashisht, sitting quietly listening to us talk or watching us read. It was weird and interesting to us.

Here are the Ledakh Leh Manali Road pics, and here are the Manali with the rest of India pics. 

India: Ledakh 20-30 Jun

The decision to go to India was really last minute. My overland trip organised by Dragoman (from Kathmandu, through Tibet and into China ending in Xian) had been cancelled. The Chinese government closed the borders to foreigners apparently because of a self burning protest by some monks in Lhasa. The trip had been organised at least 10 months ago, and was the middle, and I felt pinnacle, of my trip so I was really devastated about it being cancelled at the last minute (six days before flying to Kathmandu) and made me want to spend time in China even less. I had a six month visa for India which I got back in January when I was still in London (why didn't I get it en route when I knew when I was going to be there exactly is one of the big fails of the trip) so as it turned out I only had one month left on the visa when I went there. I thought I’d spend a month there, then a month in Nepal and a couple of weeks in China before my Trans Siberian train to Moscow.

India was one of the only places that I was a little scared of going to. It was midsummer and on the brink of monsoon being June, and so would either be scorching hot or intensely wet, or both. I was going to be alone again and I’d heard that it was strange to some Indians to be a women travelling on her own, and so treated them weirdly. Besides all the amazing things I'd heard, and knowing deep down inside that I'd love it, I’d heard stories of staring, groping and just general uncomfortable behaviour from men there so I did have that in the back of my mind. But I was still dead excited to be going overall.

It’s such a vast place, I had to think about where on earth should I go and what to do. I met a really cute couple in Pai Thailand, Micky and his girlfriend, and they had been to North West India and told me about Manali and Leh up in the mountains where it’s cool away from the mid summer heat. I’d heard about North West India from a few other people too, Dharamshala, Shimla, all up in the mountains which is what I craved. So I made plans to go straight to Leh Ledakh from Delhi. I was nervous, excited and felt exhilarated to be going to the Himalayas and to do some ‘real’ travelling, leaving the Western comforts of SE Asia behind.

I overstayed my Thailand visa by three days and had to pay 500 Baht a day fine (£30 in total). I think you can overstay up to three weeks and they hardly bat an eyelid, after all it’s a comfortable money maker and all you get is a tsk and something to sign. I had already raced to the airport from the Mongolian Embassy after getting my visa and really cut it fine with dealing with the overstay paperwork, but somehow I got through it all without much hassle (always take the Skytrain to the airport in Bangkok, it’s a tenth of the price of a cab and is so much quicker and more comfortable) and was at my terminal in time to study all the people boarding the flight. They were all Indian, and it was interesting to see this little microcosm of India in a pocket of Bangkok airport. Starkly different from their environment, emanating their own strong culture. I got a few ‘western girl on her own’ stares, and sighed as I hadn’t even left Bangkok but thought it was good practice anyway. I flew with Indigo Airlines, an Indian budget airline which have new shiny planes, competent pilots and are probably one of the best budget airlines I’ve flown with, I can recommend them. The flight was only four hours, so short I couldn’t believe it. Delhi and Bangkok, separated by a thousand differences and only four hours of sky.

Arriving in a new country is always a little jarring and unnerving, especially if it’s by air as you aren’t allowed the comforts of the gradual change of landscape and people. You’re plucked from one almost familiar place (which you’re more apprehensive to see behind you because of the effort and time it took to get the feeling of familiarity) and plopped in new strange land. Arriving in Delhi airport was the only time I felt properly nervous, and had no idea what to expect. I knew not to look baffled, to find out all the details of transport or accommodation slowly and calmly so as not to get scammed or mobbed by touts. I wasn’t in the new terminal 3 of Delhi airport, which could be in Singapore or Hong Kong with comfortable seating and floors of shops and places to relax and eat. I was in old terminal 1, which had musty carpets and felt like one long corridor with one coffee shop, and I could see guards ready to poke anyone with a stick who decided to have a snooze on the floor waiting for their next flight. I arrived at around 4pm and my flight to Leh was at 5am the next day. I decided to treat myself to an airport transfer hotel, much more expensive than a hostel but much closer to the airport and easier to arrange. The city centre was really far away, and getting a taxi there and back, finding a guesthouse in crazy Delhi central and then having to wake up at 3am didn’t appeal to me one bit. I went to the hotel desk and spoke to the two men there, who assured me of a very good hotel, 2000 Rupees (Rs) £22 but I had to pay for my own taxi there for Rs 450. (They insisted, it must be air conditioned, you can’t go in a local taxi it’s too hot. Of course you can go in a taxi with no aircon, just open the windows. It won’t kill you) It was so steep, much more than I’ve ever paid for any hotel on my entire trip, but I just wanted somewhere safe and clean to get my head around the place.

It was scorching in Delhi, around 38 degrees. The taxi drove through the big, dusty butthole streets of the areas surrounding the airport, and dropped me at my hotel which looked crumbling and uninspiring; I couldn’t believe I had spent so much money on it. There were only men around. Men working at the counters at the airport, men driving taxis, men travelling, men in the hotel reception, male porters, male receptionists. It made me stand out even more and made me so uncomfortable, where the heck were all the women? But I held my ground and had a chat to the receptionist and the only other Western person there, a German. I thought about taking the metro into central Delhi but I was still coming to grips with this dusty hot place. I was shown to my room which was fancy with a TV, the only nice thing about the hotel. There wasn’t even any little local places to eat or shops to look at outside, just a big concrete flyover and dusty, loud streets leading off the main highway to the airport. So I decided to eat in the hotel, with the German I met named Harold. We were the only two people in the hotel I think, well the only ones who ate in the overheated restaurant. It was my first Indian curry in India (I really love Indian food) and it was yum. I was a little nervous of my tummy and all the scary things that I heard could happen to it in India, but I ate everything anyway. One big plus about North India, its mainly vegetarian. We had a warm beer that the waiter had to fetch from somewhere hidden (there isn’t any alcohol in the restaurants in India, another good thing) and talked about Harold being the head chef in posh hotel in Germany and how he quit to travel in India.

It was a weird night of loud air-conditioning, people knocking at my door really late (why I don’t know, I didn’t answer) and shouts from some late arriving guests. I had to turn the air con on and off as it was too loud to sleep, and the tap dripped so loudly that my earplugs didn’t block them out. I was happy to get out of there at 4.30am and get the cab back to the airport. When booking the hotel room, after a very lengthy negotiation they said the return cab to the airport was included but when I got to the desk the new guy asked me to pay for it. If you’ve ever seen Blackadder II with Queenie, you’ll understand what I mean when I raised an eyebrow, swung on my heel and said a high pitched and unequivocal ‘NO’ and climbed in the taxi. It felt like everyone is trying to make a little extra cash from confused and overwhelmed foreigners, so hold your ground.

The flight to Leh was truly spectacular. It was on a clear, breathless morning arriving at around 6:30am. Around Delhi it’s completely flat, and then the hills start appearing and the ground looking more knobbly. And then, after around 40min, so suddenly it makes you catch your breath, the Himalayas begin. They are so high (some 7km high) that it feels like the plane has dropped a few thousand feet as the ground seems so much closer, but its only because the mountains are almost (it feels like) touching the bottom of the plane. Honestly one of the most exciting moments of my trip. Mountains! My heart leapt out my chest. 

The plane did so many turns as it came down to land after only an hour, and it was thrilling to see it weaving in and out of the mountains. It was a perfectly crisp, clear day in June and everything was visible... the lakes, the houses, the trees and every crease and fold of the mountains. The landscape was very arid with brown/grey rock, and it looked like we were landing on the moon. Many people refer to Ledakh as a ‘moonscape’. The towns were green with trees though, thanks to the hundreds of years of manmade irrigation that these industrious mountain people have cultivated. 

I got out the plane and it was crisp, a bit cold (so relieving after Delhi! ­) and the air thin and pure. The airport is tiny and looks like the waiting room of a small local bus station. There were armed police or soldiers patrolling, a reminder of some of the conflict in the area. There is a big army base here.

I had been dropped smack in the middle of the Indian Himalayas which I reminded myself of when walking out the airport. The mountains in this part of the world are majestic, immense, all absorbing, and they’re laid out all around you like a landscape painting conjured up in a dream. The highest road pass in the world is in here (5600m) around 1000m than the highest mountain in the Alps, Mont Blanc. If there’s any bad weather like fog or clouds, which there is a lot of, planes can’t access it as they can’t see the huge mountains that they could potentially slam into while making all the hair raising twists and turns when landing. The roads are practically cut into the side of the mountains and some are paved, but mainly it’s a carpet of rocks and ditches and boulders and insane twists and bends complimented by sheerest cliff drops on one side you’ve ever seen. They are often closed because of rain/snow/landslides. (More on the road to Manali to come later).

Leh is a town amongst all the moonscape, the biggest in this huge area. It was just starting to fill up with the foreign and Indian tourists wanting to escape the heat down South. I got there just before the heaving tourist season, and I was glad as usual because places off season are quieter, cheaper and more natural. I found a cute place called Peace Guesthouse which was smack in the centre but tucked away with a nice quiet garden. I decided to treat myself to a nice room with my own bathroom to help acclimatise to this brand new place and very high altitude. It cost Rs400 a night. 

Leh

Leh high street

They say you can’t do anything the first couple of days when you go straight up to high altitude (3500m) and they’re right, try running up the stairs or even walking up a hill it’s very difficult. I went straight to sleep when I got there at around 7am, got up and had something to eat and explored a bit, went back to sleep, got up again for another walk, then went back to sleep again. The first day I was there, it felt like four days because I kept on sleeping.  It was cold in the shade and nice and hot in the sun, and the light was very bright and crisp and the air just, well just glorious. I was in India but didn’t feel like ‘real’ India as it’s more similar to Nepal or Tibet in culture, scenery and religion.

Toward evening I was sitting in a cafe and saw a girl sitting alone at a table who looked interesting and I felt like a chat, so I went over to her. Her name is Tamar, from Isreal and just out the army where she worked as a journalist. I was soon to find out that there were thousands of Isreali’s travelling in India, especially in this area. I had no idea that so many of them travelled here, I was told that after the army it’s where the mostly travel to. Tamar was doing some seriously hardcore travelling (way more hardcore than me) exploring villages in remote India where she didn’t come across another English speaker or foreigner for days at a time on her own, and hitching rides from the crazy Indian trucks, she hitch hiked with two friends from Kashmir to Leh way up North. I was really glad I decided to talk to her, cool chick like mad! We had dinner at the Chinese Bowl on Changspa Road (good, cheap food and the place I ended up eating at the most in Leh) and she explained to me the Indian dishes and teas, it was still only my second day in India although because of lack of sleep and how long it took to get there it felt like ten. Her friends that she was travelling with joined us; Max from Germany and Jim from New Zealand.

Tamar, Jim, Max

I wanted to go on a trek for a few days into the mountains, but didn’t want an organised tour or to pay for an expensive guide (ballpark charge for them around Rs2000 a day). I wanted to go off with some good people who kind of had a good idea on the area and were confident just heading into the mountains, and who knew the practical stuff we needed and stuff like transport. I felt like going a proper adventure into the wilderness. I asked Tamar and her friends if they knew anyone doing something like that in the coming days, and she told me about Avi, also Isreali, who was planning something. I met him that night, he seemed pretty hazy about his plans but I really wanted the adventure so decided to go along, but had to wait a few days to get used to the altitude. So I spent the next couple of days with Tamar going to some morning yoga classes, climbing up to the monuments dotted around the mountains and having some walks around town.

Walking up to the fort

Kids playing football

Lots of spiritual books at the yoga centre

Leh really was different to everywhere else I’d been. I don’t know if it was being in India, being in such high mountains, the air being so different and the culture but I felt renewed, my head felt clearer and I felt very calm there. Alcohol isn’t widely available, you can get it but it’s very expensive. So you just drink tea, yum masala chai or fresh mint or fresh ginger and lemon. 

It really cleans you out. And the food is so good, Indian food has always been a favourite and you can walk into any local dabba (food stand or small room with chairs and a stove) and eat like a king for nothing, less than £1. All vegetarian, all fresh. Soft floury roti’s made over a hot stove straight on the heat that melt in your mouth, vegetable thali’s with delicious healthy dahl, spicy potato curry, juicy flavoursome samosas.  You can still find Western style restaurants that aren’t that expensive, but the best food is where the locals are. Just ignore everything that you wouldn’t see eating out in the West (dirt is your friend) and tuck in. I ate at plenty of dabbas and didn’t get sick once, besides also drinking out of rivers and river pipes in the Ledakh Himalayas, the water there must be cleaner than in London although I think I was lucky with a hardened stomach not to get at all sick.

After around four days I was very ready to go on a trek. I had acclimatised and felt really good, super healthy and energetic and anxious to get out into the mountains. Tamar told me she remembered another Israeli friend of hers, Ido, talking about a remote village that he’d seen briefly a few days before and that he was going again soon. It sounded more than perfect for me, so she sent him a message. I had met another traveller, Vincent who was French Canadian, who wanted to go on a trek too so that night we went out for some food. When Tamar arrived she walked up to us, but walked straight past us to the next table and laughed, Ido was sitting there with his father the whole time while we had been talking excitedly about the possibility of the trek and wondering if he would get back to me. So we joined tables and made the plans. I couldn’t have been happier, going to a remote village in the mountains a few hours trek from any road for a few days and not having to worry about anything as he had been there before and knew the way, and knew it was somewhere very beautiful and special. Lucky me!

The next day we met up and he introduced us to Gayla, a girl he had been volunteering with in Nepal who he had bumped into randomly and who wanted to come with us too. We bought some supplies like cashew nuts, dried fruit, a pot for making coffee. Ido had some real ground coffee that his dad had brought from Israel that was such a treat. It was fun to wander around the local markets looking for stuff. Even though Leh is quite touristic we still got some stares having tea with the local dudes at a chai shop in the local market area. We had a hearty breakfast the next morning, salty beans with thick chunky brown bread and coffee, and then set off in the rain to find the local bus station. It wasn’t hard, and we were straight on a friendly bumpy bus wet from rain but excited for an adventure.

Buying nuts

Hanging in the local marketplace

Gayla and Ido with chai

I’ve heard a few people refer to Ledakh as a ‘moonscape’ and it really is. Its mountain desert, huge valleys and tall mountains and steep cliff faces with a river, and everything covered in stones a whole spectrum of greys and browns and even greens and blues. The vastness and scale of the place is something I’ve never seen before, just a continuous stretch of rock and river. The bus went on its windy route, going up and up and then twisting round and round, sticking to the river. Every village passed was a small green oasis made possible by century old irrigation canals, water that climbed up hills and around corners to feed the small rice paddies. In some places the road disappearing and becoming rocky ditches that the bus ploughed through. It made a short stop for chai drinking, and then it was off again along the mountain road, screeching to a halt every now again to let someone off into the rocky wilderness (where were they going? Not a house to be seen) or to pick people up. All the instructions to stop or go given by a secret language of whistles by the ‘conductor’ to the driver.

We bumped and twisted for a few hours, ogling at the desert mountain scenery. Eventually Ido saw the bridge we had to go across and so we got the guy to whistle, and piled out onto the road excitedly. There were workers all along the road, painstakingly breaking up the big rocks fallen on the road from landslides. The bridge didn’t look like it was leading anywhere except towards a mountain side, but there was a small crack that we made our way towards, and there was a barely noticeable rocky path, with another tiny bamboo bridge over a fast flowing mountain river. We waved goodbye to civilisation and began our trek to the village.

The path was used by the village people and so was well maintained, with bridges old and new over all the furious little streams that were flowing towards the big river behind us. The snow was melting now, and it was starting to be raining season so this was the time for them to really flow. It was a beautiful walk, in between the multicoloured rocky cliffs. It was all rock and river except every now and again there was a bright green glade with summer flowers blooming. Every step took us away from the road, and it felt great. There was no road through here; the path of a couple of hours was the only way there. You could imagine the village people in this area carrying absolutely everything they needed a few hours on their backs. 

While walking we saw a small stooped granny in the distance, but she caught up to us in no time. She was dressed traditionally but had trainers on, and offered to carry our bags for us when she saw us huffing! She went on in front and called out to us every so often to make sure we were okay and could keep up. After climbing a few stone stairs we found what we were looking for, a valley opened up and we were in honestly the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my life.

First view of the village and house we would stay in

The granny invited us in for tea, she had done the same thing in for Ido when he came with his father a few days before. She was a feisty bright spark, strong and bustling around. She gave us some tea and homemade chunks of bread and biscuits, and even though she couldn’t speak hardly any English she entertained us until she clearly had enough, and told us abruptly but sweetly that it was time for us to go. So funny. 

The wonderful granny who invited us for tea - Ido's pic

We knew there was one house in the village that had been trained or certified to host guests, and we set off to find it. It had started to rain by this time and it had been a long journey, so when we saw the house and a small elderly man standing outside it we couldn’t wait to get inside. He ushered us in to this beautifully simple, comfortable, traditional mountain home, into a room with four mats along the walls, some small tables and some thick comfy blankets. We could not have been happier to go into this cosy small room in this home in a village in the middle of the mountains. He smiled at us and came to investigate us even though he couldn’t speak English, and when his daughter came home she stuck her head in the door, ‘Julay Julay!’ (Welcome), and quickly went out in a bustle to pick veggies from the garden while her elderly (who I named Papa) father went out to chop wood for the stove.

The house

Papa cutting wood

Investigating my ukulele

I’m not sure how many people just turn up out of the blue like we did, but from what we could find out with limited English is that it was around ten people that year. There had been a woman there called Cynthia who was a bit of a legend. From what we could glean, she had showed up on her own in winter and had stayed a few weeks, in a tent on the mountain side. I’m not sure what she did there for a few weeks, but it seemed that all the villagers knew her and spoke of her. She had brought small gifts for them like thick socks, and every now again we’d point at something and they’d say ‘Cynthia!’. We spent that first afternoon huddled in the room away from the cold and rain, and then were called into the main living room for supper. They had made us an delicious meal of momos, freshly made. The room was big and warm and on one side there were shelves of shiny cooking pots, and a wood stove that warmed everything up and was the main cooking area. Along the sides there was a seating ledge, and Papa had made himself a comfortable corner with a table, his book and glasses and prayer wheel, which he concentrated on after we ate.

Pulma cooking in the main room, with old fireplace

Sitting, Papa in the left corner

They were so sweet and friendly with the small amount of English they knew. They welcomed us into their home with no reservations, and even though this was clearly an income source for them there was no discussion of money, charges, or any other questions at all for that matter. It was the most trusting, inviting thing I had witnessed yet on my travels. The daughter (I think her name was Pulma) was always busy with cooking or making chibattis (flat round bread) or doing something in the garden, and Papa was learning English from a battered ‘English/Ledakhi book which I read a few passages out of, and tried to communicate through the book by pointing at the translations of phrases like ‘you have a very nice home’ or trying to speak the phonetic translations of the Ledakhi. That night we went to our cosy room, all very happy to be in such a special place. When each of us went up to use the toilet, we all came down with the same happy exclamations. It was a traditionally Ledakhi toilet, in the open air on the roof. Just a hole in the floor, a spade and some composting dirt all in the open air, getting some fresh breeze on your bits!

Our toilet

The next morning on waking up we were able to view the full beauty of the village in the bright sunlight. There were only around thirty residents, and we counted about ten houses. They were set in the valley up slopes, each with their own patch of bright green barley growing on rice paddy ledges, with the beautiful sparkling clean mountain river flowing through. We explored the place, waving and shouting ‘Julay’ to anyone we saw. They were very interested in us, and the only two small children we saw in the whole place were too scared to come out the front door to inspect us. It felt as if we had wandered into a time machine and come out in a Himalayan village of 200 years ago. There was no electricity, no running water, no roads or machines at all that we could see. The farming was done by hand, as was any other labouring, including carrying heavy rocks to make irrigation channels and build walls. We saw old ladies carrying huge loads of rocks in baskets held by ropes across their forehead. We wandered around the village in bliss, in awe. No sign of modern civilisation to be seen. It was like we had found Shangri La.

We spent four wonderful days there, climbing the surrounding mountains and walking into the deserted valley, where every now and again we’d bump into a cattle herder or little old ladies outside their mountain houses, tending to the tiny goats. The valley was a green oasis, surrounded by big brown rocky mountains. At night we’d sit on the roof of the house, staring at the immense number of bright starts, it was like stars had been spray painted across the sky, making it a silver blanket instead of the sparse hazy specks you get in cities and towns. All the village people popped their heads in to inspect us; it was clearly an event to have four foreigners in their tiny community. They all tried to talk to us as much as they could with small amounts of English, although it usually ended up as ‘Julay Julay!’ from both sides.

Village neighbour sticking his head in the window to investigate the foreigners

I drank water straight out of the pipe coming from the stream, and it was delicious and clean and I didn’t feel the faintest bit ill. The other’s had purification tablets which is usually a good idea. I also had my filtering straw which meant that when we went for walks I could drink straight out the river, although I’m not sure I needed it.

One afternoon Ido, Vincent and I climbed to up one of the mountains overlooking the village and the view nearly almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. We did a bit of slightly hair raising climbing too, actual Spiderman moves up vertical rocks until we got to a point where we couldn’t really carry on, plus the way down looked slightly more scary (it’s easier to go up than down when its near vertical) and so we reluctantly climbed back down again. It was such exhilarating fun, I will never forget it.

The best view of the village after our big climb

Every day Pulma made us a totally different, absolutely fresh and delicious vegetarian meal for breakfast lunch and dinner, I wish I could remember the names but after those four days I felt healthier than I had in years. Gayla also had a ukulele with her almost exactly like mine, and we learnt some songs together like The Fleet Foxes which have been stuck in my head ever since. We had to bath in the river one hot afternoon, the water was freezing and clean and makes you feel more fresh and awake than you’ve ever felt. One night after dinner, Pulma put some music on her phone and we did some dancing around the candlelit room, Pulma and I and then Vince breaking out his ballroom moves. They had friends staying with them one night too, a Nepali couple that had come to Ledakh to work. Papa would always sit in his corner, spinning his prayer wheel and learning English out his book. Every now and again I’d read along with him and tried communicating small bits of conversation through the book, and he would always break out in his cute chuckles, grinning serenely at us all.

Walking in the amazing valley, reading, playing music, going outside in the pitch blackness to look at the stars and feeling lost from the modern world and detached from civilisation completely, words cannot describe the happiness. When it was time to leave, they still didn’t even mention money. We ended up giving them Rs1000 each, which I think was quite a lot for them but really was hardly anything for us. The experience and what they gave us was worth ten times more than any five star hotel in any resort in the world as far as I’m concerned. The granny we met on the first day insisted we went to her house on the way out the village for some tea, and even gave us a little goodbye dance with some music she put on. Her son worked in a company in Africa I think, and had a new wife and baby. She told us he was going to visit very soon.

We were all very sad to leave, and I definitely left a big chunk of my heart there. A pure, beautiful place. I’ll never, ever forget it. On the way walking back, we stopped in a glade for some coffee out Ido’s pot, and the valley filled with goats, cows and sheep. The family shepherding them waved us goodbye. Getting to the bridge where we saw the road was hard... people! Civilisation! We waited for a bus in a small cafe on the roadside, drinking sugar laced Mountain Dew. Then, who do you think appeared waiting for the same bus? Papa! He was heading to Leh a few hours away to go to the doctor for his bad knee. We sat with him until a packed bus appeared, and he bustled inside followed by Gayla, while three of us were told to go on top of the roof of the bus with all the bags and packages and teenage boys. Okay! Such a crazy awesome ride back, the bus twisting and winding around the epic mountain passes with fresh wind in our faces and a brilliant view of the mountain scenery. The boys there all thought it was hilarious that I was on the top bus, and eventually stopped looking and settled down to get as comfortable as they could amongst all the packages. At one point, some villagers hailed the bus and started hurtling huge baskets and packages on top, as well as a big metal ladder with a huge metal spike sticking out the bottom, inches from our heads. We had to clutch onto the ladder and put my bag under the spike in case it jolted over a pothole and speared us. In this way we went the few hours to Leh, and just outside the town the conductor made us get off the top ( I guess it was illegal) and squeeze, literally squeeze all our internal organs, into an already packed bus. The top is definitely the better place to be.

Top of the bus

Papa got off and gave one more handshake and chuckle, and then was gone. He really did touch my heart, the sweet man.

Papa and I

Back in Leh, we found that the place was filling up with more tourists because it was getting to high season. We searched and found a guesthouse with a balcony view, and stayed there two nights. The plan was to go south to Manali, and Ido, Gayla and I were going to splash out and get a private jeep. It was a long journey through the second highest mountain pass in the world, and we really didn’t have time for the arduous local bus ride of more than twenty three hours.  

Thank you Ledakh and the Himalayas for one of the most memorable and inspiring experiences of my trip. The people, the landscape, the food, the altitude, the air, all of it sublime. Time for one of the most epic, overland road mountain journeys ever. To Manali...

Here are the pictures, they are really worth looking at.