Lazy in Leh

Back home when I was looking at the map of India I noticed that right up in the north there was a place called Ladakh. I instantly decided to go there, the irony being that I decided to go because it is the name of one of my favourite brands of clothing. You can laugh, but I'll have the last one cause it is brilliant here!

Clauds and I hired a jeep and enjoyed the comfort of having the whole thing to ourselves for the 13 hour journey. Our last atempt at a shared jeep was the two of us jammed in the front next to the driver. My knees pushed against the dashboard and every time the driver changed gears, (and you can imagine how often that was climbing steep hills) I was slammed in the thigh and developed a nice oval bruise. So we went to the other extreme of having a car where we stretched out and slept. The drive through was amazing, (but of course) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Our hotel owner from Srinigar said it was like going to the moon, he was right. Kashmir is beautiful and green, Ladakh is striking and bare. There was a point driving high into the hills where it became so cold that it started to snow, we were right on top of the mountains and I had to get out to register with the army men. I came back looking like a human snowman. This country man, I sweat my body weight down south but I freeze my tatas off in the north.

I made an arse of myself talking to Claudia the next day, "You know, we were so high up in the mountains and it was so bloody cold it was like crossing the Himalayas!"
She looks at me for a moment, "It was the Himalayas" she says blandly.

That's what you get for using a clothing brand as your travelling compass.

Anyway we arrived in Leh, the main place in the Ladakh area, and I experienced two things that I have not experinced for quite some time. The need to shop and the need to eat. OK wait, anyone who knows me knows that the latter is a lie, I always want to eat. But the food here is bloody good, the coffee, the cakes and a whole host of Tibeten cuisine such as momos (dumplings). It is a nice change from Indian food, I do still love it but there is so much butter and grease in their meals that it was time for a break. I celebrated by having four meals on the first day, then it was onto shopping!

In one of the first junk shops that we stepped into we ran into Matt, an American with a wicked sense of humour and a passion for movies and TV. Poor Clauds spent the first night listening patiently and Matt and I spent hours throwing quotes back and forth to each other. It wasn't until the end of the night that we looked around and realised that we had scared all the other patrons away. Then this brilliant man showed us to what became our Mecca, a resturant that shows movies on a big screen as you sit around a fire eating, drinking and looking up to the mountains and an obscene amount of stars. I have to say that this is what I did for four days, eat, drink and be merry. I also spend a large amount of time sitting in the cafe called Booklovers eating cake and tea, laughing with the owner. But the big draw card is that he has the whole collection of Tintin comics!!!

So after four fun days with Matt we had to say adios as he scooted off to Delhi, Clauds and I realised that we have done nothing cultural in Leh at all. This was quickly remedied by climbing the mountain to see Leh Palace, Gompa and castle. The altitude nearly killed us, every 20 seconds we had to stop for two minutes to catch our breath. We had to constantly remind ourselves that it was the altitude and not the fact that we were fatties eating cake for the last five days that caused us to be so out of breath. Unbeknownst to us it was Sunday and everything was closed, Murphys Law. As we were making our way up to the castle Claudia and I laughed about the OH&S issues of this climb, one slip could send you sliding down the mountain. As we were laughing I stopped short as I realised I was face to face with a sheer rock that made it impossible to continue. As I looked back to Claudi with a bewildered look on my face I noticed that we had missed the hidden stairs that would lead us to the castle and instead followed the path of what I can only presume was a goat looking for a place to do its business. The climb down was a little tense, wouldn't you be tense if you had to backtrack down a non-existant path in Pumas that were cool but with no grip whatsoever?? Well at least we savoured the view, which was spectacular.

Now we are off to climb another hill to a Stupa, all this pain and exertion in the name of culture! It seems that Claud has picked up where Dave has left off, whenever we have to do excercise (which I never am too keen on) Clauds exclaims in her upbeat voice, "Well, at least it's good excercise!"

I waut till she looks away before I give her my death stare.

xoxo
Sim