First Days in Ladakh

Ladakh is one of those places everyone tells you that you are going to love, so I came here with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, but it has quickly fallen off. Ladakh is beautiful, Ladakh is interesting, Ladakh is seductive and it is comfortable. However, it is hard not to feel at least a little guilty about being here as one of the tourists who is rapidly changing Ladakh.
Leh is in a valley surrounded by mountains that don't look all that tall because the valley floor is already at 12,000 feet. But behind the first circle, one can see the tall Himalayas and they indeed to look tall. The valley is a desert with an ancient system of irrigation that keeps parts of it green. The rest of it looks rather like the bleaker parts of Nevada, except there are people here and the incredible mountains.
The first day here, I slept most of the day adjusting to the altitude.
The second day, I saw one stupa. I took what was supposed to be a short walk and extended it to see a stupa from either the 11th or 15th century. It is in ruins although the it has been surrounded by a modern retaining wall. I resisted clambering up the crumbling stairs and passageways in the upper part because I was alone and I didn't fancy spending the night with a broken leg there. It seemed like a haven for all sorts of creepy-crawly things.
Today, I saw two gompas as the Buddhist monasteries are called here. I was tempted to see a third, but decided that might be stretching it in my present condition. Tomorrow, I might be ready to see three of something. Or maybe not. My rule as a tourist is always to avoid seeing one thing a day. Today, I avoided seeing the palace. I walked up there to see a cultural performance that the owner of my guest house dances and sings in. The performance is just outside the palace so I am saving it for another day.
The palace is amazing it is 7 or 9 stories tall, attached to the palace. It was built about 30 years before the big monastery in Lhasa whose name is at my fingertips, but I can't produce. It climbs up the hill in the same fashion. I have a good view of it from my room at the guest house, but the side from the town is even better. I'll write more about the palace once I have seen it.
I saw my second gompa by accident. I was climbing up the rather steep hill to the palace when I heard drumming coming from the gompa and decided to take off my shoes and sit in the doorway and rest while I listened to the monk chanting. Eventually a young boy came up and sold me a Rs 20 ticket so I felt free to stay and wander around. The main room of this gompa is large, high and unadorned except for paintings of the thousand Buddhas on the walls, and a large gold statute in the center. Tibetan Buddhism is too complicated for me. There is an endless procession of Buddhas and other beings. I am not going to worry about it. I wasn't sure I was going to like gompas, but after seeing two, I think I do. I just don't want anyone to explain them to me right now. When I get home I might do some reading, but now I just want to sit and look and take the occasional picture.
The sky is very blue here. The clouds are very white. The sound of water is everywhere from the small channels of water running down from the snow melt to provide drinking water, washing water, and irrigation water. Yesterday morning, my landlord was watering his garden. He broke down the wall of the irrigation channel so that some of the water flowed into his garden and then by taking away a pile of dirt here and putting a pile of dirt here, he guided the water through channels in the garden until it was all water. I had read about this, but it was amazing to see. It is very simple and very effective.
It is not all ancient. I heard a power saw yesterday, something I never heard in India although I saw men sawing huge beams by resting them at 45 degree angles against a sawhorse and then slowing sawing down the middle from the top, a process that takes days. There is a lot of money now in Leh from all us tourists and and an amazing amount of building going on. I wonder where the sustainability point is. There is no longer any East and West. We are all now having to make the same choices about what we need, what we want and sustainability. My landlord is very concerned about his twin daughters and the other children in Ladakh. He teaches elementary school and he is afraid the culture might be lost in a generation.
I am more optimistic. There will be changes, but I suspect Ladakh is a place like Bali that will be able to sustain its culture while still entertaining hordes of tourists. However, Bali is geographically better situated to handle the onslaught.
Enough politics. Today for lunch I asked the men from Manali to make me dal, vegetables and rice. It was delicious. I had been missing that simple meal. In the evenings I have been having chicken biranyi which is really chicken fried rice. It is very sustaining and very good with whole cardamom pods in it -- o.k., it's not exactly chicken fried rice.