On day two of The Boyfriend’s visit we skipped out of
the Delhi heat and headed up to the Himalayas, to the region of Ladakh. Those
of you who have seen my facebook album probably realize I can fill this page up
with a bazillion gorgeous pictures of the region, but I won’t do that
here. I’m just adding the below, which I think is a good representation
of how the area looks generally. (If you’re interested though, there are
100+ photos in the fb album!)
Being used to the rocky mountains I was a bit surprised to
find that this part of the Himalayas really looks like a bit of a barren
moonscape—except on valley floors bisected by rivers there is very little
greenery. I think I was expecting, I dunno—evergreen trees and
snow-capped mountains, but actually there was very little of that. Which is not
to say that the area isn’t visually stunning; it absolutely was but in a
somewhat unexpected way.
Something else that was unexpected for me was the military
presence in Ladakh due to the proximity of the Tibetan/Chinese border. There
are army bases and military folk everywhere and they take security very
seriously there. After I came back from my vacation I was joking with my
colleagues about it and said “I mean, c’mon. What are they
expecting? That the Chinese invade India through the Himalayas? That’s
crazytalk.” There was dead silence from my colleagues who all looked at
me like I was a nutter. “Um, yeah,” one of them said. “Like
they did in the Sino-Indian War.”
Oh right, that war. Yes, of course, naturally I
remember all about learning about the Sino-Indian war in my 8th
grade history class. (coughs, quickly changes the subject).*
Another surprising thing about Ladakh was the heavy Tibetan presence—in
a way the whole area seemed to market itself to tourists as an outpost of
Tibet. There were Tibetan jewelry markets, Tibetan restaurants, Tibetan
meditation centers, etc., No doubt Tibet is very cool, but we were in India, so
I found it interesting that, as a marketing tool “Tibet” seemed to
carry more cache than simply “Himalayan”.
Our hotel was awesome. We stayed in luxury yurts, which looked
like below and felt very snug and cozy in the chilly night air. There was also
a yoga yurt with teacher on call, flowers flowers everywhere, a gorgeous sunset
view, copious amounts of honey ginger lemon tea, a romantic (but communal)
dinner set-up, and an awesome owner who still hasn’t made me pay for our
stay. (I mean, I will pay. I’m getting around to it. Don’t
look at me that way, y’all). The Boyfriend was not crazy about the teensy
fruitfly-like bugs that enjoyed swimming in his water/juice/coffee and I will
admit that a power outage right as you go to take a hot shower is not ideal.
But all in all, it was a lovely place and we spent a lot of time chillaxing in
the hammocks (also we did NOT want to mess around with altitude sickness. I
learned my lesson in Cusco—absolutely NO exertion on day one in a high
altitude).
[Our luxury yurt]
[Sunset view from the yurt]
[Ahhhh, my favorite hammock]
The town of Leh we were less enamoured with—it seemed
to be pretty much tourist store after tourist store, though to be fair we were
only there for about 2 hours and didn’t venture much onto the backstreets.
But I think what people really come to Ladakh for is not the towns, but the
stark mountain views, the hiking (or motorbiking), and of course, the monasteries
. . .
*Actually, the end of that conversation with colleagues went
like this:
Kate: “Oh yeah. But can you imagine in China tried to
invade India now? That would be crazy.”
Colleague 1: “China would win. Nothing more to it”
Colleagues 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6: “Yup, China would win.”
Everyone goes back to eating their dal. 
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