woof woof woof.
woof woo-*THUNK*-yelp!
WOOOOF!!!!GROWWWL!!!WOOF!!WOOF!!
aaand i thought we were done for.
ladakh, and leh in particular, is known for its surreal lunar landscape (i thought more martian), its buddhist art and gompas ("more tibetan than tibet," they say), and the dazzlingly beautiful night sky. but when that stray got hit and the hundreds of strays leh exploded in a gnashing chorus of baritone growls and woofs, my mind was rather empty of anything but raw adrenaline and fear. getting torn asunder by a wild pack of non-family dogs is one thing, but i really didn't want that endless series of rabies shots.
luckily we were fairly close to our taxi when the unlucky stray was hit and the already dog-dominated night reached its grand finale. plus we had "dealt" with the dogs a week earlier when we 1st arrived.. by running back to our taxi and begging to be let inside for the night. this time we were armed with sticks and stones but chose flight over fight.
leh was beeeeeeeeautiful.. we saw half a dozen gompas around town and chilled out up at the shanti stupa which had a gorgeous view of the city and reminded me much of the peace pagoda back home. up around 11,500 feet, it definitely took a few days to adjust to the thin, thin air. a buddhist monk led a meditation class and told me to focus exquisitely on each natural breath, but i was practically panting.
we also went rafting on the indus until it met the zanskar, coming in from china and continued on to alchi, where we checked out a series of temples from the 11th century. the paintings inside were dark and ancient. the gold light beaming in from the occasional small rectangular holes lit up the dust and seemed to turn liquid/solid. in the temples there were small rooms barely large enough to hold the 25 foot richly colored statues of forms of the buddha.
other than that we drank lots of fresh apricot and sea buckthorn juice and ate a whole lot of tibetan food. the best meal, at Tibetan Kitchen, we went way overboard: chicken/corn soup, avocado mint tomato salad, veg. thukpa, boiled chicken momo, fried veg. momo, yamein garlic noodles, banana chocolate dessert and a big godfather beer from jammu.
our last night we had ladakhi tea at our guesthouse owner's home and met his mother and beautiful wife. yummy, buttery, salty tea in a room edged by many large, shiny, intricately made pitchers and serving bowls.
the 1 disappointment was that when we woke up at 4:30 a.m. and went to start the borrowed motorbike so we could ride to the tikse gompa for the morning prayer and music, it kept stalling. all day a buddhist monk smilingly kept trying to start it and had the same problem. turned out i got a fairly bad 24 bug and spent the day in bed getting over that anyway. lucky stars. room with a view.
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