12th – The monasteries

Woke up with no headaches. Success!

This day was spent on a relaxing tour in the area where we drive around to see three major monasteries; Hemis, Thiksay and Shey. They were beautiful but otherwise classical in their appearance. Imagine an average Buddhist temple in the Himalayas, how it’s either perched on a top somewhere or almost molded into the side of a mountain, and you’re pretty much spot on with how these looked.

The interiors were beautifully painted with the usual Buddhist images. Some of the paintings were so detailed that you could keep looking at them for an extended time and keep seeing new small details popping up in the images.

On the way home from the monasteries we came through the area of the Kalachakra. People were now on their way home/back to their camps, and seeing most of 150.000 people leaving in one go was utter chaos. Massive traffic on small roads (apparently they had diverted the “wrong” direction traffic around and away so they could utilize the entire road for the one necessary direction), several close encounters, large amounts of honking, dust and heat (long live AC!) made it an interesting – or maybe even fun – experience to have had. But thank god it was only that one time we had such chaotic traffic to navigate.

Coming back we spent the rest of the afternoon in Leh before going to the hotel for dinner.

Tomorrow we will be leaving early to go to Khardung La at 5600m, which is the highest drivable pass in the world, to force some acclimatization. We will be going by cars up, but bikes will be brought with us which we will drive down back to the hotel. We will likely be back around lunch time, so hopefully that means we will have time to go out in the afternoon to see the last of the Kalachakra.

Hemis monastery.

Check out the details of the image!

This friendly fella (and his twin) was found at Thiksay monastery.

9 stupas with Thiksay monastery in the background.

Shey monastery.