My long awaited return to the Himalayas finally arrived last week when our plane touched down in Leh. This part of the Himalayas however, was extremely different compared to Nepal, where I spent some time hiking a few years back. The landscape was extremely arid and the conditions much more harsh. Anjali, Julie, and myself flew in to Leh last Friday from Delhi, and because of the extreme change in altitude (going from 560m in Pune to 3500m above sea level), we spent the day sleeping and walking around the bazaar and exploring the town trying not to exert ourselves too much. Leh itself is quite touristy, but we ended up arriving at the end of the tourist season as the winter was starting to arrive. This meant that the town wasn't overcrowded with tourists, and it often felt like we had the entire place to ourselves in the mountains.
After our first day, we all felt acclimatized, and we took a local bus to a nearby town called Thikse. After walking around asking locals where to find the bus (none of the buses have signs) we found the right bus and waited until it was as full as possible to finally leave to Thikse. Once we arrived we ended hiking up to the main attraction, the Thikse Gompa. It was an amazing view from the top, with Buddhist monks meditating throughout the monastery. This was one of the first times I could feel the effects of the altitude. Climbing even two steps left me out of breath most of the way up, it was a great feeling to push my body in this way for the first time, and the reward at the top was an amazing view. Afterwards, we decided to walk 5km to a nearby village called Shey, which had an amazing ruined palace. We hiked to the top and had another amazing view of the valley, and could even see the Thikse Gompa in the distance.
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| Thikse Gompa |
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| More views from Thikse |
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View on the way up to Thikse Gompa
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The highlight of the trip, was our third day when we went up the highest motorable road in the world to Khardung-La. After asking around Leh how to get up this road, I found out it was possible to bike down from the top on the road, I couldn't turn that opportunity! It ended up being one of the coolest things I have ever done. The combination of the extreme altitude, rough roads, incredible views, and that I was bombing down these roads on a bicycle was unreal. Many times when we reached a flat part on the road I was stand up as high as I could on the bike and it literally felt like I was flying through the mountains. It was an unreal feeling that I will never forget. Before the bike ride down, when we were at the top, I tried to climb a little bit higher, just to say I tried to climb at such a high altitude, but it was extremely difficult. Every step upwards was a challenge, trying to step on moving rocks, in snow up to my knees, and also the fact that I was having trouble breathing and things were getting a little blurry. Probably for the best, a military officer told me and another foreigner that we weren't allowed and we had to stop and head back down. Regardless it felt pretty amazing to be standing at the top of the highest road in the world.
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| Near The Top of Khardung-La |
The final day in Leh we woke up at 4:30am to hike up the the Shanti Stupa, 500 steps to the top, to watch the sunrise. We had the entire stupa to ourselves while watching the mountains light up from the sun. After a nap, I spent the rest of the day hiking up through the narrow winding streets of Leg to the hills surrounding Leh, and ended up finding a quiet area on a rock at the top of the highest point in Leh, away from any other tourist. I spent most of the afternoon there, reading and then watched the sunset.
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| Leh Palace & Gompa |
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| Hiking Up to the Palace |
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