7th July 2008 ~ Leh

We left the guest house early in the morning. The plan was to visit Thiksey monastery as it opens up in the morning.
By 6 we were already in the car driving towards Thiksey.

Thiksey Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Yellow Hat sect, located 18 km east of Leh (about 30-40 mins drive from the Leh city). It is noted for its resemblance to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, the former official seat of the Dalai Lamas. Thus, Thiksey Monastery is also known as Mini Potala. Monastery consists of eight Buddhist Shrines and about 250 resident Lamas. Standing on the picturesque top of a hillock, the monastery encloses numerous stupas, thangkas, statues, swords, wonderful wall paintings and a large pillar carved with Buddha’s ideas and preaching, all in a mammoth 12 storied building complex.

Our first glimpse of the Monastery

The motorable approach road from the valley passes through the east side of the Thiksey Monastery's main building.

Entrance gate with golden deer

Stairs leading to courtyard

Further up and we see prayer wheels

And pass by the beautiful gate before entering the courtyard

Courtyard with beautiful wall paintings

 

Yellow building is Assembly Hall.

View out from Assembly Hall entrance

Entrance

A wall at the entrance to the assembly hall depicts murals of the Tibetan calendar with the Bhavacakra, the Wheel of Life. This wheel has insignia images of a snake, a bird and a pig that signify ignorance, attachment, and aversion.

The center of the assembly hall has a seat for the Dalai Lama and to its right, for the head lama and to its left, another deity is pictured.

Behind this prayer hall is the small inner sanctum of the Buddha flanked by Bodhisattvas, Manjushri to the right and Maitreya to the left

Monk preparing for morning prayer, they have seven bowls with different offerings but on regular day they are filled with water.

Monk offering morning prayers

Exploring the monastery I ended up climbing the roof and the view out from there was beautiful.

One of the main points of interest is the Maitreya(future Buddha), a 15 metres (49 ft) high statue, the largest such statue in Ladakh, covering two stories of the building is deified in the monastery.

Maitreya Buddha is unusually portrayed as seated in the lotus position rather than his usual representations as standing or in a sitting posture on a high throne. As the largest Buddha statue deified in the monastery, it took four years to craft. It was made by the local artists under the master Nawang Tsering of the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (Leh) - in clay, gold paint and copper.

Monk reading by a window

The monastery complex has a number of white washed huts, which house the Lamas.

We spent a good three hours at the monastery before deciding to head back to Leh.
Last view of Monastery

We reached Leh back by breakfast time and we were hungry. We went to a place called Summer Harvest Tibetan restaurant. It was a nice cozy place that served us lovely food. We hogged on almost all possible dishes available on the menu, from momos, thupka to mushroom cheese pancakes.

After having our brunch we headed towards Hall of Fame. It is situated about 1km beyond the airport terminal on the Spituk-Kargil road. The Museum houses information related to Leh culture, way of life, history, vegetation and animals found in this part of the world. Among other things one finds information on Zorawar Singh, the dogra ruler and his battles with king of Ladakh and the advances his army made in China. The top floor houses guns and equipment that have been seized by the Indian Army during its skirmishes with Pakistan Army. On display here are seized guns, grenades, passports, documents etc. Another section has been dedicated to the Siachin area which has on display apparel and equipment used by the Indian Army in the region.

After spending good time at the museum we decided to head to Spituk monastery which was nearby.
View of Leh from Spituk Monastery

Spituk Monastery was founded by Od-de, the elder brother of Lha Lama Changchub Od in the 11th Century. Founded as a Red Hat institution, the monastery was taken over by the Yellow Hat sect in the 15th Century.

Spituk monastery is a home for 100 monks which reside inside the monastery.
This monastery has an image of kali which is unveiled once in a year at Spituk festival.

Where Kali mata statue resides, also it’s the only place where buddha and kali mata are together.

Monk near prayer wheel.

View of Airport from there.


After spending an hour’s time at Spituk we decided to go to Shanti Stupa. On the way we found these army men practicing Polo.

We spent a good half an hour watching them play. Nitin also made friends with two of them and they invited us to their room for tea. After having tea with them we headed to Shanti Stupa.

On distant mountains I could see - Namgyal Tsemo Gompa

And I had my first sight of shanti stupa. The location of Shanti Stupa is such that it is visible from all over Leh city.

Looking at that I thought - How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

Shanti Stupa at Changspa, just on the outskirts of Leh, was built by the Japanese Buddhist organization "The Japanese for World Peace" to celebrate 2,500 years of Buddhism, and was inaugurated by His Holiness Dalai Lama in 1985.

It is situated at a distance of about 5 km drive able road from the Leh city. One can even reach here by climbing 500 steps. I decided to take steps instead of sitting in the car. Started climbing the steps and after a while I could see the view down.

There were still a few more to go.

Even monks were enjoying the view

Shanti Stupa is built as a two level structure, a flight of stairs leads to the first level where a Dharmchakra (as in white strip of Indian national flag) with two deer on each side, features a central image of Lord Buddha in golden colour sitting on a platform turning the Dharmchakra wheel.

On the second level there are Buddha idols on all four sides. Buddha on the front.

On the other three sides each depicting the birth of Buddha, defeating of devils in meditation and death of Buddha along with many small images of meditating Buddha, all embossed in vibrant colours.

Sunrise and sunset are considered to provide the best views from Shanti Stupa. View from shanti stupa was really serene. No one could go away without spending some time to enjoy the view.

Amongst the crowd, yet alone finding solace within my soul

We spent time there till it was almost dark.

From here we headed towards the town for dinner and settled into a place called zen garden on changspa road. After dinner we were back at the guest house. I was excited for the next day, as we were going to traverse the world’s highest motorable road.

6^th July 2008 ~ Pangong Tso – Hamis – Leh

We were up and ready by 8am and left Pangong with a plan to visit Hemis Monastery on the way to Leh and rest in the evening. We were planning to have long drive the next day.

We saw these pashmina goats on the way. Don’t know what they were fighting for!!

Without many breaks we passed by Tangtse in an hour’s time.

The weather was cloudy and created an impression that it was still early in the morning, even though it was past 10am.

After a while the sun came out and the snow clad mountain peaks started glowing in its radiance.

The sun was in a playful mood playing hide and seek with the clouds. After a while felt that it’s going to rain.

And sure enough it started to drizzle. By 11.30am we reached Chang La pass. By then there was a small hail storm. And then we saw this group of bikers passing by.

The rain picked up and I decided to get into the confines of the car to save my camera. Took photo of Chang La Baba Temple while we passed by.

Nature has a chameleon way to change its colours and I witnessed a perfect example; Though it was still dark and raining, the distant mountain peaks were glimmering under an opening in the sky. While outside of the car Pradeep was trying to take a shot with Nitin holding an umbrella for him, I tried the same shot through the car window. Though the output was a little hazy thanks to water droplets on the glass but this keeps reminding me of an amazing experience.

We moved on further, passing by the group of bikers we met at Chang La Pass.

Saw this ladakhi lady enjoying changing shades of nature.

Throughout the day, the sky showed patches of opening up, but the overwhelming clouds ensured there was never a completely open sky. It stayed cloudy most part of the day but that allowed me to capture some amazing shots in various hues.

It is said - “Beyond the mountains there are mountains again....”

After Karu on the way to Hemis we found this beautiful structure amidst the rugged terrain.

Situated at the foothills of Indus at a distance of 45 km from Leh, the monastery has access to motorable roads. Travelling to Hemis monastery itself is a thrilling experience and the surroundings make the journey a memorable one.

We reached Hemis at around 2pm. We were greeted by this bunch of kids with amazing attitude. Few others were quite young. It’s a tradition that one boy from each family enters monkhood. Young boys come for other reasons as well. Sometimes a child is orphaned or a family can’t financially support all their children so one or more are taken in by the monastery.

Pradeep and Nitin got busy taking portraits of this guy, and I followed suit.

After spending a good 20-30 mins with them we decided to look out for food. We were hungry. We found a small canteen where rice, noodles and Manchurian was available. Ordered food and hogged in. After a full stomach we set out to explore.

Hemis Monastery is revered as the largest monastic institution in Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir in north India. The monastery has more than 200 branches with more than 1,000 monks in the Himalayan region. The Tibetan Buddhist monastery belongs to the Drukpa Lineage or the Dragon Order of Mahayana Buddhism. Gyalwang Drukpa, Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje founded Drukpa Linegae in the 13th century. King Sengge Namgyal re-established it in the 17th century.

Hemis Monastry is the wealthiest monastery in India and famous for its rich collection of ancient remnants like the statue of Buddha made of copper, stupas made of gold and silver. Monastery also has sacred Thangkas, murals and various artifacts.

It has an amazing double height structure

The Tibetan style architecture of the monastery is very colourful and attractive. It is divided into two parts – the assembly hall known as Dukhang and the temple which is called Tshogkhang. The huge courtyard of the monastery is also worth a visit. All the celebration and public functions are held here. Verandah is decorated with colourful wall paintings of Buddhist Kalchakra. It was lovely place and still those colours look so fresh.

Nitin made a friend of this guy who was there at the monastery. He was quite happy as Nitin gave him a camera to click a photo.

Apparently there are 500 resident monks here but there are only 30 to 40 present at any one time. The others are out in the villages, usually the home village, to be available to the people for teaching and support. Often they are considered the spiritual advisor of the village. Most of them do return if there is a visit by the head Lama or some other important dignitary. There is a wide age range of monks from about 6 to around 80 all dressed the same in their red robes.

It was almost five and we decided to head back towards Leh.

There was a bunch of kids playing near monastery and I couldn’t resist myself clicking

And we started our journey towards Leh passing by some scenic visuals.

I could just remember one song… “Country roads, take me home, To the place I belong”

The weather was amazing and I was happy looking at the way colours of the mountains were changing.

We reached Leh past 6pm and directly went to Alimjan guest house. After freshening up we went back to the market for dinner. We settled ourselves in II Forno. Ordered cheese chilly toast followed by pizza - this place was known for best pizzas in town. J. We retired for the day as tomorrow going to be long day.