Walking on an old caravan highway and driving back to Leh

Guess who woke me up this morning. Yes, it was the flies that were still in our room. Luckily, they stole me only five minutes of my sleep because we had breakfast at seven anyway. Yesterday afternoon there were many clouds in the sky and in the evening and at night it rained. The garden was still wet, so we had breakfast in the dining hall.
We left Tingmosgang as soon as possible and after a short drive, we were left by the drivers at the edge of a little village called Ang. We started walking on an old caravan highway that was used before the road was built, and although the sun was not shining directly on our heads, it was still very hot. At least it felt hot, my thermometer showed something like 24°C...

our shadows are hiking upwards

One and a half hours later we arrived at our first pass for today. It was 3880 meters high and again marked by prayer flags.
But now only half of our tour was done: we had to walk down into a valley and up again on the other side. I liked that I didn’t have any problems with the altitude. I just walked like I would at home. And the way down was short because I kept talking with a guy from our group and suddenly we were at the bottom. Going up was harder but not long at all.
We reached the second pass with 3815 meters altitude.

3815 meters above sealevel! :)

I was a bit astonished when I reached it because after you go up a steep slope, you don’t expect the pass to be more or less flat on the other side! After having a snack and taking some pictures, we walked down to Hemis Shukpachan, a village that is well known for its juniper trees. There, we walked through green grass and stepped over many little streams. Hemis Shukpachan is an oasis in the middle of a huge mountain desert that has hardly any water. We got lunch boxes and sat in the green to eat them. The things we didn’t want to eat we gave to a small boy who then was happy as a child is on Christmas.

Hemis Shukpachan is a green spot between gray mountains

In total, the four hour-tour was very nice, especially because the weather was not too hot and therefore good for hiking. I didn’t feel completely tired when we arrived and this is a good sign because today we were higher than at the last pass.

What awaited us now was a very long drive back to Leh. The drivers did a really great job because the roads often couldn’t be called roads. In addition to the bad street conditions, we had to wait at a building site. Traffic in India is easy. Nobody obeys the rules and the one with the biggest authority or loudest horn or whatever, wins. Our driver blows the horn at every opportunity: when he doesn’t see around a bend, when there are people on or by the street, when he overtakes and even when he wants to greet somebody. But this is necessary because nobody looks back when overtaking and blinkers aren’t used either...

We safely arrived in Leh and got rooms in our old hotel. Some got the same, we got another which looks the same as our old room. In the afternoon we are going to see a polo match that is set up because of the Ladakh Festival. I never saw a polo match before so this is going to be interesting...

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I changed the commentary option, if it doesn't work now, I have no idea what to do next.
You can see the picture books now, I had a wrong option there too...
Good night from Leh!