Tibetan Amchi and Shopping Day

On this chilly morning, we got up earlier to see the Amchi. An Amchi is someone who knows Tibetan medicine and here in Ladakh, they are particularly good at doing diagnosis by feeling you pulse. At ten past seven, the Amchi arrived together with our guide. She was very nice and Annetraud and I, who were there first, talked to her a bit. Her English is very good. Then we got started and Annetraud was brave enough to give away her arms first. She got the opportunity to get some medication against the altitude symptoms that she has.

Then it was my turn. The woman felt my pulse, asked some questions, felt it again, changed arms, changed arms again, asked again and after quite a long time she told me that I was completely healthy and didn’t need any medication. I was quite happy about that because in the end everyone except for me got some medication. In addition, the Amchi told me that I am taking the height more easily because I am younger and have more energy. Nice thing to hear!

We had breakfast after the Amchi’s visit because her diagnosis is better if you don’t eat anything first. Today we didn’t only have the good apricot jam again but also a sweet apricot juice, which was really good and tasted a bit like that you can buy in South Tyrol in those small glass bottles.

Annetraud and I are using our free day to do some shopping in Leh. It is exhausting to compare all the prices and that every shop keeper wants you to buy everything he has. You hear the same phrases over and over again: “I’m going home soon, so you get good price.”, “Morning costumers get good price.”, “If you want it, I make you a good price, Miss.”. But the good prices are still way to high and you first have to trade before you buy anything. I sometimes want the nice fixed and written prices back that we have in Europe...

So tomorrow we are leaving once again, this time it is going north, over the highest driveable pass into Nubra valley. This means no news for four days. :)

Polo match in Leh

The polo match was really interesting. We had good places to see the whole ground. At first we had to wait for quite a long time because some minister was arriving late and everyone waited for him. As soon as he was there, the game could start. Polo is actually very similar to soccer. The six players and one referee are riding, the ball is smaller and there is no outline at the sides, but you still have to score goals, you have line referees and a goal keeper. After a goal, the sides are changed immediately and the team that scored is allowed to take the ball until the middle line and start playing again. One game lasts two times 20 minutes and we left after the first half to have dinner.

After eating, Annetraud and I went into the Cybercafe and I uploaded all the blogs from the last days and checked the nearly 80 mails I got. The connection sometimes broke down and it took ages until I was finished and I hadn’t even started with the pictures yet...

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...

******
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!

Another monastery, the first nunnery and a hermitage

The flies woke me up today. They seem to like sitting in my face. We could have slept until 8.30 but I could only doze and from time to time shake my head or arms for the last one and a half hours.
We had breakfast in the garden of the hotel and it was the first traditional breakfast we got: Tsampa soup, sweet, Kiachl-like bread, normal bread and spicy potatoes. In addition we had a very good apricot jam, butter and, of course, tea and masala. I still stick to drinking Ovomaltine.
Our guide told us that today was more or less a relaxing day but in total we nevertheless walked a bit. Our first destination was the monastery of Tingmosgang, which is once again located on a hill. The walk up was steep and it was getting hot. I liked the fact that our two drivers joined us. When we arrived on top of the hill, we had a great view over the valley.

view from the monastery

The monastery was originally a palace for the king of western Ladakh. To one statue of the monastery there is an interesting story: it is told that the king once had a dream in which Avalokiteshvara told him to build a statue of him for Buddhist practicing people. The king wanted to obey but his Lama told him that this matter would handle itself. Some time later, the statue that is now in the shrine, appeared out of a fire cloud. Nobody knew where it came from and that’s why it is called the self-born statue. It shall have a wish-fulfilling power and many people, especially women who want to have children, come here to offer special prayers and to have their wishes fulfilled.
In the building next to that shrine, there is a seven meters high statue of Buddha Maitreya, the future Buddha.

the whish-fulfilling, self-born statue

We walked down on the other side of the hill and into a valley. At the end of the road, there was a hermitage. I don’t know how you imagine a hermitage but I can assure you that it looked completely different. It is a new temple that was inaugurated some years ago and is still not finished. We saw workers painting the windows and a fence. The temple itself was painted with very bright colors and it was strange to have new paintings after all those thousand year old, often half destroyed pictures. Inside, our guide explained the life of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.
The hermitage is part of the red head school and was built for monks, especially elderly ones, to come and practice meditation and find some peace. There is also a little cave in the mountain for one person to meditate.

not lonely or small at all!

In the shadow of the hermitage’s nice garden we had a short rest before walking down again. We stopped by a nunnery, where we got some tea. It was the first time I finished a whole cup of mint tea with black tea! The nuns were very friendly and offered cookies as well. There was not much to see in the nunnery, so we walked back to the hotel. It was very hot by now and I was afraid of getting sunburned, although I had used sunscreen on my arms twice. I’m quite happy now that I don’t have red arms, they are just a little bit warm. I should wear my long-sleeve shirt all the time when it is sunny...

We had lunch and then left the hotel again. There was no more program on the plan but our guide had the nice idea to visit a village in a near valley. After thirty minutes drive we reached it and walked around while we got explanations on how traditional villages look like. We also saw some secret tunnels which the villagers used to get water without being seen by invaders.

There are still many flies in our room although Annetraud already threw about 40 out of the window already. This is so annoying, you can’t imagine. -.-

Lamayuru monastery and walk through the moon landscape

It was the worst night since we arrived in Ladakh. I woke up again and again, first because it was rather hot in my room and later because I was cold without my blanket. So getting up at 6am was kinda hard...
After breakfast we packed out things together once again, said goodbye to the professor and left Alchi. It was a long drive to Lamayuru and we had some adventurous roads on the way. Near the village, there is a rock formation that is said to look like on the moon, but actually it looks more like in the west of the United States where I was in 2009. Nevertheless you’ll find a Moon Guest House, a Moon Land Hotel and all other possible things are called “moon”.

I have never been on the moon, but I don't expect it to look like this!

At the monastery we met some young monks who were playing in the courtyard and liked being photographed. We visited the assembly hall and our guide gave us some information about the history of this monastery. We saw a cave where the monks saved some statues from invaders who destroyed most of it except for that particular cave. Another important fact about Lamayuru is that the swastika symbol is told to have been first recorded there. This symbol looks like a right turning Hakenkreuz but actually it is much older and stands for the historical Buddha Shakyamuni.
Before leaving again, we turned lots of prayer wheels that were all around the monastery.

The cars brought us to the foot of the hill on which the monastery was built and from there we started our first long hike. Two group members didn’t join, so there were six of us. Our guide made us go slowly, which was very good because I would have run too fast.
It was the first time I used my new hiking sticks to go uphill and they were very handy. We walked through a dry valley again but we hardly noticed the missing water because we were taken aback by the changing rock formation all around us. There were yellow rocks and gray rocks, loose rocks and hard ones. We also saw lots of mountain goats in the distance. One and a half hours later we reached the Prinkiti-La, the lizard pass. It is about 3790 meters high and marked with a prayer flag. On the top, our guide surprised us with some cookies and KitKat which he had carried up for us to eat, which was really nice. Annetraud offered Mannerschnitten and it felt a bit like at home.

Annetraud and me at the Prinkiti-La

The walk down was not as bad as I had imagined it, because during the 550 meters, there were clouds and wind to make us feel less hot. We reached the cars after three hours and had lunch at a nice river which we crossed without our shoes on to enjoy the shade on the other side. We got luch boxes from the hotel which included toast, an egg, an apple, mango juice, a potato, a Milk Treat, cookies and one slice of cheese.
When we had finished, we picked up the two others, who were waiting in the next village, and drove all the way back and further to Tingmosgang. Here we had some tea before we got our rooms which are very comfortable. Maybe that’s because this village is called the richest in Ladakh.

In the afternoon we had spare time which I used to upload my pictures and to get some rest. Also, Annetraud and I did some yoga which was quite funny.
Dinner was not as good as in Alchi but that’s really hard to reach up to. We had buffet again and apricots as dessert.
Now the flies are really annoying me. They got in in the afternoon and now they are sssrrrring around and tickling my arms. Why is there a cow right in front of our window?

How many flies can you find on our room's ceiling?

Mangyu and Tsatsapuri temple near Alchi

In our hotel in Alchi, breakfast was better than in Leh. We had muesli and fruit, toast, apricot jam and egg omelets. Then we got into the jeeps again to drive to Mangyu, another monastery that is located in a valley that didn’t have any road leading to it until 14 years ago and where there is a bus that drives there once a week.
For our tour today, a professor from Austria who has been working in Ladakh as an architect, joined us and explained some things as well. In Mangyu we also met a young woman who was in charge of the renovation works that were currently being done. She explained that the most important thing of a monastery like the one here or any other building with paintings was the roof. If the roof leaks, the paintings get destroyed. She showed us some wooden parts which they had replaced and we saw people working in the temple.

Two were just making a new courtyard which would allow the water to flow down instead of into the temple.Inside we weren’t allowed to take any pictures because the paintings are very fragile.
We walked down the road we had come up with the jeeps. On our way we were fascinated by all the different rocks and mountain forms.
For lunch we had Italian and American food: really good french fries, maccaroni, spaghetti and vegetables. And after a short rest we had tea and then walked up the hill to see Tsatsapuri, a temple that is somehow a secret tip. It is a private building and therefore we were allowed to take as many pictures as we wanted. We saw many beautiful paintings and some rare mandalas. One was not symmetrical but had five smaller mandalas in the middle which represented the five forms of the Buddha. Another mandala had eight entrances instead of the typical four.

A very rare mandala

On our way down we met some sheep and cows that were running around freely.

Now lunch and tomorrow we ware getting up early to avoid the midday sun when hiking.

Likir monastery and Alchi

Earlier than in the past days we had breakfast. We packed our things together and our drivers put them into and onto the jeeps. Then we left Leh to drive west. For a long time we passed by military areas. There are 30 000 soldiers in Ladakh to defend the country against Pakistan and China who both occupied parts of the land. Our guide said that there is going on some kind of cold war between China and India because of that. To understand why China claims Ladakh, one must know that Ladakh agreed to accept the Dalai Lama as its religious leader. When China invaded Tibet, it thought that Ladakh also belonged to Tibet and therefore now to China.
While we drove, we sometimes passed diversions that leaded around parts of the street that were washed away with the flood last year. Now there are street workers (very often women, sometimes they even bring their kids) who build it up again.
One photo point we had was the joining of the Indus and Zanskar river. The latter freezes completely over in winter and people use it as a road to Leh.

The first monastery we visited was Likir. It is famous for its huge sitting Buddha statue. It was a pity that it is renovated at the moment and we couldn’t see its full beauty. In the courtyard of the monastery there were some of the oldest prayer wheels in Ladakh. They are still in use today (I turned them too :-) ). Inside the assembly hall, there was a seat reserved for the brother of the Dalai Lama who had been the leader of this monastery and some others. But after some time he decided to give up his life as a monk and lives a “normal life” since. He is working for his brother actually. The funny thing is that on his seat there is a picture of him as a boy because today he is not wearing the monk robe anymore.
Another explanation we got was about the wheel with deers on each side. The wheel symbolizes the whole Buddhist teaching while the deer remind the viewer of Buddha’s first teaching which he gave in a deer park.

We left the monastery and after some minutes of driving, we were left by the drivers and went on by foot. We walked down a dry valley which looked like an American canyon. It was very hot and there was hardly any shade to cool down. It took us approximately two hours to reach Saspol, a quite large village. There we met some children who just did the washing up. This was the liveliest village we saw so far.
The road to Alchi had some very bad parts but we eventually reached our destination. We had a really, really good lunch at the hotel and got our rooms that are more clean and nicer than those in Leh. But power seems to fail from time to time because we got a candle and matches too!

After a short rest, we met again to visit Alchi’s monastery. There are only four monks living here because when Likir was built, most moved there. But in this monastery there are some real treasures. There are statues of seven meters height and thousand year old paintings that cover all walls. One building resembles a 3D-mandala. Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to take any pictures inside, so I can’t share this amazing place with you. The photograph I took is from the inside of a stupa that also has the mandala style.
We again learned loads about Buddhism and I find it very complicated to differ between all those gods, buddhas, bodhisattvas, arias and siddhas. And the problem is that the same person can be painted in over 20 ways!

So now we’re looking forward to some more excellent food for dinner and then I’ll write some post cards. Finally. :)

Mask Dance and Hemis Monastery

Have you ever seen a real Buddhist Mask Dance? I guess you haven’t because they are practiced very rarely and even more seldom for tourists. We were among the lucky ones to be part of the Chhams/Mask Dance that took place during the Ladakh Festival. We left the hotel at 10am to get sitting places in the courtyard of the Ladakh Buddhist Association.

The Tung players

Before the real event started, there were Tung players (Tung is a horn similar to the alphorn) who called everyone to come. A woman told the audience in English that the monks that were going to perform the dance came from another monastery and that the Festival was very thankful that they had agreed join the event.

The program included several different dance sequences. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand much of their meaning although our guide did his best to explain. There was one dance where four masked monks represented the protection gods which you can find at the entry of every monastery. Another dancer cut something, I think it was tsampa, to symbolize the destroying of bad energy.

An interesting fact for everyone who likes to clap their hands: It is not common to applaud after Buddhist performances. Although the speaker said that after the first applause, some people didn’t get it and clapped their hands every time...

I filmed some parts of the dance, maybe I can upload it.

In our lunch break we went to a restaurant called Penguin where I had my first Momos. Momo is a traditional Tibetan dish that is similar to German Teigtaschen or Austrian Schlutzkrapfen or Kärntner Kasnudeln. It was really good.

From the office of our travel agency, we started our jeep journey to Hemis. It was quite a long drive and I got really hot because the sun was beaming right through the window. We passed some villages and monasteries which we will visit later.

Hemis is known as the richest monastery in Ladakh. This is because it was built hidden in a valley and therefore has never been found by invaders. In addition, lots of land belongs to Hemis and the farmers who grow crops there give a part of their harvest back to the monastery.

The monks in Hemis belong to the Red Head School, which is one of the most popular schools in Buddhism.

Our guide explained a lot about the philosophy of Buddhism and I tried to keep as much as possible by taking notes but still it is difficult to understand. I’ll tell you some of the things he told us about the wheel of life. This painting can be found at the entrance to every prayer hall. Maybe you have seen it before.

The wheel of life in Hemis

The parts of the wheel represent the following (starting from above, going clockwise): the world of gods, the world of humans, the ghost world, hell, the animal world and the world of demigods. The upper three are the happy part while the lower three stand for suffering and problems.
In the middle you can see a snake, a hen and a pig. Those are symbols for the three poisons: the snake is anger, hatred and ill-will, the pig is desire, and the pig ignorance and delusion. If one overcomes those poisons, they can be enlightened and go to paradise which is called nirvana.

We had a look at the statues in the prayer room and at the most famous statue of Hemis: the Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava. He was a Lama who was invited to bring Buddhism to Tibet and who is said to have had supernatural powers.

After visiting the museum of Hemis where they show some of their valuable objects like old statues, paintings or prayer rolls, we walked down the valley and were picked up by the jeeps again. Before we left, some of us had a small snack. I wanted to offer a snack to another group member when an old man came over and wanted one too. I would have given him one of the two in my hand but he just took both and left! Never mind, I had a third one and he was quite happy with his. :)

The trip back was interesting because our guide explained a bit as we passed by some sights. For example we drove past the Dalai Lama’s residence in Ladakh.

So tomorrow we are leaving Leh and I guess that I won’t have any Internet connection until we come back in four days.

4. September 2011