A ONCE IN A LIFE TIME EXPERIENCE

It is 5am in the morning and we were all very excited adrellin running through our vains it won’t be long now and this once in a lifetime opportunity will begin. We walk out on to the tarmac after having identified our luggage (terrorist threat precautions) the smell of fuel and turbines winding up add to my rush of excitement. I am last to reach the gangway and as I reached the top I take one last glimpse of the surroundings before entering and taking my seat. The aircraft is quite new and we are all pleased about that as being in a third world country on an internal flight, it did have us pondering the possibilities beforehand.

View from roof top

On the way up to the palace.

View from palace window with polo field top left.

We have managed to rest for a few hours and some of us scramble up to our rooftop all feeling a little exhausted from what we could normally do with little effort. It is just amazing. We are all just blown away by the unbelievable views in all directions. a Directly above us and to the left is the old 6 th century palace,just sitting there on the side of the mountain. Its soft grey fawn colour blends into the background with its many eyes giving it life and a presence. To the left and right and above are small Buddhist temples, which leave one thinking about the difficulty and hardship that devotees must have endured to build them.

It is going to be hard to hold back on climbing up there until tomorrow, but we will have to as it’s not worth the risk. Except for the fact that there are modern day facilities like power, telephone, internet and cars we have been transported back in time. They say this community is the closest that you can get to being in Tibet 50 years ago; the farming and building traditions are still practiced as they were more than a thousand years ago. People still wear traditional clothing every day - you don’t have to go to a tourist attraction to find it. Just before sunset we can no longer lie about in our rooms and decide that a short walk through the town won’t hurt us. So we move slowly down the path where we were dropped off in the morning. The road is slightly up hill and we are all feeling the extra effort needed to get our bodies moving in such high altitude, but these feelings are soon lost in admiration of this old city as we move about and try to take it all in.

We are up early the next day only to find that some have already been out exploring the town and its surrounding areas for an hour or so. There is a small café cum bakery on our path, which sits right alongside a small flowing creek. We decide to have breakfast here and the menu is great. The owner is a Sikh who is married to a Nepalese. He seems to be a very gentle fellow. An irony since the Sikh are the warrior tribe of India. His son in-law seems to do all the waiting while he just sits and watches the day unfold and the people coming and going along the path. We all enjoy our breakfast and chat about our joy that no-one, at 3500 metres, yet has altitude sickness and about our intended climb up to the palace this morning. We find our way to the path that hopefully will lead us to the palace and gently move along at a slow pace as we are finding it a bit tough with the lack of oxygen. It looks like the climb could be about 250 to 300 metres but the seeming hardship is softened by the surrounding mountains, village houses and compounds for animals. Prayer flags flap from every rooftop way up beyond the palace stretching from one peak to another in vibrant reds, greens, blues, yellows and whites. We pause frequently along the way, I feel pleased with the progress that we have made as I look down, locate our rooftop and realise that we have really covered quite a distance.

We are at the entrance now and there is a small charge of 100 Rupees per person to get in. It appears that they are trying to restore the palace and keep it maintained. Maintenance is not usually a high priority in India and they have so much history here that I am quite pleased to see that someone is taking an interest in preserving their heritage and culture. Inside and it is hard to imagine how primitive it must have been all those years ago for the Kings of Ledhak. It’s empty now except for the monk who preforms the daily tantric rituals and fulfils the need of tradition to the Deities of the various Buddhist mandalas. The gompa (temple) within the palace is locked but with a few words of Tibetan, I manage to have the doors opened. We are swept away. It is just so old in here. Our jaws are hanging down around our navels. Fearice face masks hang on massive columns and look down at us. These masks would have been warn by the Lamas of old for thousands of years during the sacred dances that are preformed on special occasions. The many hand carved statues give one a feeling of a strong presence here along with the smell of incense and burning butter lamps, frescoes on the walls along with tangka’s hanging higher up and adorned with rich brocade.

The stairs to the higher levels are more like a broad ladder and quite uneven so we all have to take it carefully up and coming down. On the roof top now and the 360 degree view is breathtaking. We look down onto the capital city of Leh with its many buildings, green fields and rivers in what seems to be uninhabitable glacial wasteland. There is even a polo field. The Ladakies are very good horsemen and archers and take great pride in the seasonal festivals. Now looking up from the rooftop at the Buddhist gompas behind us we realise that they are even higher than what we had imagined. Should we go any higher today? We walk calmly up the zig-zag goat track to the Gompas up above, pausing every twenty metres or so to gaze at the view again and again.

Finally reached this small peak to the right of the Gompas where this mass of prayer flags which are attached to this large pole. I am overcome with emotion as they moved about with the wind. I felt like I was standing on top of Mount Everest. Spreading my arms out I drink it all in. It is just amazing this would have to be one of the best things I’ve experienced in my life. The feeling of peacefulness and silence is almost overwhelming. It takes you to another plain or dimension and I can understand why the great meditators of Tibet and India come to the Himalayas to find peace with their thoughts.