Part 2: Lovely Leh!

On the evening of the second day, we struggled to drag ourselves out of bed and climb up to a viewpoint of the city to see the sunset—and wow, what a city it is! As I said before, Leh is at 3500 metres above sea level—it is in a desert plateau but the valley is irrigated thanks to the surrounding mountains—5, 6 and 7,000 metre Himalayan peaks that fill the sky in every direction. There are stupas, gompas and forts clinging to the hills...The city is placed in the nicest surroundings of any city I have ever been to—it is simply amazing (another great opportunity to google image search—Leh, India). The last few days have been filled with walking around Leh and taking in its beauty—through rural, stoned walled paths, cutting between farm houses, up to the Japanese Peace Stupa and to Leh palace and Tsemo fort, perched high on the hills above the town. This town is once again filled with Buddhist Monks and Tibetan people and has a much clamer atmosphere than the towns further south...Leh easily makes my top 5 cities and has redeemed itself for the hellish journey up here...

Yesterday, we went to a village called Stok, just under an hour bus ride away...it is a lovely rural town, much smaller than Leh...we walked through the streets and enjoyed the quiet that abandoned farm roads bring...we climbed another hill to a stupa for more breathtaking views over the valley and visited the Palace to learn about the dynasty that once ruled these parts...being such a rural community, there was no return bus until 6pm and we had seen all we came to see by 3ish so we quickly grabbed a bite (our choice of omlette, chapati or instant noodles! I had the first two, Brie had the latter) and we decided to walk! We ended up walking halfway to Leh, the first hour and a half a pleasant downhill stroll through beautiful farmland with a babling brook by our side, the last half an hour, through the not-yet irrigated desert, with a howling wind nearly blowing us sideways...but we finally made it to the main road and hopped a van back to Leh.