The morning after ... empty Kingfishers and a jerrycan that contained Chang.
Every gompa, every temple, every house has its walls surrounded by a wide barrier of branches and twigs arranged and covered with a layer of earth, usually painted red but occasionally left plain. Often a white, uneven circle is painted on. The circle is the Buddhist symbol for enlightenment.
A Journey in Ladakh - Andrew Harvey
I'm not sure what's worse, waking up with a headache from altitude sickness or from a chang and beer induced hangover. At 6:45 AM my day started with two paracetamol.
I'm sure there was a bridge here yesterday ...
The group had chosen to visit only one monastery instead of two in order to be back early in Leh. Things would however be very, very different from what we planned and we would experience what exceptional rainfall like we had yesterday and tonight would do with a country like Ladakh. After having breakfast we walked to the bridge over the river. Well, actually to the spot where a bridge used to be. The roaring river we had heard yesterday had completely washed away the bridge, making it impossible for the jeeps to cross the river. The only possible other option to reach Alchi, our planned destination, was to walk. And quite a walk it would be ...
I didn't mind the walking all that much, I sort of considered it a 'bonus trek', but while we crossed the footbridge to the other shore shortly after 9:00 AM it had already begun to rain again. It must have rained for about an hour, while I walked in front with Dadul, discussing all things chang and Buddhism.
Colourful Indian truck.
When the rain stopped we eventually came across a stream of swirling water that covered and blocked the road. The only possible thing to do was to take off our shoes and socks and wade through the ice-cold water to the other end. Further on down the road we would come across more landslides where mud and rocks had covered the whole width of the road, flowing down to the Indus below.
The weather was improving and after a long, long walk we reached Alchi well after noon and decided to have lunch at a restaurant before visiting the town’s famous temples. After soup and fried rice with vegetables it was almost 14:00 hours and time to go and see if the town's sights were worth the long walk. And they definitely were!
Alchi didn't have a gompa as we'd seen them before, but has four small temples that were founded in the 11th century by the Great Translator, Ringchen Zangpo, who had translated Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan.
Walking to Alchi.
In Alchi he had brought artists from Buddhist monasteries of Kashmir to create a series of stunning sculptures and murals for the four Choskhor Temples. We visited all four of them. Unfortunately taking photographs was forbidden inside, which was very understandable considering the historical value of the place. The first temple, the Sumrstek Temple, had countless of Buddha's painted on the wall and big wooden statues of Maitreya, Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri. The walls in the Vairocana Temple where decorated with beautiful mandalas in all sorts and shapes. It also contained an actual sand mandala, colourful and amazingly detailed. The Lotsa Temple had more mandala murals and the Manjushri Temple had a huge four-sided statue of this Buddha of Wisdom.
A new challenge ...
There were also several big chörtens near the temples which you could actually enter. Inside, there was another 'stupa inside a stupa' and more fine murals on walls and ceilings. Indeed, this was very different from what we'd seen before and well worth the four hour walk and ice-cold feet.
In the meantime, the jeeps of Nomadic Ways had been able to reach Alchi, which was a big relief. Getting stuck in this town of horny donkeys that were allowed to roam freely now that their season's work had been done, was not an attractive thought. At 15:00 hours we started the two hour drive back to Leh, only stopping at Nimmo where we had been before we started the trekking, for a cup of tea. Here we also met the crew that was driving back to Leh with six people on top of the jam-packed van. It certainly didn't dampen their spirits and again this proved how lucky we had been with this bunch.
Crossing the icecold stream.
Back at the hotel we were given back our old room and after taking a shower Judith and I went to Leh to drop of a bag of laundry at the environmental-friendly Dzomsa company and catch up on e-mail and upload the updates of the travel blog in a cyber cafe. After we had bought a present for Dadul we grabbed a quick soup and pizza at Il Forno since we had probably missed the group dinner. At ten we took a taxi back to the hotel and after doing some more writing it was time to go to sleep. Tomorrow we would have another highlight: the Tak Tok festival.
