The Rural Life in Ladakh Region, Jammu & Kashmir, India

Everyone knows that Leh is a landlocked, peerless and peculiar capital of Ladakh region. Like the land itself, the people of Ladakh are quite different from the rest of India. The faces and the physiques of Ladakhis, and the clothes they wear are quite resembling those of Tibet and Central Asia. They are hard and tough akin to the rugged mountains which surround their dwellings yet very soft and plain at heart. On the tailing of our journey, we explored some fascinating rural places in Leh region despite road condition was quite bad.

Spituk was another interesting monastery, on the top of the hill near Indus about 18km from Leh town. It offered a commanding view of Indus. It was constructed in a series of tiers with courtyard and steps.  The view from hill hop was quite fascinating and spellbound. After intense exploration, we headed Stok monastery, located 20km from Leh town. While traveling, we observed that countryside was more beautiful and cleaner than a town. I was fascinated by the mountains, clouds and nature. The entrance of Verandah was adorned with colorful murals of guardians of four directions.  There is a central throne inside the stok Monastery which has been reserved for Dalai Lama and the one is its right is for the head lama of Stok.

At the end of the day, we reached Thikshey Monastery, one of the largest Monasteries in Jammu and Kashmir which is located 18km from Leh town. It is referred as “Mini Potala Palace” since it resembles “Potala Modeled palace” in Lhasa, Tibet. It is a massive twelve storey monastery complex with a number of stupas, statues, thankas and wall paintings. The view of Thiskhey Monastery from Stanka Gompa was beautiful and speechless for a moment since dusk light from the horizon percolated into the mountains. The route to Thikshey monastery is closed in between November and February due to snowfall.The rest of evening was well spent at Shanti stupa despite cold air was hitting hard. We concluded our day with Ladakhi chai after a long day!

 

An article and photographs by Srivatsan Sankaran. All images are copyright protected.