LADAKH THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER

Our guest blogger Sheila Kumar, copywriter-turned-journalist-turned writer (author of Kith and Kin), recounts through a series of frames, her visit to Ladakh — after 29 years. Drop by Sheila's blog Bindersfullawords. And now, over to Sheila....

All photographs by Sheila Kumar

Ladakh was my 'honeymoon posting'. I went there immediately after marriage, to join my Army officer husband who was then stationed in a remote area east of Leh town. At the time, it was just the Army and its kin milling around this fantastical moon desert, and Ladakh struck me with the force of a meteor. I drank in everything I saw around me, and promised myself I would be back. Twenty-nine years later, I was. The magic was intact.

 Minutes before a full moon rose in the Nubra valley 

Stok Kangri stands tall, as seen from atop the Shanti Stupa in Leh

Pangong Tso lies calm beyond the prayer stones

Ladakh's long and winding roads.

Buddhist nuns near Shey Palace

And everywhere, prayer flags that lift up the heart of  the traveller

Spotted at one of the many memorials to defence personnel who have died in the upper reaches...and a poem by Mary Frye, written in 1932. I read it with a lump in my throat.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there - I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints in snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
As you awake with morning's hush
I am the swift-up-flinging rush 
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there - I did not die.

Travellers Tips

1. Be patient, people in a hurry have no business in Ladakh.

2. Always go clockwise around a gompa.

3. Don't take photographs where it is explicitly forbidden to do so, like inside the gompas. The Ladakhi is a soft-hearted soul and doesn't know how to tick intrusive travellers off.

4. Be prepared for long and exceedingly uncomfortable road trips.

5. Fortify yourself against high altitude sickness.

6. Do your sight-seeing quietly.

7.Don't go shoving your camera into the faces of reluctant monks, nuns, farmers, householders, children.

8. Carry your own litter bag and carry your litter away, please.

9. Leave your 'road- raging' ways back home, it won't work on Ladakhi roads.

10. Please don't join a group that has hired a guide; hire your own guide.

11. Please don't pick up unfamiliar currency from the donation bowls at gompas for a closer look. Just not done.

13. Please don't touch anything in the gompas, be it the drum or cymbal or prayer books lying on the prayer tables. You wouldn't do it back in the temples of the plains, don't do it here. 

14. Don't let anyone (driver, guide, tour operator) rush you from place to place, Ladakh is best done at a measured pace.

15. Be good guests at Ladakhi homestays. This excludes rude behaviour, thoughtless demands, great (and grating) expectations. 

16. Women travelers, be prepared for quite the worst loo situations (dry loos are a bonus, here) you have encountered in a long time.