Monday, August 24, 2009

Animals of Ladakh

Ladakh is home to many rare and hilarious animals, most of which are far less aggressive than your regular insane Indian Monkey or rabid dog.
Here is a photographic essay of animals we encountered in Ladakh. All I am missing is a picture of me on a Yak.

We saw rare puppies:
Very placid dogs:
Flirty cows:

Animals either locked out of or jailed within gompas:

Surprising trout:

And our favourites, donkeys. They are so cute, and numerous. In Leh there are many donkeys that have been retired from their professions in the manual labour fields yet have nowhere to go. So they just wander the streets eating rubbish and trying to avoid being hit by cars or trucks. So someone has set up the Donkey Sanctuary, where they have a lovely time standing in this dirt field. We took them some carrots and had a lovely afternoon.


Julaaay from Ladakh

Sincere apologies for the lateness of these first posts from overseas!

We've been in India for a month now. And we spent most of that time in Ladakh. Ladakh is famous for many things, like yaks, butter tea, gompas and lamas (of the religious variety), barley flavoured things, and crappy internet connections.



It is also the land of insane roads and passes - like this one, Kardung La, the highest motorable plass in the world! Yes we motored over it. On the other side of Kardung La is the beautiful Nubra Valley, but that deserves a post of its own a little later.


At 3600 metres, Leh - the capital of Ladakh - is breathtaking in more than one way. It took us about 5 days to recover from the sudden jump in altitude (we flew from Delhi to Leh in one go). We had headaches and sniffles and lethargy and would get puffed after about a two block walk uphill. Particularly distressing when 80 year old Ladakhi women race past you carrying loads of wheat or barley bigger than them.
We spent our time in Ladakh eating (thukpa, thantuk, tea, bread, and so, so many apricots), walking (trekking between villages), driving (cars, buses, motorbikes - some less succesfully than others) and hanging out at our second home, Norlakh restaurant. We ate here so many times they offered floor space for our sleeping bags. Ah, makes me hungry.

We are now in Manali, in beautiful Himachal Pradesh So lovely and green after dry deserty Ladakh (didn't we just leave a desert?). But still, the blog needs catching up on the Ladakh chapter so stay tuned for a few more.