about 100 meters from our hotel is the best restaurant in leh; tenzin dickeys! owned by the sweetest family you could encounter, and cheaper than almost anywhere else, a cosy, small restaurant offering authentic tibetan food from people who fled tibet and found a home in ladakh. every day we ate hot momos with their own spicy chilly sauce, great thukpa, tibetan noodle dishes, and listened to tenzins deep, warm laugh.
afternoons were predominantly spent visiting the gompas around leh, tikse, hemis, etc. all of them offered a beautiful photograph burnt into the mind. the gompas perched atop mountains or in the middle of huge valleys beside roaring rivers. we saw many in our week in leh. nights were spent on top of our guest house smoking and drinking beers while the tall, thin trees swayed above us, showering small leaves at times against a pale moon.
an old couple we met at tenzin dickeys used to tell us stories about their daughter going to the nubra valley and thinking it was the most special place on earth she had been. our curiousity was teased, and with a jeep hired between seamus and I, winslow and kat, we decided to spend a couple of days in the valley beyond the highest road in the world!!
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