Leh, Ladakh, India

Day 5: Thiksey, Shey, Leh market

Part of the Ladakh 2017 Trip series

2017-09-17, 22:15, JASON

BUDGET, STAY: Tsetan Guest House

Today is Thorin's turn to experience the suffering that is altitude sickness. Kidneys feel tight. Diarrhea in the night. No headache, but generally a shitty feeling. But, as it goes, we muster up the strength to go through with today.

To get to Thiksey, a nearby monastery town, we first take a small shared taxi to a connecting town, and then to Thiksey itself. There's not much there but a big monastery, so we climb it for the next two hours under the pain of altitude sickness and sun. It's so much stronger up here, I don't know if it's due to the altitude. Cute things we saw along the way: a kid monk, a lady praying everywhere (we were following her), and your classic Tibetan wheels.

Afterwards, we went over to Shey which was another small monastery town. Before heading into the monastery, we grab lunch. Thorin had the runs so I gave him the wet wipes and he squatted and pooped in the restaurant lady's backyard. It was surreal: shitting in the Valley that was Shey. But it was oddly calming, he said. Something about looking out into the valley and the serenity helps you forget that you're shitting your bowels out. Both of our appetites weren't there, but these huge portions came out when we ordered. Being too polite, we tried our best to finish them. Had some Butter Milk Tea along the way, too. Not a huge fan. I think the sickness didn't help.

In Shey Palace itself, it wasn't too well preserved. It used to be the old capital of the Ladakh region but, since moving to Leh, the development has slowed. You climb to the top and view one room with Buddha, and that's pretty much it. We wait for one of these shared taxis to take us back to the transit point, and then to Leh. In total, we've spent about 6 or 7 hours out. Pictures describe Shey better than my words will.

When we got back to Leh, we had a snack in the market then went back to the dorm to rest.

I think we fell asleep or something -- really just not feeling it. But, again, we realized we were in freaking Leh so forced ourselves back out to the market to get some food.

At night, we come across a Northern Indian food restaurant whose owners are lovely. They come over, take our order, and we have probably some of the best food we've had thus far. Then, suddenly, the Israelis walk in.

Before I tell this story, let me preface. For some reason, there are a ton of Israelis in Leh. There are various signs in Hebrew that cater to them. Almost as disconcerting as all the Korean signs catering to the Korean tourists. I'm curious as to why certain tourist streams exist. Upon asking our hostel owner as to why, it seems that post-military, a lot of them like to come here to relax. But, it's weird that they treat it as some sort of Northern Indian Bali destination. And so, we're eating in our restaurant, when two Israelis walk in -- barefoot, mind you, which no one really does in Leh locally -- playing some loud music on a speaker. The restaurant's silence is broken with some loud psytrance of a thing, and they ask the owner for a seat. They ask in that entitled tone (you know the one), and after about 2 minutes of sitting and deliberating, leave. That's it.

Silence ensues again. The storeowner seems a bit annoyed at them, but nevermind, they're gone. In about 10 minutes, the two Israelis, still barefoot, come in again, this time with 5 more friends, who seemed to have found each other among the sea of (so many) other Israelis. They're still all very loud. Since we're sitting at a large table, they ask us politely if we can move to a smaller table so that all 7 of them can sit. OK, we say, and we shift.

I hate people that treat places like their stomping grounds.

But, that restaurant still had really good food. They're lemon tea, oddly enough, left a good impression. And, the boss was extremely apologetic to us. We told him not to worry at all, we get it. I think we became good friends, the owner and us, due to our common enemy -- the post-war brats. I think one of them even had a huge walking stick. Very "Walden"-esque. Nevermind. We weren't in the mood. Still recovering from the altitude.

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