So, I called up our travel manager and made changes to the plans, which happened without any extra cost. I had to pay for an extra day in my current hotel, as the Nubra valley stay couldn't be refunded due to the cancellation happening so close to booking date.
Anyway, with all technicalities taken care of, our day 2 started with plans to cover multiple major monasteries on the Leh-Kargil route. Our first stop was Alchi monastery. We rode on the same route as yesterday, but leaving behind the silent company of Zanskar after a while. As we went further and further, multi-coloured ranges of mountains greeted us in every turn, but always keeping a bit away. There were also these randomly constructed stupas or chortens - rustic, beautiful, pristine little pieces of Buddhist structure that reminded more about my innate spirituality, rather than a particular religion... and I loved them for it.
Just before reaching Alchi, we stopped at a nice scenic bridge over the Indus, decorated beautifully with Buddhist flags, for some quick pictures. And then there was, the Alchi monastery - an intimate complex of Buddhist houses and old temples, some dating back to 10th century. We walked up the narrow lane through a shop complex full of dazzling local souvenirs. The road ultimately landed us on the temple complex and a wind of exotic white rustic-ness blew me away. Stupas were everywhere around us, and not the small ones that we saw on route, but larger & more elaborate ones. A few of them even had beautiful ancient paintings of Gods on their ceilings.
With a very nominal entry fee, we entered the main temple & the Manjushri temple, through their beautifully hand-carved small wooden doors. I must outline here, that temples aren't my thing. Purely religious temples, specially the commercial ones do not attract me at all. But a temple with a historic side, a first-hand documentation of ancient architecture, is a completely different thing.
And this was the goldmine! The moment I walked inside, I froze in awe. Although the temple looked like a tall building, it looked way taller from inside, with the unusually high ceiling. There was a make-shift wooden corridor constituting the next floor, while the centre piece of the temple was a ensemble set of giant statues - depicting major forms of Buddhist gods. I took in the whole things for a few seconds, trying to wrap all of it around my head, and thinking where to focus - as every inch of the walls and whatever ceiling was visible, was filled with ancient paintings, that showed forms of their deities and depicted their popular fables. The statues themselves were rich in heritage & architecture - their colors, forms, posture, accessories, everything striking out even to a blind person! I was, in the truest sense of the word, overwhelmed.
I slowly walked around the statues, observing both the walls, and the statue, as keenly as possible, unbelievably excited at this completely new form of art & architecture I had never witnessed before... and thanked God for giving me the good sense to cancel the comparatively pointless Nubra valley trip, to make this happen! Honestly, after almost 2 years, I can't clearly remember the difference between the 3 temples I saw there, other than different deities being focussed on each... but what I can still recall is the sense of awe that never left, even after I left the temple yard.
However, I was upset at 2 things, that made me sad about the state of our country. The first one was the condition the temples were in. The earthen walls had multiple cracks around and woods looked weary & exhausted, as if the whole complex was just counting its days. Some of the beautiful wall paintings had washed away long ago, forcing artists to attempt restoration at portions, losing the style & vividness of the original art form, which I could clearly make out. The second reason, was some of my fellow tourists. This group of disrespectful youngsters, took a glance at the beautiful & delicate woodworks at the outer walls of the temple, casually commenting what was all the fuss about and that they had wasted their time coming here.
One of them even murmured the name of his God (I didn't mention his religion as it doesn't matter - no religion teaches disrespect), and reassured themselves, that this temple couldn't change their faith. I felt a sense of distaste taking over me, as I wondered, who forced them to come here in the first place. Also, how on earth could they dare to walk in someone else's temple, while believing this whole thing was an meaningless attempt to shake his belief system? How did these people even came to existence... how were they still living?
Anyway, we chose not to be around them and walked down the back road by the chanting wheels, towards a wide open area out back, a little over the banks of Indus. The refreshing wind quickly wiped my disdain away and we headed back to the souvenir shops. Bhavna valiantly negotiated with an equally brave lady shopkeeper, finally meeting midway to a satisfactory price for a set of nice little souvenirs - my favourite being the beautiful singing bowl and its resonating sound.
We bade adieu to Alchi, which was my favourite monastery of all that we visited during our trip... and we visited quite a few. Next on our itinerary was Likir monastery - a more commercial establishment, that even had it's monk school and also financially maintained the Alchi monastery. From far, Likir looked like a white fortress, unattainable, incorruptible. If Alchi was a demonstration of ancientness, Likir was of scale. The monastery complex consisted of long buildings and tall staircases. We walked up to the main temple yard, that contrasted beautifully against the purple sky above and wide green valley down.
As before, the walls of these temple buildings were also covered with paintings, but bigger and majorly focussing on stories & fables. We walked around observing wall paintings, the unique construction style of the buildings, the curious wood-works throughout most ceilings... and arrived at the famous Maitreya statue. We joined the awe-struck group of international tourists, admiring the beauty of the 23 feet tall golden statue. With the sun hidden behind the statue's head, it did look like the halo behind Him.
We walked over to the nice little monk school, at the end of the complex. A little kid greeted us, giving us water, beautifully carrying the austerity with his innocent aura. After giving a very humble donation to their camp, we walked into a local restaurant for lunch. Our driver suggested going to his village - Ney - next, which have its own little monastery, but more importantly, another large Maitreya statue, although not so popular. We always prefer listening to suggestions from locals, rather than going with the conventional tourist spots. We did the same here.
Ney is a beautiful lush little village in Sham valley, which we were glad to not miss. It was clearly not a tourists destination as there were no other tourists but us there. After riding on a narrow pass overlooking the village for some time, we descended into Ney and stopped near a monastery. It was a small monastery, mostly closed and devoid of human being. We assumed it was due to our odd timing. But this small monastery surprisingly had a huge Maitreya statue, similar to the one in Likir. According to our proud local friend, it was even taller than the one in Likir.
We spent some time admiring the statue and then went down. Our driver took us through the picturesque village, stopping in between to let us admire the beauty of it. We were bowled over... we almost started considering settling down there! The driver even borrowed at least a kilo of delicious local peaches for us, from a friend, which we would have had to pay 3-4 hundred bucks for in the Leh town. We couldn't thank his generosity enough.
As the afternoon became even more after than noon, we headed back to Leh. Our last request for the day was to stop at a nice un-crowded spot near upper Zanskar, where it's more rocky & shallow, so that we could dip our feet for relaxing time. He stopped at a perfect spot (cover image at the top) and we climbed down watching our steps. The chilly crystal water passing through the smooth rocks made our day. We sat there for a while enjoying the setting sun. 2 days had gone by just like that.