Our final day on Leh was our second monastery hopping trip. We didn’t have too many places to drop by, so our day started pretty late. At around 10am, after a good breakfast, we started out on the same route as previous day. However, instead of getting up on the Chang La pass after about an hour, we took a right towards the famous Hemis monastery, passing over Indus.
Hemis was very different from the other monasteries just because of its locality. Most monasteries are built on hills or mountains. However, Hemis was cleverly built within the mountains, like magic tricks hidden in a magician’s sleeves. Even when we were just a few minutes away from Hemis, and the road didn’t seem to lead anywhere else, we weren’t able to see any signs of Hemis, but just another mountain. As we approached further through the curvy road, Hemis unfolded in front of our eyes, almost mystically, as if rewarding us for making the effort.
Interestingly enough, Hemis wasn’t a small complex at all, and may have been more spread out than Likir. It sure was better maintained than Likir, as the complex contained a huge living area for monks, giant prayer halls, and a larger-than-expected museum on history of Buddhism. The cemented inner courtyard was almost large enough for a professional football match.
We wandered around the prayer halls, with giant & colourful statues of Guru Rinpoche, Kal Bhairav and Maitreya, studying the exceptionally detailed murals on its walls – depicting various layers of society, circle of life etc. There was a staircase by the Guru Rinpoche prayer hall, which went up to the roof, connecting to the living area somewhere.
We walked up to the roof, finding ourselves at this great view of the Himalaya surrounding us from all sides. But more interestingly, we found another huge Buddha statue, a little away from our reach, at the peak of the mountain in front of us. There were small houses and viewpoints built, as part of the monastery complex, where people (fitter and more adventurous than us) seemed to trek up to, just to enjoy that exceptional view up close. We passed and came down.
I was especially curious for the museum as historical finds have always excited me. The museum didn’t disappoint me at all. There were hundreds of sculptures, medium, small & tiny, demonstrating varying range of art styles and different forms of popular deities in Buddhist culture, weapons, tools & clothing used in Buddhist culture, specially at this region, thangkas, murals… and much more.
We didn’t know much about Buddhism, except the fact that it originated from Gautam Buddha and was somewhat similar to Hinduism in its rituals, due to its origin. But we learned about the richness of this religion & culture here affectively, as we passed on from one display to another, traversing through centuries, in a way.
It was almost noon. So we came out of Hemis and headed for our next destination – Thiksay monastery. Luckily for us, all the monasteries we visited gave us a unique point to remember them by, and hence, none of them felt similar to us… or worth skipping. Thiksay was another beautifully placed monastery (cover image at the top), which obviously was a huge tourist attraction.
There were 2 different stair paths, which seemed to be leading to the main temple. Unfortunately for us, we took the one that lead us around it towards its back gate, which seemed to be permanently locked. However, this gave us a completely different view of the wide green valley down, which other tourists missed, as there was absolutely no reason for them to come here.
Anyway, we came back to the correct path, after catching our breath. The constantly upward path had chanting wheels placed on the wall throughout, letting tourists utilize their time while climbing up. Up in the final place, we were welcomed by a now-familiar sight of huge prayer halls with a large Maitreya statue. I had almost given up to find something new here, when the chanting started.
Bhavna ran towards it, as I slowly followed her, listening to this enthralling sound of a dozen monks humming their chant in a synchronous manner that would give anyone goose bumps. We hadn’t seen any real prayers happening in any of the monasteries we had visited so far, because of our consistently odd timing, so this was absolutely new for us. As I reached the 1st floor of the particular prayer hall, Bhavna rushed me to sit beside her, having already reserved her own place as if she belonged there. I sat there obediently while observing the carefully organized series of incenses, lamps and other items, as well as the 2 golden shrines that the prayer seemed to be directed to.
The chanting stopped in a bit and I left my wife in the room, who seemed to be really enjoying the whole thing, to take a peek at anything else I might have missed. And there it was. In the building’s ground floor, I found a wide wall shelf across the room, filled with small statues of various deities, kind of like a collector’s set. With no one nearby to explain what it was, I left with a couple of pictures of the room instead.
The sun was really high up now and our breakfast had long been digested. So we didn’t spend much more time there. We peeked into the souvenir shop near the exit of the complex, but didn’t find anything to expand our current collection… so we moved on.
Next on the itinerary was a place to eat… and the Rancho school. Originally named Druk Padma Karpo (White Lotus Dragon), the innovative school was popular for being the location where the final scenes of Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots. Sadly, the innovations the school implemented and encouraged its students towards, should have been the real reason for people to know it for. But at least this was giving them exposure… so be it.
Anyway, when we reached the school complex, we were too hungry to think about any of this and went straight to the Rancho café instead to fill our stomachs. Once settled, 2 senior girls from the school gave us a demonstration of the school’s mission, including the innovative engineering went into its construction. We followed one of them to their hostel campus and observed this DIY (do it yourself) culture of creating things which could cut a hole in your pockets if purchased traditionally, such as make-shift park equipments. Also among notables, the iconic peeing wall from the movie was wall-painted accordingly and I couldn’t resist taking a selfie there.
We were pretty tired by now, so we dropped our original plan of visiting Shey palace, and went straight to Leh town centre. After picking up some fresh fruit & a very rare Kesar, we went back to the hotel, while it was still daylight. Our journey had officially ended and we spent the rest of the time reminiscing.
We headed to the airport, with mixed emotions, as we knew our Leh visit would have to be continued again. We made some random plans, while on the flight, to do all the things we missed – stargazing at Diksit monastery, witnessing the Hemis festival and spending a day or two near the Tso Moriri lake, which is supposed to be even bigger & prettier than Pangong.
And what did we need for that to happen? Just another random spur-of-the-moment plan… and 4 days of leave. Yup, 4 days should do it.