the guide
Several thoughts were running through my head as I pulled my rented scooter off to the side of the road some 20 kilometers outside the small mountainous village of Lamayuru. I was in desperate need of readjusting the torn pair of gloves I was wearing, and the thin blue ohm printed linen scarf I had purchased in Delhi was failing miserably to block any of the blistering winds which had attacked my face for the past eight grueling hours.
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The weather had taken a turn for the worse and my friend and I were in the middle of an early spring snowstorm. I was navigating hairpin turns on an icy road at some 4,000 odd meters in freezing temperatures on a rented 50cc scooter that had a blown clutch. As I stood there bruised and exposed to the freezing elements of the Himalayas, my mind and soul could not have been warmer for I had made it to Ladakh, and it was everything I dreamt it would be.
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Ladakh, India, is a sparsely populated mountainous area in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir tucked away high in the Himalayas. Ladakh is a land known for its remote beauty and culture. It is often called “Little Tibet” because the area is strongly influenced by the Tibetan culture and sits only a few kilometers away from the Tibetan border. I was drawn to Ladakh after reading first-hand accounts of an enchanting place where people live amongst the clouds, one of the highest inhabited locations on Earth. Villages cling to the sides of granite mountains like magnets, and an ancient culture of a long forgotten time still lives on. Ladakh is like many places in today’s world, suffering from the growing pains of an ever-encroaching Western world and the fight to carry on its rich culture.