(Many more pictures on Facebook)
Opted out of the tour programme for today and tomorrow, the last two full days in Leh. This means missing oout on the worlds highest motorable road, the Khardungla Pass (5578m) - which would have been a new personal altitude record (though only by 78m); the Samstaling Samemanling Monastery; a ride on a Bactrian camel; camping out overnight; a gala dinner; a market, and Chamba Monatery. Instead, I chose to pay about an extra £150 to pay for a replacement room to the one I am not using on the tour, and to hire a driver for two days, and miscellaneous other expenses; to have to wake at 04:45, and leave the hotel at 05:00 for a (very pleasent) 20 minute drive; spend an hour shivering in all the clothes I had with me in the pre-dawn cold; spend the next six hours in direct, unshaded Himalayan sunshine at altitude; be packed in a space so small that I was touching the person behind, to my left, and to my right, with only my little backpack separating me from the person in front; so tightly packed that change of position was virtually impossible; to walk to the car in the car park at 12:30 and get out of the car park only at 13:45, with the drive to the hotel getting me back at 14:15; all in preparation for doing exactly the same thing tomorrow.
It was SOOOO worthwhile, in order to hear the Dalai Lama teaching. I don't know how many people were there, though I made fairly good guesses that there were two - three thousand foreigners, about a thousand nuns and about two thousand monks. My guess of the total number of people there was between 30 and 80 thousand, with a belief that it was nearer the latter figure than the former. This was a fantastic day, though it was a little disconcerting to hear the translation start (I paraphrase) "As I was saying when I was last here, three years ago....."
