I awoke early with the sun this morning, getting out of bed at 5:30 so I could hop on a bike and make my way 20-km south of Leh to the Tiksey Monastery.
The monastery is acclaimed to be one of the most striking in Ladakh, built up along the side of a rocky crag that juts out from the mountains into the Indus River valley. Of course, the structure of the monastery doesn’t change with the time of day, so why bother getting up at 5:30? My hope was to catch the morning puja of the monks, which includes deep bellows from their Tibetan trumpets.
Arriving at the monastery I was definitely impressed by the complex. It resembled some of the ridge-top forts I had seen in Rajasthan, but because the buildings spilled down the side of the hill, barely holding onto the rock in some instances, the place was much more inviting. The scene was complemented by the resonant calls of the trumpets: the puja had started by the time I arrived and the reverential groans lumbered across the valley floor.
By the time I got to the monastery rooftop, the monks had just finished the last of their trumpet playing,
so all I could manage was a glimpse of their colorful ceremonial caps and crimson robes as they shuffled down to the main prayer hall. Still, arriving when I did I was between the early morning wave of tourists and the ones who would arrive after breakfast, and I was left to take in the panorama of the surrounding valley in solitude, accompanied only by the sounds of the continuing puja wafting up from the prayer hall below.
After about an hour I finally made my way out of the monastery and debated heading further south to another one at Chemrey. However, the prospect of adding another 50-km to my ride was daunting, especially since I didn’t know how well acclimatized I was to the altitude yet. Instead, I began pedaling up a dirt road leading into the mountains behind the monastery, but with no certain destination. About 3-km up I turned around and knew I had found my destination. I was in the midst of a rock strewn gap between two arms of the surrounding mountains with an unbroken view of the monastery to the right, the river valley directly ahead, and the Himalayas behind. The whole place was perfectly quiet, with no cars or other visitors around, so I found a comfortable rock to sit, relax and read.
After about 3 hours I felt incredibly refreshed and began my journey back up to Leh. Thankfully the ride from my rock to the main road was a 3-km decent charging through boulders with the monastery and river in view. The excitement of that ride, together with the monastery and unexpected calm of my rock made the subsequent 20-km uphill ride to Leh well worth it, even though I spent most of it inhaling the exhaust of the slow transport trucks that grinded their way along barely any faster than me.
