Journey to Alchi

Early in the morning as the group was asleep, I and Ria were the only early risers. Preeti was also asleep probably tired because of yesterday evening’s outing at Nubra valley dunes. Karan was as usual ready, cleaning the vehicle. Karan had told us of a monastery which was quite old and on the top of a hill nearby, not very far away. Both of us decided that we will walk to the monastery and ask Karan to reach there later to pick us up while returning. After all it gave us another opportunity to be together, as we started hand in hand towards the monastery.

This one was located at the top of the hill and from the view it looked as if a structure has been hanging on a sharp cliff. It too us around 30 minutes to reach the monastery as we walked leisurely watching the flora and fauna around.

Once inside the monastery we found a completely different view. Because it was time for early morning prayer and all the monks were sitting inside the monastery hall with books written in Tibetan language. They were not chanting any mantras but mumbling in a tone which was barely audible to us. We asked a young monk standing outside if we could enter the hall, and he told us to go inside and sit in a corner till the prayers were over. Once the prayers were over,the monks ate something which looked like a bread and drank liquid from a bowl.

As all the monks stood up after eating and drinking, we went around the monastery looking at the rich collection of thanka paintings, each one worth a fortune. The monastery appeared quite old and had collection of many small objects used long back, neatly put in a glass enclosure.

Once through with visiting the monastery, Ria suggested we walk some more distance back and Karan can trail us. We told Karan, and his looks suggested that he was thinking of us as a crazy duo, because probably he did not understand the whole idea of calling him there, and then instead of boarding the vehicle, we decided to walk down again. He quickly recovered from his thoughts and told us that he would start 15 minutes later and wherever we felt the strain, we should wait there.

We started back and after around 200 meters, Ria wanted to go off the road, slightly lower to look at the scenic beauty of Nubra. We went down and stood on a cliff, a look at Ria, her flock of hair as unruly as ever, were covering her face giving a sexy look. She took off her jacket, as the sun was up and it became slightly warm, and I instantly told her that we did not carry a camera, hence a photo shoot was ruled out. I told her that if it was for other reasons, then I was quite fine with it.

She gave a solid pat on my shoulder, suggesting I should not expect too much. We stood there watching the beautiful small hamlet of Nubra nestled in the forest. It has been a beautiful journey together, I thought, as I put my hand on her shoulder. Almost 10 minutes passed as we talked about the journey till now and how much relishing it had been. With all the differences we made a dynamic group in general, with a good chemistry between two of us, as a pleasant exception.

Karan came after good 20 minutes, knowing fully the two individuals with whom he was dealing. We quickly reached the road as we heard the sound of the vehicle. We were back in time for the breakfast and the group was ready and engaged in another photo shoot.

After having breakfast, which was even better then the dinner last night, we started for our journey to our last destination in this journey, a small town called Alchi. It was not far off, and the road was good so we started at ease and reached Alchi by late evening. We had some booze and then after a quite dinner, came to our rooms.

We chatted for a couple of hours, wherein Neeru brought up the topic of me and Ria going early morning to the monastery and the whole group started taking out different meaning of the morning walk. Both of us were cool, as we thought it was of some entertainment value for the group to discuss us. Amit told us over dinner that next morning we had to go for a trek to local village. As we discussed after dinner, Ria’s energy being at all day low, and Preeti not seeing much value in rising early for a trek, We three decided that we will not go for the trek in the morning. This left Neeru and Sally for the village trek with Amit.