The walk through the remainder of the Markha Valley proved spectacular; rock walls rising high above the valley floor. Rocking my iPod the whole way from Hankar to Nimaling, because I hadn't listened to American music in a while, made me dance the whole 6 hours around mani walls and over the river and love every minute this beautiful walk offered.
The tent city of Nimaling at 4700m (15275 ft) is a chilly home for the night before the big pass, 5150m, the next day. Kang Yaze I and II, 6100m and 6400m, tower in the snowy clouds behind this beautiful and ever changing valley. This valley is also home to numerous sheppards. They and their flocks of sheep and goats numbering into the thousands arrive at sunset.
The pass and the weather made trouble for us but; atop, my prayer flags fly anew with hundreds of other prayer made for passers by. The steep down soon finds the clouds part and fields of beautiful flowers below. The weather ever changes here and is very dramatic, later the thunder shook my feet on the mountain side clinging trails. So fun and exciting!
After the snowy night and snowy, hazey hike out of Markha, we catch a ride and stop at Hemis monastery: the biggest monastery in Ladakh, also where the head Lama lives. The road up here winds and rounds paddocks and animals grazing, people working the small fields and the numerous mani walls and flagged gates and then the monastery appers between the rock walls of the Hemis valley revealing the gorgeous site of Hemis monastery.
And now we are back in Leh, I made a new funny friend and ventured high above the city to the Gompa Tsemo. After being out there in those mountains for a short stint, I long to be up high in the sky once more. I found it here on the prayer rock.
And here is the rooster. Inside. Where he can fight and flirt with himself in the mirrors. He is funny
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