beside the indus river - around the indus valley.

on the 3rd or 4th day in leh, i had gotten over my high altitude take it slow meandering around the grounds of the guesthouse and exploring the quiet market of leh, most of it shuttered until the road from srinagar and from manali opened up in a couple weeks time.

so i rang the taxicab driver who picked me up from from the airport some days back and we drove to the hemis monastery (top three snaps), which sits at one of the entrances to the hemis high altitude national park. this place is apparently one of the best locales to see snow leopards and late winter/early spring is the time to do it, though one definitely needs to be rugged in order to camp out for a week or two on the low, cold cold nights, binoculars in the day, hoping to spot one of those elusive cats.

from there stopped for ladakhi thukpa soup with momos, mmm, and then we stopped by the thiksey monastery, high on a windswept spit of rock and the shey palace too, about ten kms outside of leh.  all these monasteries sit in the beautiful indus valley and are along the indus river, at least at the time of year i visited, still quite brown with mere small hints of spring around the corner...

some scenes and moments from our drive and a shot of leh on the way out of leh which leads to khardung la, one of the highest motorable passes in the world, though we didn't head up that way...

love and health to all...