It is fascinating and stunningly beautiful, yes its full of monasteries and monks, but there 
are some things I hadn’t figured on:
1. Ladakh has the smallest cows and horses I have seen in India, however it should be renamed as the land of the enormous chickens, they were HUGE.
2. 10% of the population of Leh district is Muslim, it has mosques which no one photographs, being too intent on monasteries.
3.As far as dogs are concerned, the sunniest spot is the sunniest spot, regardless of
height or danger factor. 4. Waking up to the smell of bread being freshly cooked over an open fire in the kitchen can only be bettered by eating (vast quantities) of said bread slathered and I mean slathered with homemade butter…. occasionally with a touch of homemade Apricot jam. Apricot orchards abound.
5. You will never have tasted such delicious apricots.
6. The apple trees are laden with unplucked fruit – scrumpers paradise.
7. People drive normally, barely use thier horns and dip their head lights!
8. It feels like being in a completely different country from India.
9. The homemade bread slathered with butter is to die for.
10. The homemade peach schapps/arrak doesn’t give you a hangover.
11. Butter tea is an acquired taste.
12. Home made chang (local hooch made from barley) is also an acquired taste, but less so than the butter tea.
13. Chang doesn’t give you a hangover, even in large quantities.
14. The monks, during morning prayers are given a bowl of butter tea and they pile flour
into it. I didn’t think butter tea could get less appetising. I would skip prayers.
15. Workmen love having their photo’s taken.
16. It inspires you to attempt to be arty, no matter how unquallified you are.
17. It is an utter privillege and an incredible insite into a culture that is being lost at an incredible speed to stay at Stok Palace (my last Ladakh post will be on this).
18. It doesn’t matter what is on the outside, its what’s on the inside that counts (as discovered by the prayer wheel made out of a paint tin).
19. It is more spectacular than any photos or words can do justice to.
Anyone know how to make Ladakhi bread? Or chang or arrak for that matter?
