Bits and pieces

This is the view that I see each morning from the balcony of the Phanday Guest House. Lama Konchok Phanday, the owner of the guest house is a well-known buddhist monk in Leh. He became a monk at the age of eleven, against his family's wishes because he wanted to improve his reincarnation prospects. An interesting man who laughs all the time. The view is looking out across the Indus valley to the Hemis National Park and Stok Kangri, the largest of the Himalayas in this area.

Four of us have booked a 5 day trek to the Sham area. Here is another pic I nicked from the net. The Sham trek is considered an easy trek; many of the treks here involve going over passes of more than 5000m but not this one. Even though this is a short trek, it will be one of the great hikes of my life. I have been looking forward to treking since I got here. There are hundreds of miles of treks in the Ladakh area but the director of the Snow Leopard Conservatory picks Sham as his favourite. We will be doing it as a home-stay trek, staying in Ladakh homes. That should add an interesting dimension. We will stay in one village for two days because the local information is that this is a great place to see snow leopards. Fingers crossed, but I think we will be extremely lucky if that happens. We should, however, see yak and ibex.