Slept snug as a bug in a rug all night, making it all the more difficult to drag myself from my bed. We both got up early, however, + set out to go up the hill to the palace. It is open only early in the morning or in the evening. It costs, moreover, Rs5 each as an entrance fee, which is decidedly steep. But it’s very little good attempting to haggle with whichever one of the 3 Buddhist monks who run the place opens the door. From the outside, the palace is incredibly unimpressive, resembling nothing so much as a derelict factory, albeit one propped up against a mountain, with plain, unadorned brick walls and tiny square windows. The interior was not much different – dark + plain + completely unpalatial. It is very decrepit, not much more than a bare shell + crumbling away – a strange state of affairs, considering its comparative young years.
We climbed up to the flat roof to see the view, + some of that had to be avoided, for it was crumbling away. And the view was not as spectacular as I had hoped. The most interesting part was the tiny Buddhist temple within the palace – in a European castle, it would have been the chapel. It simply reeked of black magic, with strange effigies. The main figure of the altar was a Buddha I’ve never seen before, one with bared teeth, vicious + ferocious. The plain walls of the palace, those within reach at any rate, were covered in scrawled + ugly graffiti. I was congratulating myself, my race, + all Western travellers in general, on the fact that at least all of it was Indian, so far as I could see, when I saw that (may God rot their souls) they had also made their mark, in extravagant fashion.
It didn’t take so long to view the palace, + we carried on up the zig-zag path leading to the gompa on top of the hill. Nobody was home; up, at least, but it really didn’t matter, for we had climbed for the view + the exercise, not for spiritual or even aesthetic reasons. Down again then, descending much faster than we’d gone up, + with the fresh air + exercise giving us an appetite for breakfast.
That was, in fact, more or less it for the rest of the day. Lazed on the roof for the rest of the morning, tho’ I did go into town to buy some aerogrammes, + took the opportunity simply to wander. And take a couple more photos. Our hotel is located just above the town’s huge recreational area known as the Polo Field (tho’ at present it is decked out with football goal-posts, + receives much more use as such, I imagine. But we took our Frisbee out there for a quick game, tho’ without attracting the usual amount of interest. We had some lunch, but immediately afterwards, Val suddenly felt very ill, faint + weak. We walked slowly back to the hotel, where after a brief rest she was much better. No more physical activity for the day, however, beyond pen-pushing, + the walk into town later on for dinner. But today being Saturday, meant Saturday Special + the football results on the radio, so we didn’t linger.
We only have a short time up here in Ladakh, but actually that suits us very well, to pack in our appreciation of the place and then head back down to Srinagar, to take advantage once again of our wonderful accommodation.
