Leh

I first visited Leh in the 1980s. For me, it was love at first sight with the charming, quaint and friendly village that Leh was in the 80s. Barely three streets in total and a handful of shops and cafes. I have the good fortune and privilege of counting many Ladakhis as my friends.

In those earlier visits as I learned more about Ladakh and read about its culture and history, I found many families with inter-marriages between Buddhists and Muslims, the two predominant religions of Ladakh at the time. It seemed that they were intensely proud of their Ladakhi culture and religion was not given the same over riding importance. Over the years, as tourism increased, and with “outside” influences, tensions between the communities grew. The socio-cultural fabric started fraying.

Leh slowly transformed from a small village, to a town, to a city. The same streets these days witness daily traffic jams of fuel belching vehicles and impatient noisy drivers.

In all these years I have always stayed at the Hotel Lha Rimo. It is one of the first few hotels in Leh. In my opinion, the family that owns Lha Rimo remains quite unintentionally, head and shoulders above the rest of their compatriots in the tourism game. Apart from the Lha Rimo hotel the family own a farm in the charming village of Gyamsa, 8 kms outside Leh. The ambience and setting of Gyamsa lends itself to Yoga and meditation retreats and I am planning one for August 2018. They have another hotel in the Nubra valley called Lha Rimo North.  I have known the family from my very first visit to Leh. Their authenticity, honesty and ingenuity reflects in their work. There is no artifice in them as human beings and there is none in their product. The interiors of all their hotels are clean, simple, authentic and aesthetic. The food is hygienic, wholesome and delicious. The Lha Rimo hotel is not trying to be a bad or even a good copy of any other hotel. Neither are they trying to cater to the whims and fancies of travellers who might come with expectations and preconceived notions of what they would like in a standard hotel.

(The Lha Rimo, Leh)

In fact as travellers we often forget to accept and experience what we are given in the environment that we find ourselves in. We sometimes travel with so many expectations of what we are used to seeing in “other places” that we are more comfortable and secure when we find “the sameness” every where rather than the novelty of the different.

(A corner of Lha Rimo Retreat, Gyamsa and the willow trees surrounding it)

Unfortunately, though arguably, the corporate team building and off sites culture has ruined the market for the leisure traveler and adventurer. The hotels and service providers have found safety in presenting standardized sameness and bad copies of some dumbed down version of what a corporate traveller expects in hotels and tourism related services.

While in Leh, I always try out a few new restaurants and do a quick check of the older ones. Tibet Kitchen continues to serve good food. Bon Apetit and La Piaziatta are two new “happening” places in Leh. We had good meals at both places. “Mah Boyz” enjoyed a surprisingly authentic “real hot chocolate” at one of the cafes in the corner located on top of the main water channel that intersects the main street. We have all forgotten the name of the cafe.

Ladakh has never failed me in all these years and I always manage to find my comfort zone. I can only explain it as a spiritual connect to this trans-Himalayan landscape and the feeling of “coming home” that envelops me, every time I visit it. I will not go into rebirth and previous lifetime experiences……!

(Different aspects of Ladakh)