Return to Leh

Summer has come to Ladakh and we are back in Leh. We sat outside at the Hotel Olmasila at tea time after a hot shower to wash off the dust of the road (and the soot of the 500-year-old Ladakhi house we climbed around in) and ate more mangos than I care to count.

Today we are going shopping.

Of course, the best laid consumerist plans have already been interrupted by the sound of live chanting. We were drawn to the temple where the majority of the lamas in Ladakh have gathered to celebrate the spring puja. Inside the prayer hall, lamas are chanting. Young monks are crowded in under the portico outside the temple building. People of the community, and more lamas, have gathered on the steps outside the temple. Loudspeakers amplify the chanting for the growing crowd of people outside. We listened and observed the crowd.

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