I am the milkman

First we relaxed in Leh for a couple of days by order of one Mr Bansi who has incidentally retired his tie for a few days (he did make his meeting on time). When we'd eaten enough momos, we set out eastwards towards 'Pangong Tso' a salt water lake at about 15000 feet which forms a border between India and Tibet. It's really blue. Superb! And on our return journey, we had tea with some army boys from Belgaum, really sweet guys. So far all army encounters have been real nice although that might change in Srinagar... Then a few days ago we rode about 40kms west and 30 kms north to park our bikes at a little campsite in the mountains. A couple of hours hiking up the river brought us to a lovely little village called Ulley. What a supreme joint! We stayed a couple of days at the house of Norboo and Dolma, what a sweet couple they are! The village consists of about seven houses, they grow barley in bulk, have their own vegetable gardens, own sheep, yaks and cows, and are almost totally self sufficient. Almost all houses have small solar panels providing enough energy for powering a few light bulbs. When we got there, they'd just finished harvesting their barley and laid it down in big piles. So we helped with digging up the space where they would eventually thrash it and made the "chok"s which involves gathering the harvest into big bunches to dry. Sang Ladakhi songs and all and kicked myself 10 times for leaving the MD recorder in Leh. For each meal, vegetables were plucked fresh from the patch and Dolma would make some superest Ladakhi dishes. First night, Norboo started blasting Ladakhi music and brought out the "chang" one wine or beer kind of thing they make from barley and we ended up drinking 3 jugs and became like this. The weather threatened little bit and then backed off. There's something very special about places where tar roads haven't reached. The people are different. Existence is direct. You grow the food that comes to your table. You eat it to grow some more. Simple. And their natural tendency is to trust not to suspect. It was the wonderfullest time. And this morning before leaving I milked a yak. Back in Leh now and off towards Srinagar tomorrow. Incidentally the folks over at the Whisky Tango Foxtrot blog have a full set of the syko Ladakhi road signs we saw and more. And for those who'd like to see a map, check this and see if you can make any sense of it...