The next day didn’t begin as I expected. I woke up and lo behold it was raining outside. Luckily the rain stopped in a few hours. After having breakfast and checking out of the rooms, we went to see a local monastery at Sumur. Like all the other Monasteries, this one too had some of the most intricate and beautiful paintings on the wall.
We then began our long ride back to Leh. This time round we stopped at Khardung La for some time. Standing at 18,000 ft above sea level and peering into the valley below was an unique experience for me. After shopping for souvenirs, we left Khardung La to reach Leh by lunch. Since we had the rest of the day off we decided to spend the time walking around Leh.
We had some pizzas and some mushroom and chicken starters at a roof top restaurant. The food was quite good, though the service was slow. Then again I guess the restaurant is more used to the laid back tourist than one in a hurry.
After lunch we set out to try and find our way to Leh Palace. After following signs and moving through some narrow winding streets we soon reached the stairs that led up to the palace.
There we ran into some local Ladakhi children who were very keen to have their pictures clicked. In fact one of them was so keen that he did an impromptu slide down the hill, much to our surprise.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the palace, climbing higher and higher to get a fabulous view of the city below. Climbing down was a tad problematic thanks to Gargi’s fear of heights. I’ll always remember the concerned look that a monk had on his face when he saw her gingerly climbing down the stairs, one step at a time.

A view of Leh city from the Palace

Later on we enjoyed the sunset from another roof top cafe, while we also tersely discussed the remaining leg of our journey. Due to the deteriorating situation in the valley, we were considering cutting short our trip, however our travel agent convinced us to push on – which as it turns out was a good thing.