Day 17: Arrival In Leh
It’s not until you really really need something that you actually get it. I slept well in the tent last night for the first time. At least as well as tent sleeping can really get for me, meaning that I woke up several times and tossed and turned a bit. But I slept, damn it, I slept. And it was cold. Maybe that’s what I needed. Some real cold weather. On previous nights I kept layering up anticipating frigid weather and then maybe I was too warm to sleep. This time I just slept in my t shirt and underwear and it was perfect. I was still suffering from achey prostate butt disorder and short of breath low morale disease, but thankfully the ride to Leh wasn’t crazy. Of course there was another pass, but it was a chill pass, hard to pass up really. At the top of the pass was some hokey tourist attraction called magnetic mountain. I ate Thukpa and amused myself watching busloads of Indian tourists go out into the middle of the road to take thousands of photos before getting back into their buses and continuing their journeys. Coming into Leh basically felt like an additional pass, a long steep incline which I pedaled mournfully slowly, experiencing heavy traffic for the first time since leaving Srinagar. But once I checked into the hostel I felt quite cozy and good. On arrival, I met an English man named Adam who is also cycling my route. He has a sporty aluminum bike with thinner tires though so I don’t think there’s much possibility for us to travel together. He’s 37 and lives in Bristol. He cycled through Europe and then Southeast Asia with his girlfriend and then they went from Kerala to Delhi but she didn’t have heart for the Himalayas so they split up at that point. Then there’s an American, Joe, from Ohio. He’s a good guy, 27, just doing a bit of traveling and figuring it out. They’d just done a big trek together and were relaxing. We vibed out on the roof and had some dinner. Not much else happened, it was a pretty mellow day. Had my hot shower and read and went to bed in comfort. I’ll say the air in the hostel is a bit dry for my taste but otherwise a great place to lay my head.
