The Ladakh Experience

It's Saturday afternoon here in Leh and Jeeni and I just completed an awesome interview for "the project" over at the local Ecology Center / Women's Alliance office. All signs are pointing us away from town and towards focusing the research on this amazing glacial lake near the Chinese border where there are endangered black-necked cranes. Heck yes!!! Ok, more on that later.

We also want to give you a snapshot of the amazing people we have met at our guesthouse and around the village. This way, you can understand what our days are like and who the characters are that have been shaping our experience here...

Ok, our favorite person in Changspa (and we are in hand's down agreement on this one) is "Fabienne" -- a 39-year-old Belgian woman who has spent her life wandering around the world working odd jobs and laughing and collecting incredible people. Jeeni and I already have a bunch of "fabiennisms" that we walk around echoing and cracking ourselves up. One is about a certain type of person in India (which we will leave out of this very public post) and it amounts to "All they want is your wallet or your ass. No friendship to be had..." This probably isn't so funny for our audience at home, but just take either of us out for a meal upon our return to the states and we'll leave you in stitches with the full version of the story. Fabienne is a certified dive-master (yes, Karen and Paula -- I know I need to acquire this skill as well) and she has these AMAZING tattoos all over her body of ocean scenes.

We also live with this french-speaking mother and daughter. How cool is it that this woman brought her 6-year-old daughter to Ladakh for the summer for trekking! Anyway, we always have fun trying to talk to "Lila," the little girl, and having her belly-laugh at our futile attempts to conjure up a french accent (yes, school has failed me on this one).

We also have new friends from Germany, France, Holland, and Israel.

One of our little groups of friends in town is the crew of guys who work down the road at the "English bakery." The English bakery has exactly the same stuff (exactly) as the German bakery across the street. Nobody seems to care. We are in LOVE with these divine coconut macaroon cookies that our friend "Prem" (from Nepal) makes everyday and we are always greeted with a warm welcome and an honest smile from whomever jumps up to fetch us our predictable order.

Oh, I should tell you about our dinners -- sitting on cushions on the floor in the dining area with all of the other guests, talking and laughing and eating food picked that afternoon from the garden out back... The meals always begin with some sort of vegetable soup, follow with rice and spicy North-Indian vegetable platters, and conclude with cucumber salad and mint tea. It is so good and costs us a little over a dollar each per night. Absolutely divine.

FYI, we are taking tons of awesome pictures, but haven't been able to find anywhere to download them yet (and probably won't until we're back in Delhi). Expect a lengthy slide show when we get back (the narrated kind) :-)

lots of love,
Jeni