Dolma’s Garden
My home-base in Ladakh is the Skit Tsal guest house in Leh. It’s a traditional home stay in a nice, big house run by a lovely couple, Dolma and Phunchok. The grandfather, who’s still chugging along at 92, and their two young sons live here too. The two-story house is located in Leh’s upper Karzoo [...]
Glorious Alchi
Alchi is the artistic gem of Ladakh. Its temples and stupas are filled with beautiful, well-preserved Buddhist artwork from the 11-12th centuries, pre-dating the Tibetan style that came later. It’s said to be one of the 108 temples founded by Rinchen Zangpo, the 10th century scholar and translator of Buddhist Sanskrit texts. The whole life [...]
Wanla Gompa
One of the four branches of Lamayuru monastery, Wanla Monastery dates to the time of Rinchen Zangpo (958-1055) and shares features with Lamayuru’s ancient Sengge-Gang temple and the temples at Alchi, Mangyu and Sumda Chun. All are located in the same general area west of Leh. Wanla gompa is set high on a hill overlooking [...]
Sengge-Gang at Lamayuru
Lamayuru is perhaps the oldest monastery in Ladakh, thought to be a site of the ancient Bön religion of Tibet. Legend has it that Rinchen Zangpo (958-1055), who is said to have built 108 temples in western Tibet, built two temples and five stupas at Lamayuru. One of thos is probably Sengge-Gang, whose wall paintings [...]
Buddhist Masks
No wonder Picasso loved masks. I think he would have liked the Tibetan Buddhist ones too. The mask above is of Yamantaka, the Terminator of Death, who is the wrathful incarnation of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of Wisdom. According to legend, the Lord of Death, Yama, was about to destroy Tibet, but the people sought help [...]
Rainbow Body
One of the most fascinating aspects of Tibetan Buddhism the way it uses visual arts to represent complex Tantric concepts. This can be traced back to the spread of Buddhism in Tibet in the 8th century by Guru Padmasambhava, who incorporated deities and practices from Tibet’s ancient, animistic Bön religion and magical rites and mantras [...]
Sitapatara
This is the one of the few statues of Sitapatara in Ladakh. She’s from the 17th century and lives inside the shrine at Leh Palace. Sitapatara is worshipped in Tibetan Buddhism as a protectress from harm, diseases and evil spirits. Her hand gesture is symbolic of this. She looks like a female Avaloketesvara with the [...]
Himalayan Satoyama
These images are of a barley harvest two years ago in Zanskar. They remind me of an article I read recently about the Japanese idea of satoyama, meaning “hamlet-mountain,” and the need to protect our human-influenced natural environments like this one, as well as our pristine natural environments. What satoyama embodies is traditional agricultural knowledge, [...]
Hemis Festival
The biggest and most commercial festival in Ladakh is not the best, but still worth checking out. Thousands of people, mostly tourists and photographers, attend Hemis Monastery’s annual summer festival. It’s unbearably packed, pushy and hot, but it’s still Ladakhi and for that worth the effort to visit. I couldn’t even see the masked dancing [...]
Butter Sculptures
Torma are sculptures made of flour and butter used in rituals and as offerings in Tibetan Buddhism. They’re made for different purposes and symbolize different Buddhist concepts. After they’ve been “used” they’re placed outside and eaten by birds and animals.
A Room With a View
This is the view from my room at eight o’clock Sunday morning. My guesthouse is in the north part of Leh, which is rural and wealthy compared to other parts of town and wasn’t affected by the floods. It’s perfectly quiet and lovely here. The fields have been harvested and fall is in the air. [...]
10 Things I Love About Ladakh
The Sounds — Waking up to the sounds of silence, nature, animals and people working quietly has a way of setting me straight. The Friendliness — There are few places in the world where you can approach a house and ask whomever is there for a cup of tea or a meal or give you [...]
Sumda Chun
Yesterday I hired a car/driver and traveled with a Ladakhi friend/guide to visit two remote monasteries west of Leh: Sumda Chun and Mangyu. Along with Alchi, they form a trilogy of early Tibetan Buddhist temples dating from the 11th century. The artwork of these temples is totally unlike the other Buddhist temples in the region [...]
A Man (I might understand)
This man asked me to take his picture at Stondge Monastery in Zanskar. He was alone and asked me to bring the photo to his work in Leh, which I’ll do. Usually these kinds of pictures aren’t very interesting, but this guy was different. He reminds me of the men from New Mexico where I [...]
Ladakh Festival
The Ladakh Festival is organized by the J&K government and brings together the various peoples and cultures of the region. Today was the first (and best) day. It started in the morning with a parade of people from different villages in traditional dress playing music, singing and dancing, and ended up at Leh Polo Grounds [...]
Tso Moriri Trip
Here’s a small set of photos from a three-day trip with the Koreans, Tenzin the driver, and my Ladakhi friend Nurboo. We visited Tso Moriri and Tso Kar Lakes, the nomads who live around them, a couple of monasteries, and the Rumtse area where the Indian and Asian continents collided. It wasn’t a great photo [...]
Zanskar Beauty
When it comes to the beauty of nature, including people, I’ve never seen anyplace as rich as Zanskar. It reminds me of the Navajo poem about the pollen path… Beauty before me. Beauty behind me. Beauty to the right of me. Beauty to the left of me. Beauty above me. Beauty below me. I’m on [...]
Zanskar Wide Open
Here’s a collection of snapshots from Zanskar with my 50mm wide open, which creates a soft, dreamy effect that I love. The photo above is of four small nuns looking out to the road where a car is approaching Zangla Nunnery. (Cars don’t come every day!) The town in the latter shots is Padum, which [...]
Good Day at Stondge
After the teachings I headed to Stondge (pronounced Ton-day) Gompa, which has to be the coolest monastery in all of Ladakh and Zanskar. It sits high atop a ridge in a surreally beautiful mountain range and has the most spectacular views of Zanskar I’ve seen. Like Karsha Monastery, Stondge belongs to the Gelugpa (yellow hat) [...]
Three Young Monks
These three young monks from Karsha Monastery are truly as charming and sweet as they look. Each has an older monk that acts as kind of a mentor or guardian to them. The monk above is mentored by Wangboo, the monk who put me up in his place at Karsha, and he was often around [...]
Youth in Red + Green
How can you not love these faces??? This is a huge reason why I love it so much here. I ended up taking many pictures of the young Zanskarpas among the greens, source of life…
Dalai Lama in Zanskar
At dawn thousands of people were waiting for the Dalai Lama to arrive. There was always a little doubt about him actually coming, but then a spec of a helicopter appeared far down the valley and we all knew it was him. As the helicopter approached, people lined the road to his residence at the [...]
Zangla Nunnery
This is Zangla Nunnery, a.k.a. Chomo Gompa. Thanks to two friends I’m staying in Angmo’s room. Angmo is the nunnery’s current Chantmaster which involves a lot of work and she’s rarely in her room, but she has more good energy and charm than anyone I’ve met in a long time. Since my ankle hasn’t healed [...]
A Place of My Own in Zangla
I have a lot of time on my hands here. My ankle is healing very slowly, electricity in Zangla has been down for over a week (so no recharging camera and computer batteries), and I’m all alone in Angmo’s room while she’s gone trekking to fetch our mutual friend at Lamayuru. I’ve been doing a [...]
