05/26/2016 day 1 Leh
Jarred and I were feet away from locating the Ecology Hostel but turned back only to end up at Lyon, where bed bugs appeared at night. i hunkered in my insect repellant sleeping bag liner, and Jb is generally repellant, woke up at 6 and got out.
wandered about, got some banana porridge, nutella toast, chocolate danish, nescafe and ginger lemon honey tea… and set out.
found a launder for about 250r/load, rented mopeds/scootys for 600r/
got to cruising around Leh. a beautiful time. easy to adjust to left side driving and simply using a motorbike. incredibly beautiful place.
we visited the Leh Palace, which is a dump for 200r with a decent view. just dusty, dark, empty rooms, some printed photos of what it already is and stuff you don’t care about, a maze of blank floors.
onward we headed to Bob’s Cafe on Champsa Rd, spoke with Srivani (…) the manager. a good person, concerned for the success of his business, and so concerned for his customer’s satisfaction. decent snickers milkshake, mostly milk still, decent wedge fries, but really good fried chicken, couldn’t ask for more.
floated about the backalleys of the market, mostly searching for JB at the hair saloon, but we were simply chasing each other, never to connect until hours later back at the hostel.
i took to roads, hitting the main hub and stretching out on each branch, going as far as i safely willed and circled back around only to reach the hub and string on to the next. just long downward roads, making buildings longer and spaced also.
the last main road before moving back toward Shanti Stupa lead me to what i believed was a connecting road, wanting to reach high ground to capture the swirling airy mountains. the road was awful, pocked with stones and never a level point of dirt, i hopped along not noticing the nice but too new hotels scattered alongside.
what i did notice through my dense helmet was the sound of drums from behind a nice mass produced gate. i parked and approached, a body at the gate asking if i was stating at the hotel, of course not, but is that Live Music?? yes.
i walk in with my bag of camera, audio recorder and phone, am presented a seat to the side of a tree but close to the seated ensemble, drums hammered with sticks, large and round and after each song they would wipe the skins with water, joined by a couple of raspy, whiny reeds. dancers fill the center of the courtyard in ornate garb, headdresses to curling toes, slow and peaceful, perfection is not precision, it is the spirit of each person being their own within the synchronised line.
the large, leather jacketed man next to me asks me where i am from, and so i talk with him and the woman next to him about our origins and intentions, plans for the trip and such.
i wonder why i am the only apparent non-indian, and after every spectator is cast into a dancing circle, a man approaches and invites me along. we are all dancing and it is fun, people laughing, i am laughing at how my typical dancing closely matches the loose hopping & lifting the performers do. only they have purpose in which to hop and form the legs, lifting each arm to certain heights, hands twisting to mudras i recall from books and statues.
it ends and a wiry man with rectangle glasses, shorts and blue track jacket initiates conversation, a boy of 18, Sohan, also hovers, says i have pretty eyes and i engage with him. the wiry fellow does computer consulting for Lexmark. and his favorite usa city is Portland, OR. Sohan is studying computer engineering, and as a found in Lamayuru, already knows the Indian path is a bachelors in India, masters in USA and settle there. i have made up my own story… having studied regional Kentucky music, i work with a group who documents such and then travels about to learn of folk music elsewhere. Lexington Rhymes (originally thought The New York Rhymes, surely already done but it is a nice spurred thought).
two cakes are brought forth and i suddenly realize, and confirm, everyone here is family, on a week vacation in Leh, and the man who invited me to dance… it is his birthday celebration, maybe his son’s also. oh god. what an intrusion. yet they invite me forth. attia deo? some phrase they used for me… “in India, the guest is god” a peaceful gray-haired woman smiles at me. nooooo please, leave me out of this, i came for the music. but i talk longer with Sohan. i am always surprised by the english scattered throughout hindi dominated conversation, and so they sing the english Happy Birthday song, but follow it with a traditional hindi one.
soon an old man and awkwardly large son from Goa introduce themselves and tell of Goan music, the heavy influence of the Portuguese occupation (how in portugal it felt like home), and the monsoon is a great time to be there, unless you don’t like 8 days of rain and no sunshine. still i am interested in such an experience.
they are walking to the market so i make my exit. they invite me along but i profess i need to find my friend. i laugh and smile all the way down that terrible fucking road
