Adventures with a picnic basket

So, yes, I think we are a little crazy. Who else would rent a motorbike in India where there is no insrance coverage and where cows rule the road and where people think honking the horn is more effective than applying the breaks?

Our first foray on the motorbike took us to the only sakya monastery in the Ladakh region, Mangtro Thupten Chokhor Monastery.

It is located on the opposite side of the valley from Leh and high on the hillside with incredible views. There we met two french women working on a three year project to catalogue the numerous treasures of the monastery and to set up a museum which could be used as a model for other monasteries.

From there we made our way through the village below where we partook in sharing a little barley beer, chhaang, with the locals whilst they plowed and raked the fields

as part of the process of encouraging the wheat to grow. Needless to say it was a little difficult to saunter away and climb onboard the trusty Enfield motorbike after a few glasses of chhaang .

Here are a few more pictures of our roadside adventures of the last few days.

Crossing the Indus river to the monastery.

Just another bird!

Who better than Buddha

As the Indus weaves through the Himalayas to the ocean

And our roads through the valleys.