Day 11: Lamayuru – Alchi

29 July, 2011       70kms, 2 hours

After spending 1 more day in Lamayuru relaxing (hence the reason Day 10 was not included in the blog page), we headed on to Alchi – the site of another ancient monastery. This stretch of road was some of the worst we’d traveled, with a lot of construction, dirt and loose stone patches, and tight corners. Half way along, the route was blocked where the workers were mending the road. We stopped and waited while the bulldozer took care of it. Matthew struck up a conversation with one of the workers. The man, like many who take on this hazardous line of work, was from Bihar – a state in East India with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. He told us of his recent health problem: coughing up blood. It’s a condition that affects many of these road workers, as they spend their days breathing in dust and diesel. A significant number of them die at a young age, having no other employment options and no access to decent health care.

After about half an hour there was enough space on the road for us to squeeze by on the bike. An hour later and we arrived in Alchi. The town was tiny: a handful of guesthouses and restaurants, the gompas, and fields of grain and apricot trees.

After checking into a room, we went off to explore. The 11^th century monastery is small and without the view the Lamayuru had, but the walls were decorated with tiny, intricate depictions of the Buddhas, more than impressive in their detail. I don’t get into museum-like visits, and though I appreciated the artistry and skill, I was far more taken with the mundane details: the way the carved door hung heavy on its hinges, the loose floorboards, the crookedness of the leaning buildings, a stone step smoothed out from centuries of devout footsteps. Somehow these things hold more life for me than the paintings on the wall.

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