Rode to heaven ... Through hell-Day 5

With severe headache I get up and start the bike and move on. Again at this place we ran out of money and begged from a fellow group a 1000 rupees to pay for the accomodation.
The day has been most easy compared to the journey so far. Just a easy ride and by afternoon we were at Leh.
The road was good and the scenary just out of heaven. The scenary changes slowly from plains to hills to canyons around, the sky looks pure blue with pure white clouds scattered around. The land is barren but the soil has so many colours in it, from dark red it changes to shiny silver hinting the presence of mica in it, to purple like brinjal to brown to black to sometimes greenish....amazing work by god.... No amount of words can describe the beauty here. It can only be felt by one, specially by those who have for some time left behind the frantic hankering for wealth, fame, status and all other adman's fantasies and are unabashed in their love for life, travel and nature.
Occasionally one comes across villages, small old houses with slopy roofs, trees encircling the boundry, the courtyard shining bright orange with corn kept to dry outside, chinese looking faces, yaks, cows, shepherds, women carrying firewood on their backs, children with sunburnt cheeks playing alongside the roads, wheat fields, such laid back life, they have nothing to do with the outside world, they are self 'content', they have nothing but still everything...they are so different than us, we the up-market crowd in our Levis t-shirts, Woodland shoes, Wrangler jeans, Jockey briefcases.

I am especially touched by the Gaddis, the local shepherds. Their nomadism bemuses me. These short, colourfully dressed, benign-looking shepherds are on their way to home and just 4-5 months, they will be out again, winters in the valley, summers in the high passes and this has been their routine for centuries, embodying an old forgotten idea of content. Leading a simple and 'Happy' life.

Leh on the contrary is like any other hill station in India. It has nothing to be written about and I am definately not hurting my thumb punching details about this place on my cell phone writing this blog. No wonder almost every traveller uses this place just as a transit point to the places nearby.
Oh yes... I haven't told you... all this while I wasn't riding the bike but sitting behind a lunatic speedster named Akarsh(I hope he is reading this)....I have reached Leh in one piece and no amount of self congratulation seems enough for this.