Alchi – a Little Slice of Tibetan Heaven

Day 13 – The Drive to Alchi and the Saspol Caves

After a couple days spent in and around Leh getting used to the altitude, we made our way down to a little village called Alchi.  Our main activity for the day was to visit the Saspol caves.  On this trip, we got to see a lot of the Indus river.  It was nothing like I thought it would be.  I envisioned the "Indus Valley" to be lush and green and fertile.  At first, all we saw was a brownish river running through dry, baron land.  After a time, the Indus was joined by the Zanskar river (picture #2 below), which added a much lighter color of silt.  You can see the two colors of the rivers blending.  (Later, we would see the lush areas of the Indus valley that I expected to see.)

 

 

The Magnetic Hill!

Along the way, we stopped off at a Magnetic Hill.  The surprise was spoiled because our drivers stopped and we all got out of the car.  Supposedly, if you stay in the car, pull up to a certain marker on the road and put your car into neutral, the magnetic hill will pull your car uphill.  Of course, this is total bull. It's really just an optical illusion created by the curve of the road.  After coming downhill for a long time, and suddenly the road nearly flattens out, but still has a downhill grade, it just appears to be an uphill.  Alas, since we all got out of the car we lost the psychological effect of the illusion. Oh well.

 

Finally, the valley opened up and we started to see the Indus Valley that I expected.  Lush, green and fertile!

 

Saspol caves – and the orchards along the way!

Then, we made it to the Saspol caves.  It was an easy hike from the cars into the area where the caves would be found.  We actually had to weave through a small local community of homes and farm land.  A number of locals were about their business on the path, doing wash or letting their goats out to feed.

 

We also ran across some apple and apricot orchards. The locals asked us to pick a few and enjoy.  They were ripe and delicious. What I didn't realize is that inside the pit of an apricot is a nut that is edible. It's an almond of sorts and when fresh, tastes milky, bitter and sweet.  Later in the trip I ended up buying a big bag of apricot nuts for road-trip food.  In the third and fourth pictures below, you can see a roof top where apricots are being laid out in the sun to dry. I bought some of these, and they're way better than what you can buy in a grocery store.

  

 

Alchi – a little village

I'm not sure what the real population of Alchi is, but it felt like something on the order of 200-400 people in a little village.  There was really just one road in town, which boasted about four guest houses, and maybe one or two restaurants.  The main attraction in town was the Tibetan refugee handicrafts market.  I think a few of our members picked up a few treasures there.

We ended up staying two nights here, and it was quite the serene little hide-out.  Our guest house was enjoyable, but this was the first time I broke out the silk bed-liner I had packed, because I saw so many flying bugs in the room that I couldn't stop thinking that bugs were crawling on my in bed.  It was all in my head of course, but the bed-liner helped me get a better night of sleep.

 

The next day in Alchi, our group would split up to go after different interests.