Polo

• 3rd of September
• Leh & Choglamsar

September 1st was the start of the 15 day Ladakh festival. Lots of shows, games, religious meets, carnivals, parades were all on the agenda. The whole of Leh was decorated with flyers and flags. Furthermore, Leh is the centre of Tibetan Buddhism in the world, ever since the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Every intersection has a 3 metre large red-and-gold prayer wheel. Small stupa-like structures can be found on every street corner.

The third of September had two main events on the Ladakh festival agenda. The first was a visit by the Dalai Lama to the monastery at Choglamsar, and the second, a Polo match. We woke up in the morning to strains of Buddhist chanting from the monastery next door. Following that was a long religious discourse, which failed to sustain our interest. We did get a glimpse of the bespectacled religious leader, though.

Our own agenda for the day was simple. Fix Prashi’s bike and get an inner-line permit. At ten, we hit the district commissioner’s office in Leh. While the DC himself was at the monastery, the office was still operational, and we got the permit in a couple of hours or so. The DC’s office is just next to the Polo grounds, and we spent our time watching the Polo match in progress. The rules are pretty similar to football (soccer), and the home team decimated the visitors. Did I mention we ran into our cyclist friends at the polo grounds ?

On the way back to Choglamsar, we stopped at a welding shop and got Prashi’s bike carrier fixed too. The prayer meeting and just concluded, and the streets were choked with devotees leaving the monastery. It took us a good couple of hours to get through the 15km from Leh to Choglamsar.

We spent the evening in Leh. Saw a couple of really fancy vehicles. We saw a Honda Goldwing cruiser with East Bangalore license plates, and a Mercedes off-road van with dirt bikes clamped outside. Oh yeah, we ran into our cyclist friends, again, at the German bakery.

Searching for more bikes, we came across an RX-135 from Bangalore, whose owner turned out to be an old school chum of mine, Sanjay Bhansali. He’d ridden up with couple of other guys, including another school chum, Subroto. What a small world!