The Gompa Land - A photo story

The Gompa Land

A photo story

Rat race, routine, traffic, pollution, choked, bills, ….
I associate all these words with city life. Somehow we have been auto tuned to accept this and make merry of the most mediocre ways of life. Partly this witlessness is attributed due to our dearth of travel opportunities. I for one have been extremely fortunate to have a profession that gets me to inhale some of the most spectacular and exquisite views the natural world has to offer.

One such paradise on earth is in Ladakh and Zanskar Valley. I have been travelling regularly to this rugged yet stunning abode since past few years and here I share some of my best landscape pictorial stories from this Land of the Gompas.

Ek Kaarwaan aisa bhi hoga … This shall pass too…. Someday…. Someday soon……

Sometime looking at a picture is like reading an entire book, only difference is you end up making your own story while you get deeply engrossed viewing it.

This image is one such story for me. Double humped Bactrian camels domesticated for joy rides for the seasonal tourists add a surreal linear beauty to this frame while the passing clouds seem to weigh down under the strong influence of the pristine blue skies. Everything seems perfect in this very imperfect and harsh landscape called the Nubra Valley.

That’s a much better way of self-isolation… what say?

“STOP - REFLECT - MOVE ON”

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Clean water reflects ourselves and a Clean heart reflects our soul.

As the snow melts the water from the mountains gushes downhill in the form of the wildest rivers but has to come to a standstill sometime in its course...

Our lives are so busy and chaotic. Scenes like these make you yearn to calm down just as the water and reflect on the times gone by and realize the beauty of the moments. Beauty of the time that may never come back.

Discover the magic running through your soul… 

Maitreya Buddha

One of the oldest and largest Buddha monastery (Gompa), the Diksit monastery houses a colossal statue of the Maitreya Buddha. I pretty much got lost in time beholding this sight as if the gods rise above the huge mountains from the bottom of the Nubra Valley. A feast of a view!

Let’s Fly High. Where the Glacier meets the sky…

The Drang Drung Glacier is a near the Pensi La pass one of the highest motor able passes in the Zanskar valley.

Bridge on the river of Dreams…

Pictures don’t do justice to this picturesque valley. As if, when GOD created earth he put a lot of extra time in making Zanskar so if he ever had to vacation on earth this was the place the GOD’s could unwind.
This is the bridge just on the border of Padum village, the last and the most populated village (200 homes) of Zanskar.

The best vies come from the hardest climbs…

A Himalayan agama basking in the cold desert sun, enjoying the divine view its backyard has to offer.

A male in its habitat and all its glorified breeding plumage.

Ek ghar ho kahin pahadon mein…kisi Jheel ke kinaare…

The surreal Pangong Tso lake. If there is one word that come to my mind when I think of this place its AZURE.

Walk up a Monastery… Walk down Blessed…

The picturesque Thiksey monastery just outside the Leh town offers some holy escapade and a a spectacular 360 degree view of the mountains.

Literally, the wildest of the assess you can find on our planet.

Kiang or The Himalayan Wild Ass is one of the most endangered species of wild asses in the world. Running wild and free on the Tibetan plateau the only predator other than the humans is the Himalayan wolf.

Where the sky gets clogged by the stars…..

“The darkest night brings out the brightest stars”
True for a moonless spine chilling night at Tso Morori lake in Ladakh, India. Made is image close to midnight with temperature closing in on the subzero and winds zipping by at speed of a bullet. Happiness is when a self-taught method of creating such images pays off.