We had booked our flight to Leh from Germany. So we drove straight to the airport on July 8th at 4 o'clock in the morning. Soon our flight was delayed 30 minutes. We were in "transit country" and waiting patiently. In between we had a power cut and the complete airport was in darkness.

A further announcement "ALL PASSENGERS ON FLIGHT 1609 TO LEH PLEASE PROCEDE TO THE SNACK BAR" permitted us to a free breakfast. We were made happy and waited patiently until 11 o'clock. By this time we were already enjoying lunch sponsored by the airline in the lounge, when the disappointing anouncement came via loud-speaker that our flight was cancelled.

Thanks to Elias' fast reaction, we obtained our luggage quickly and Elias bargained a remuneration of aprox. 60 Euro for hotel accomodation for the night.

What now? We studied our guide book and chose a good hotel. That was a real good choice, because we found ourselves as the only guests at Shukla Nath house. The landlady seemed to be a wealthy and well educated Indian woman who is very open minded. We enjoyed a clean room, a wonderful garden and a pool to ourselves. The house cook prepared a delicious dinner for us. Shukla accompanied us and we ate an "Italian noodle salad" which her daughter had prepared in a cooking course.

Towards 2 o'clock in the night we left this oasis of peace to drive to the airport again. Additionally, we had to get to the next taxi stand and wake one of the cab drivers sleeping under a tree. The same procedure at the airport. The flight was delayed again, free breakfast, then however towards 10 o'clock boarding and then we flew the one hour and fifteen minutes over the Himalaya to Leh.

From the aeroplane window an unbelievable landscape opened up: Many snow-covered peaks, green rivers in bleak valleys, enormous glaciers edging into the valley. And then Leh in the vast Indus Valley surrounded by three sides by 6000 meter high mountains. The aeroplane circled for fifteen minute before coming to an extremely bumpy and nerve-wrecking landing in the thin air at 3500m altitude.

As we got out the plane, our breath was not only taken by the thin air air, but also by the unbelievable panorama and the clear light.

Read on about Leh...

Susanne 11th June 2005