The prayer corridor at Thiksey Monastery in Ladakh reverberates with a rhythmic chanting by monks. The mise-en-scène is meditative. A slender pathway—flanked by monks aged between six and 80—leads straight to a Buddhist shrine with a life-size cut-out of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I’m amongst a handful of masked guests seated on the entrance, watching the spectacle unfold earlier than me on a July morning. Half-past six casts an unusually early begin to my day, however not for the monastery’s residents—roughly 80 of them—a few of whom rise even earlier than the solar does, at 4 a.m.

I discover a senior monk engrossed in mandala making, which I be taught from an area information is a part of a week-long non secular affair. It’s, nonetheless, the sight of a little bit monk battling his eyelids to remain awake that brings a smile to my face. He sinks decrease in his seat and is on the verge of snoozing when a bell goes off. Nearly on cue, the younger one arms himself with a bucket and ladle, and saunters across the room providing its mysterious contents to everybody current. As he inches nearer, I get a transparent glimpse of the beige beverage that fills up bowl after bowl. “That’s butter tea,” the information whispers. My curiosity for the native brew that the area relishes from daybreak to nightfall will get the higher of me and leads me to the monastery’s kitchen and eating mess positioned on the different finish of the Fifteenth-century complicated. Whereas the latter is open to the general public, entry to the previous is granted solely on particular request and luck. The percentages are in my favour.

Learn the complete characteristic within the print version of Nationwide Geographic Traveller India January-February 2022.

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