hockey night in ladakh.

after a 50 hour train ride to delhi from the south, and a few days of shopping and rickshaws we flew up to ladakh... it was only a 1 hour flight, but it seemed like a completely different world. leh is at around 12,500 ft, a barren-mountain area, full of buddhist monasteries, muslim mosques, weathered beautiful people and yes, hockey. i had found some fellow canadians living in delhi who were making their way up for an annual tournament against the locals... so despite our aching heads and burning lungs, i knew it was hockey time so that made it all worth it.



the people up here live a pretty tough, physical life in the summer when the weather co-operates and they work the fields to get through the long winter.... the winters though don't have much going on... so we had lots of people out watching, cheering when we'd fall on the rough ice or someone would lay a hit.







nice pads eh?



we had 4 games in our couple days. they put together some all-star teams and kept us wheezing from the high elevation. it was a pretty surreal experience, hard to describe, hopefully these pictures help.





when we weren't at the frozen pond we tried to wander around as much as we could. the mountains around leh are pretty amazing... we felt like quite the hot-shot hikers.

we're now back in mussoorie, at home again after a month away. we had quite a long day of travelling, felt like we were in the amazing race, flying, taxi'ing, training...