8/22/2009 to 8/23/2009 | India , Ladakh

Kargil

Arriving to Kargil in the early afternoon, gave me a half day to kill, since the bus to Leh departed early the next morning.  Not a great town by any stretch, but mildly interesting for being much more like Kashmir than the rest of Ladakh.  It is a heavily Islamic town settled primarily by Kashmiris and Ladakhi Muslims, after all the main bazaar is named after Ayatollah Khomaini.  Portraits of the late Ayatollah and the current Iranian president graced the windows a many of the shops in the bazaar.  Clearly Shiites, who look to Iran for spiritual guidance, were in the majority here.  I did appreciate the Muslim food.  After living primarily on nuts, biscuits, and candy bars, I gorged myself on meat, devouring mutton samosas, mutton and rice, mutton kebabs, pretty much anything I found with mutton in it.  I walked in circles around the market for most of the afternoon, because there is not much to do in Kargil other than eat.  My hotel room was not a place I wanted to hang out it in either.  Finding the accommodation in Kargil rather overpriced, I had stubbornly turned down a basic double room for 300 rupees opting instead for a room with a few not so clean mats on the floor for 100 rupees.  I would also learn that night that those mats came with some bugs of the parasitic nature, leaving me with more than a couple itchy trails to remind me of my frugality.

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