The nun made me do it.  She pushed me.  Twice.

So I got up and walked towards the smaller prayer wheel, where two Tibetan boys were reading the lyrics of a James Blunt song to practice their English, and introduced myself.

Gurmit invited me to his home almost immediately.  "Do you know the Dalai Lama?" he asked.  We hopped on a bus to Choglamsar, where the Dalai Lama dispenses advice to all of Ladakh when he visits.  "Is this not a beautiful park?" and I said yes though it was only a flat grassy turf covered with goat pellets and a small gompa on the side.

At his house, Gurmit's mother asked, "Do you like salt tea?" but I heard "Do you like salty?" and thus I had my first taste of salty butter tea.  A small portion of tea leaves is boiled, then beat in a long churn with butter, then boiled again.  I do not like salt tea.  But I have been drinking gallons of it, because my tea cup should never be any less than brimming.  "Drink!  Drink!" and as soon as I take a sip, they refill the cup.

The family made me promise over and over again to return the next day with Yogi, and then again after we come back from Lamayuru next week, and then again everytime we return or leave Leh.  I was most happy to oblige. 

The next day I brought Yogi, and Gurmit's cousin, Tsetan, took us to her village, Sakti.  On the bus, the first tape the bus driver played was a recording of Buddhist mantras, and I watched as the women around me chanted along, staring off into space and lips moving softly.

We went to the Tak Thog Gompa, which was pretty, but just that.  The real surprise was the village itself: from the road it was green and beautiful, but she took us to her home, which was hidden in a network of precarious rockwalls, small farm plots, houses bedecked with prayer flags, and a meandering stream of water originating from the melted winter snows.  "That's a yak," she said.  "Do you see that road in the mountain?  That leads to China." 

We met some of the villagers along the way, as well as a group of women who were meeting to divide up the water for their farmland.  "Jule, jule."  Jule is one of my favorite sounds in Ladakh.  "Hello, goodbye, please, thank you.  Jule."  The villagers stopped Tsetan - "Who are these people?"  "My guests, my guests!"  There are tourists in Sakti, but they take a jeep to the monastery and then leave.

Sakti is the most beautiful place I have seen in India.  It is, for lack of a better word, magical.  Yogi has been wanting to see a snow leopard in Ladakh, and I decided, on the bus ride from Manali to Leh, that I wanted to see a unicorn.  I have seen my unicorn, and it is Sakti.  We are returning after the festival in Lamayuru, and staying until Tsetan's family kicks us out.

I was walking to the bus from her home, and I couldn't help it.  I burst into laughter and clapped my hands.  "Why are you always smiling?  What are you laughing it?" asked Tsetan.

Sztuczki.  Tricks.  I believe in little tricks, tiny hints from the elves, or the nuns, or whatever there is, that lead me to unicorns.  I'd been feeling a little morose about traveling in this way, always watching, somewhat close but not close enough.  I'd been feeling a little aimless, not knowing what to do, or who to talk to.  I'd forgotten about sztuczki.  But let me tell you - I'm watching out for them now, because my next target, who I really want to get in with:

The young monks of Ladakh.  I've never seen such punks in my life.