Morning Prayers at Thiksey: Why 5 AM Is Worth Every Second

There are things in Ladakh you plan and things that happen to you. Thiksey morning prayers are technically the former — it's on every itinerary, you set your alarm, you show up. But once you're inside, it becomes the latter.

Getting There

The monastery is 19km from Leh. We left at 5:15 AM in the dark, in a car that smelled of pine air freshener and sleep. The road through the Indus Valley at this hour is completely empty — occasionally the headlights caught the eyes of a dog or a fox at the road's edge. Thiksey's lights were visible from several kilometres away, bright against the dark hillside.

Parking, then the stairs. Thiksey is a 12-storey monastery built on a hillside — the prayer hall is near the top, accessed by steep stone stairs that in the dark require attention. We arrived at 5:55 AM and were shown to a corner of the prayer hall by a young monk who seemed unsurprised to see tourists at this hour.

The Prayer Hall

The hall was lit by butter lamps — small flames in rows of brass cups that gave the room a warm, slightly smoky light that electric bulbs could not replicate. The smell was incense and old wood and something I cannot name that I've since come to associate entirely with Tibetan Buddhist spaces. About fifteen monks were seated in two rows facing each other, ranging in age from what looked like twelve to somewhere in their seventies.

The Sound

The gyaling horns began before the chanting. Two monks at the back of the hall played instruments that look like telescoping metal tubes and produce a sound that is simultaneously a drone, a trumpet, and something with no Western equivalent — resonant at a frequency that seems to bypass the ears and go directly to the chest. Then the drums. Then the chanting began.

Tibetan Buddhist chanting at this hour, in this space, with the smoke and the butter-lamp light and the Indus Valley visible through the window below — this is an experience that operates outside of category. I am not Buddhist. I am not particularly spiritual in any organised sense. I sat in the back of that prayer hall for forty-five minutes and was completely unable to move.

After

The sunrise hit the valley while the prayers were still going. The mountains to the east turned orange, then gold. The shadows shrank. A monk near the window was completely still, eyes closed, chanting. Outside, a young monk was washing something in a bucket of water and shivering slightly and didn't seem to mind.

We walked back down the stairs at 7 AM into a day that was already warm and bright. My travel companion, who is a software engineer from Bengaluru and describes himself as the least spiritual person he knows, said: "That was genuinely extraordinary." Then he got back in the car and put his earphones in.

Wake up at 5 AM. Go to Thiksey. Everything else in your Ladakh itinerary is negotiable. This is not.