I met Brendon on the third floor of the Oriental Guesthouse in the summer of 2012. He congratulated me on finding the Oriental; at $6 a night, it was the best value in Leh. Leh was no longer the bargain it used to be. Every summer he came back, there were more tourists, more trinket shops, less hospitality.
Brendon had been living at the Oriental for two months. He showed me inside his room. There was a little bedside radio, a borrowed Lonely Planet, and a tidy pile of short-sleeve, collared shirts. I assumed he was some kind of academic--a bachelor archeologist on sabbatical.