Category Archives: 2010. Ladakh

Day 19 – June 30 – Zanskar and another festival

The weather had improved overnight, and we were able to make the final part of our drive in sunshine.

We first stopped at the monastery in Rangdum, the place where we had slept. Built on a hill overlooking the barren alpine valley, Rangdum Gompa had the haphazard design of an old monastery built before the standardizing influence of international communication. A monk was chanting in a small cell with protectors at the back.


The pass was not much higher than the alpine valley floor, just a high place where two long valleys joined their heads. On the south side, now Zanskar proper, a huge glacier wound down from the peaks of the Great Himalaya range. Although no higher then the mountains to the north, the Great Himalaya get the full blast of the monsoon from the south. The upper Zanskar valley was also more green than others we had passed through.


We arrived at lunchtime in Padum, the largest town in the Zanskar valley and once the capital of its separate kingdom. “Largest” is relative since Padum only has a few stores and about 1000 residents. Rebuilt in the nineteenth century, Padum has the feeling of a Wild West town, haphazardly arranged and ending abruptly in fields.

After lunch we hurried to Stongde, a hilltop monastery where we'd just learned another festival was taking place. This was the second day and the dancing had not yet begun.

Of all the monastic festivals we had visited, this had the feel of a village event. Only a handful of foreigners were there, and hundreds of the local attendees were dressed in traditional costume. At the tea break before the final dances, many of these filed up to place katas (ceremonial scarves) on a very old picture of the Dalai Lama, then sat around the monastic plaza drinking butter tea. Most were women with small children not old enough to be in school. One was breast feeding her baby with little self-consciousness.









Before the dancing, they brought in a yak, a sheep and a dog for ceremonial blessing. We happened to be standing close enough to the yak to be sprayed by the mudlike fluid they spread on its back. The yak seemed particularly unhappy about having chang (local alcohol) spread on its head and tried to shake vigorously. Blessing completed, the animals were led down the stairs and tied up outside.


The dancing was like the other monastic dances we had seen, but more intimate and informal. The monastic plaza was smaller, so the rows of local people often walked through the dancers and participated.

At least on the day we witnessed, there was no stabbing of an effigy, but the torma ceremonial figures made from tsampa (barley meal) served the same function of soaking up and destroying evil spirits. The climactic dance featured mostly older monks in black hats, traditionally the oldest and strongest of the tantric traditions. At the end, they carried the tormas out of the monastery and down a hill, where they threw the tormas on the ground to destroy the evil spirits they had taken in.





Day 20 – July 1 – Monasteries and forts in Zanskar


One advantage of rearranging our trip was that we got an extra day in the Zanskar valley. Although we would have passed through the region as we shuttled between trailheads, this way we had plenty of time to look around at this isolated and interesting region of Tibetan Buddhist culture, essentially cut off from the world even now.


We spent the morning driving to Zangla, a tiny village at the east end of the valley, close to where we would have come out if we had been able to complete our hike over the passes. We first visited a small Buddhist nunnery whose assembly hall was partly underground. We then climbed to the remains of the fort of the kings of Zangla, who still live in the village below although they no longer rule in this valley, which historically had not one but two kings. There we spoke to three Hungarian architects who are valiantly trying to preserve the structure before it falls down. By coincidence, we had spoken with the rest of their party a few days earlier, who turned out to be a group of eminent Hungarian architects hoping to cross the passes and advise them. We hope they could make it.

After lunch back in Padum, we crossed the valley to Karsha monastery, which is built right up a hillside. It had a number of interesting halls dating back to the 11th century, although the main assembly hall was closed for structural repairs. It actually seemed like bits of the whole monastery were starting to slide down the hill after the hard winter.

Having time on our hands, we also climbed up to a nunnery on the other side of the gorge. Because most of the nuns had gone to the village for a wedding, no one had the key to let us into the oldest chapel in the area, but Marcia befriended an elderly nun who showed us around the more modern structures.


Day 21 – July 2 – Back on the trail

We left Padum in the morning, though not as early as we would have liked. We were delayed by the need to switch to yet another taxi from the Padum taxi union, who had cracked down on our Kargil driver and ruled that he could no longer take us anywhere in the valley. We would have been more angry if we had not understood that these poor local drivers have only three months to make all their money for the year. Besides, the trekking company was paying.

We started by backtracking to the Sani monastery, which we had passed on the way into town. At that time we couldn't stop because we were rushing to get to the Stongde festival, but now we had time to look around at this unusual structure. The main room was only about 400 years old, although it held some Kashmiri-style artwork that was clearly much older. But behind the structure were an ancient chörten and chapels on a site that had been continually used since Buddhism was first introduced to this area from Kashmir over 2000 years ago, long before it came to Tibet. A cemetery further back held a ring of stones carved in the 8th century, which were still used in cremation ceremonies.


Our taxi then took us down the valley of the Tsarap river to the south, where we would be hiking for the rest of our trip. Along the way we visited two more monasteries including Bardan, which is built on top of a large rock.


Our taxi dropped us at the trailhead at Raru. Since BRO is working on extending the road toward the pass, we actually could have mad our driver take us a few kilometers further, but after four days of bumping over rocks, we were happy to begin walking again.

On this first afternoon back on the trail, we went only about two hours to the campsite at Ichar, a village with another visually impressive hillside monastery.

Day 22 – July 3 – Up the valley

This day's task was simply to climb the lower Tsarap valley. The weather was clear and the hiking generally easy, although there were many more ups and downs than were apparent from the minimal elevation gain.

Throughout the day, the rushing river was a constant presence. Swollen by melting snows, the river drains a large part of the southern Zanskar mountains. At Padum in the valley below, its muddy waters become the largest part of the Zanskar river, which further down becomes the largest part of the Indus, some of the only water that reaches the dry plains of Pakistan.



Day 23 – July 4 – Detour to Phugtal Gompa

We followed the lead of most travelers to make a one-day excursion to Phugtal monastery, one of the most important in the southern Zanskar mountains. Several hours up a side valley through rugged red rocks along the rushing Tsarap river, Phugtal is almost two days' walk from the nearest road. The site has been in religious use for at least 2500 years.

The monastery was not visible until we crossed a small ridge at a bend in the river. The sight could have then come out of the Lord of the Rings.



Phugtal monastery was built on the side of a cliff, with its main monastic buildings inside a cave formed by an overhanging rock. The cave walls and roof formed walls and ceilings of several monastic buildings, including the dark gongkang chapel of the fierce protectors. Workers were busy rebuilding and expanding the assembly hall. Other chapels were reached by paths through tunnels formed by monastic residences built out over the canyon, which threatened to swallow any building without a sufficient foundation. From bottom to top, a stairway climbed ten stories through narrow, dark holes in the structure.


After several hours in awe, we returned to our camp at the main valley.

Day 24 – July 5 – Wedding celebration in Testa

On the previous day, we had learned that everyone in the area had gone to the next village for a wedding celebration of a woman who would be moving down the valley to live with her new husband. The tradition is that people from the groom's village come, celebrate all night with the bride's villagers, and then lead the bride and her family on horses to the actual ceremony at her new home. It is common, in fact, for the two to have already been living together for several years after a quiet ceremony to make sure everything was okay before having the big celebration.






By the time we arrived around 11am, everyone had been drinking chang, the local rice liquor, for most of the night. Each villager presented a kata (ceremonial scarf) to the bride, who was sobbing under the weight of saying goodbye to the people she had grown up with. Dancers from the groom's village moved slowly to the beats of drums. Everyone was in traditional dress.

After about two hours, the bride collected herself enough to say farewell to her friends and began walking to the other side of the village, where the horses were waiting. Her family served a final meal of gruel mixed from a dozen pots brought by different families, then she and her closest family mounted their horses and rode off.


For the rest of the day on the trail, we were passed by many people returning to their villages in the surrounding area.

Day 25 – July 6 – A short rainy day

The dark clouds that had been gathering to the south on the day before brought us rain starting at midnight. We knew this was a possibility as we approached the Great Himalayas, since those were the final defense against the monsoon, which could be in full force in most of India by early July.

Fortunately, we had planned this as a very short day and we made it even shorter by going the most direct route to our next campsite. Although we missed a few nice villages and had to use our horses as a ferry across a raging stream, this got us to camp in Karghiak by late morning. We stayed dry in the tent and read books all afternoon.

Day 26 – July 7 – A long rainy day

On the next day, we could not avoid a full day of walking, because we had to get to the top of the valley to the base of the pass. Our schedule was tight at this point to get over the mountains to Manali, where we would catch our flights home. We could conceivably lose a day, but it would have meant long walking and driving. Two days delay and we would definitely miss our flights back to the US.

The weather looked promising when we first got up. At the head of the valley we could see the face of Gumbaranjon, a huge granite dike that had been left where two glaciers met in the last Ice Age. I wish I'd taken my picture then, because the clouds closed in and it began raining again by the time we'd finished breakfast. This was the best picture I could get for the rest of the day.

Walking in the rain is not so bad if you are well dressed and don't let it bother you. I was doing fine for the morning although Marcia was tired. We stopped for tea and eventually lunch in the yak-hair tents of the last herders in the valley. This camp had the nursing mother yaks and their babies, all of which stood outside with the rain draining off their long hair. Yaks are used to this kind of stuff, but they still don't like it.


While we ate, the rain got worse and was quite unpleasant for the afternoon's walk. We just put our heads down and made it to camp around 3pm.


Wouldn't you know, it cleared shortly after we arrived. At least we could enjoy the alpine valley of Lakang, the last flat land before the climb to the pass.

Day 27 – July 8 – Snow on the Shingo La

Today was the big day when we needed to cross the 5100-meter (17,000 foot) Shingo La pass over the Great Himalayas so we could get out and catch our flights in Manali. Our motto was “Manali or bust!”

We awoke at 3am to do the climb while the snow was still hard. Our horsemen had been over the week before, so we knew it was possible, but in this season there was still a lot of permanent snow. And we had no idea how much new snow might have fallen in the storm of the previous days. This pass can be closed for a day or two by monsoon storms even in the middle of August.

The weather when we awoke was not as clear as it had been the night before. A layer of low clouds had formed, and we feared it might rain and snow again by the afternoon. But as we climbed, the clouds burned off and it became perfectly clear.


We did have to deal with about 30 centimeters (1 foot) of fresh snow, however. Our team, including the ten strong horses, broke trail for what turned out to be about 8 kilometers (5 miles) of hiking through the snow. The steps were wide, especially for Marcia, but we were able to follow them without much trouble. I broke through the old snow up to my hips a few times, but that was more comical than dangerous. We were the only group to cross all day. Our trail will certainly be helpful to less well-equipped parties on the other side, some of whom had been waiting three days to cross the pass.


The Shingo La is impressive in any season, as the trail crosses the tips of several mountain glaciers. In the fresh snow, it was remarkable. Off the mountains above fell countless small avalanches and rockfalls, but these were far away and the trail avoided any dangers.




In the bright sun on the other side, I did become concerned about snow blindness. My sunglasses are okay, but I did not have the proper goggles for walking six hours on bright snow. I avoided any problems by taking care of myself and getting down as quickly as possible. Marcia and I did get mild cases of skiers' sunburn on the bottom of our noses, however.


Our other problem was finding our camp. Our destination Rumjak was already a very long day, especially with the extra effort slogging through the snow over the pass. But then, in a replay of Dolpo's “yak man problem,” our horsemen took it on themselves to pass three perfectly good campsites in order to get better grass for their horses. And with them going way beyond our agreed stopping place, even our guide was worried about finding them before dark. Without our camp, we would have been bivouacking without food or sleeping bags at 4000 meters (13,000 feet).

We sent our guide ahead and kept walking slowly for two more hours down the valley. About 5:30 we spotted one of our kitchen staff coming uphill with a pot of juice. Camp was 15 minutes away in a small grassy spot across from a hill where our horses were happily grazing. The horsemen claimed that locals called this place Rumjak. We and our guide were not amused.

We had been on the trail almost 13 hours and were quite exhausted. But we had made it over the Himalayas.

Day 28 – July 9 – Trailhead

The rest of the trail was an easy downhill to a trailhead in the state of Himachel Pradesh.



A few hours’ walk brought us to a large valley. BRO had extended the dirt road from the trailhead to here, although with some bridges missing it was not yet open to vehicle traffic. The road, however, made a very easy trail down to the place where our vehicles were waiting.

We got in a taxi that would take us to the main road and then south towards Manali. We said goodbye to our team, most of whom were heading in a truck north back to Leh.


We stayed in a small hotel on the main road. These were the first hot showers we had seen in weeks.