Ladakh Explorer: This border region of Tibet is a vast valley of moorlands and rocks. Trekkers have made it their paradise.
By Sacha Goussin
Published on January 30, 2008, at 6:00 AM
All we see are Tata trucks, from the largest Indian industrial group. For the past three days, we’ve been continuously crossing these large, colorful vehicles adorned with garlands of flowers. Three days of incessant horn blasts, which here serve as turn signals. Three days of zigzagging between cows, rickshaws, handcarts, and potholes.
This bustling scene comes to a sudden halt in Darcha. It is here, in the silence of this village, at 3300 meters altitude, that our trek in Ladakh begins. This former Buddhist kingdom has been open to tourism only since 1974. Its name derives from the Tibetan “la-dags,” meaning “land of passes.” Indeed, between the massive glaciers of the Karakoram range and the 7000-meter peaks of the Himalayas, numerous passes must be crossed to reach Leh, the major city in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, our final destination near the Tibetan border.
Mineral Coldness
Fourteen French people, a guide, his assistant (known as the “sirdar”), a cook and his three helpers, twenty-seven mules and their four handlers, and a dozen live chickens: this is a true exceptional convoy setting off for twenty days of trekking. The first lesson in etiquette is the Ladakhi greeting, a local dialect derived from Tibetan. A “julley” (pronounced “djoullé”) is essential for every encounter, no matter how brief.
However, during the first few days of hiking, we encounter few people. The region has only 100,000 inhabitants: an average of just one per square kilometer! The first rains of September enhance the mineral and cold aspect of this vast valley of moorlands and rocks.
Yet, the showers do not seem to bother a man settled in the middle of nowhere with his small family under a parachute recycled into a tent. From his patch of land scattered with stones, he has created a barley field. Dozens of channels collect the precious runoff from a nearby glacier. Then, through a back-and-forth movement of soil clumps, he directs the water across this semi-desert area. An ingenious adaptation to a harsh environment that does not experience the monsoon, with clouds trapped behind the gigantic mountain barriers.
Prayer Flags
As we approach the first 5000-meter pass, the morale of the group is at a low. The head throbs from an unusual rush of blood, vision is blurred, and nausea sets in. After a morning hunched over trekking poles, we finally catch sight of the summit with its prayer flags fluttering in the wind. These colorful strips of cloth, covered in religious texts, are tied between two poles to thank the gods for guiding the ascent. For us, these are the first visible symbols of the Buddhism that permeates daily life in Ladakh, also known as the “Little Tibet.”
The next morning, barely leaving the camp, we encounter nomadic tents. Only women are under these large brown jute tarps. With their herd of yaks, they are preparing reserves of milk and cheese for the winter. The men are down in the valley, some for trade and others to assist with the trekking season.
One of the women, the eldest—though it is hard to determine their age due to their weathered faces from the cold and dry air—prepares yak butter tea for us. It’s difficult to refuse the national drink, but some hesitate when they see green tea and rancid butter mixing in the copper churn. The smell is overwhelming, the taste indescribable. Yet, for Ladakhis, it is an excellent lip balm and a source of fat for the long winters, which can last seven to eight months, with temperatures reaching -40°C.
Yak Dung
In the late afternoon, several white stupas appear on the horizon. These square-based domes ending in a point symbolize the community’s fidelity to Buddha, hence their presence at every village entrance. Next to them, a wall composed of manis—large stones engraved with religious symbols—that we circle to the left, as tradition dictates.
But the houses in the village of Kargyak are empty. Children, parents, and grandparents… everyone is actually down in the fields for the barley harvest. The youngest, with a basket strapped to their backs, gather yak dung, an excellent fertilizer for the land and a “substitute wood” for lighting fires.
We won’t remain inactive for long. With a few quick gestures, an old woman armed with a wooden trident shows us how to separate the grains from the chaff. Like in the Middle Ages, by tossing them into the air with the wind. It’s as simple as a flick of the wrist.
We had to wait a week to be able to slather on sunscreen. But it will now remain in our backpacks. A lagoon-blue water stretches out at our feet. It’s amazing, at 4000 meters altitude, how all these colors change seamlessly: the yellow of the fields, the blue of the flowers, the green of the valleys, the red of the bushes, the beige of the Zanskar Riverbanks, and the white of the snow-capped peaks.
Little Monks at the Stove
We’ve been walking for three hours through a narrow gorge when, around a bend, Phuktal appears—this 12th-century Buddhist monastery, with its buildings clinging to the steep mountainside, seeming almost weightless. This must be what spiritual elevation looks like. At the top of a staircase with disproportionate steps, we find a “miraculous” spring that has been quenching the thirst of the monastery’s 200 members for centuries without running dry. However, only men are allowed to visit, as women, deemed impure, are banned.
A little further on, back to reality with the kitchen, its walls grimy with soot. It’s so dark that the three young monks bustling about the stove are not visible at first glance. Finally, the keeper of the keys arrives. The lama’s task is to ensure that none of the objects in the prayer rooms disappear. So, under his “watchful” eye, we admire a golden Buddha statue and the figure of Avalokitesvara, the strange deity with eleven heads and a thousand arms.
The Valley of Death
Now, “fairy chimneys” frame our path. A curious name for dusty earth stalagmites sculpted over time by the wind. This same wind sweeps through the arid valley where we have been struggling for hours between clouds of dust and blazing sun. A place we quickly rename “the Valley of Death.”
Yet, people seem to have lived here. Ruined houses mark the entrance to the village of Pishu. “It’s the nunnery,” corrects the guide. After knocking on a few doors, six women, dressed in patched, heavy purple cloth robes, indeed emerge from these crumbling buildings. After offering us tea, dry cakes, and dried apricots, they settle in for a round of religious chants. A live concert rhythmically accompanied by simple tambourines and small bells, against a backdrop of snow-covered peaks.
Nineteen days of walking at over 3600 meters altitude, seven passes above 4500 meters crossed, ten chickens consumed, along with a goat purchased along the way. Nearly ten monasteries have opened their doors to us, and the electricity fairy has not been seen once (except for a few solar panels), nor has there been a single shower head…
Suddenly, an explosion in the distance. Then another. Dynamite is being used to dig into the mountain and advance the road. Bulldozers and trucks are at work. The Zanskaris have high hopes for this improvement. The trekkers, less so: they know that, in about five years, the road and asphalt will have replaced the hiking trail.
