Late-season Ladakh

If I'm honest it may well have been Shah Ruh Kahn who got me stuck on Laddakh. It's many years since I watched the late 90's masterpiece Dil Se but unless my memory is dramatising (quite probable), I'm sure there's an epic montage of some kind where he actually appears to walk most of the way (crossing altitudes of around 5,600 metres at some passes, you understand), blankets and silk scarves billowing across the screen, poetic tortured gazes, at the head of some sort of refugee camel train... yes I may well be imagining this in fact, I'll YouTube it. But. The landscapes and mountain vistas were mind-boggling and I've now had a hankering for over a decade - lunar terrains, jagged and inhospitable, not bleak but other-wordly and haunting.

View from Leh palace

And one of the main ogranising principles of our early itinerary was to make it it up north in time to to do the epic Manali-Leh highway approach (17 hours to 2 days depending on vehicle and willingness for drivers to sacrifice sleep) before the rapidly cooling climate makes the passes too calamitous and the road 'closes' for winter. Though in reality I'm sure there are plenty of crazy drivers willing to try and get you through way past the Autumn cut-off. However we'd remained a little unsure if jeeps and buses were still going even as we arrived in Manali. So after all that, Ladakh had a lot to live up to. And it did. I love it when that happens. It's so hit and miss with places you have a thing for and imaginatively over-invest in - even when you've travelled enough to temper your expectations and know nowhere's ever quite as you pictured it and that destinations deliver or not entirely on their own terms.

Leh was stunning in the late September light - icy at night and in the shade but a scorching sun beating down through almost cloudless blue skies most days. Why 'the season' was at its end we couldn't totally grasp, since flights continue to get in most of the year regardless of the two key road routes (from Manali to the south and Srinagar to the West). Town felt pretty quiet, with tour agencies, Kashmiri craft emporiums and tourist cafes half closed and agents and vendors in need of the last precious rupees before the winter cuts them off from much external income. Yet for all that economic necessity, Leh was utterly peaceful, with very little of the hustler shuffle that tends to follow the tourist pretty much ceaselessly elsewhere in India. In fact, Ladakh didn't feel entirely Indian - and people tend to joke to about heading 'to India' as they leave. It's sheer remoteness has tended to keep the predominantly Tibetan Buddhist region pretty separate from Hindu Jammu and Muslim Kashmir which make up the rest of the state. The contrast felt striking between the narrow and precipitous, occasionally suicidal, passes (the 'Rohtang La' just past Manali apparently means 'piles of corpses' in Hindi. Reassuring.) on the hair-raising 17 hour jeep ride, and the seemingly developed well-lit city outskirts of Leh.

Executive backpacking at Bon Appetit, Leh

The remoteness from the rest of India felt pretty palpable throughout our stay, with people referring to themseles as Ladakhi first and foremost. The region's mountains also don't see quite the trekking and climbing action that Nepal does and despite the other late-season visitors around, in our 8 or 9 day stay it still felt like we had the place to ourselves. After our first weekend acclimatising further to the altitude and exploring Leh - its Main Bazaar, formerly a hub on the central-Asian spice route, the craggy hilltop palace and gompa, calling Lhasa's Potala Palace to mind - and some pretty stunning but definitely off-budget chocolate momos (executive backpacking if you will) - we planned our side-trips.

Rugged manly hill walker

After the stunning Nubra Valley in T's last post, we ventured into the Indus Valley for a mild 3 day hike from Zinchin to Stok, just the two of us and a guide, a 16 year old boy called Tsepil (sweet and amiable enough but who gradually wore through my nerves as teenage boys inevitably will). It was a beautiful, if strangely paced couple of days walk, interspersed with homestays. Having thought the price very reasonably compared with other options, it did start to feel clear why this was on various counts but none that detracted from the experience. For example, this may make me a bad-tempered Orientalist old biddy but I'm not sure it's unreasonable for a guide sent by a tourist agency to have a rudimentary grasp of English in order to facilitate some, you know, guiding.... (as opposed to kind of, sort of, knowing the general direction and being able to ask passing shepherds for clarification). Or adapting to your ward's tempo a little: on day 3, a tough 8 hour climb up from Rambok to the peak of Stok Kangri before down and through the valley to our pick-up in Stok village, Tsepil would constantly gallop ahead and then stop and stare back until we caught up. 

Doesn't sound that annoying but believe me, it was a slow burn to my rapidly shortening fuse. It's like, dude, modify your pace. I've paid sizable money to soak up these views and and not rupture my ancient kneecaps galloping home so you can clock off by teatime. Grrrr. Ahem. Anyway, he was fine, bless him. And the views - particularly on the punishing Day 3 climb were unrelentingly stunning.

Top of Stok Kangri after a steep few hours climb

We stayed in homestays each night, the location of which dictated a slightly off-kilter 2hr/3hr/8hr walking programme over the 3 days - and arrived at both by lunchtime giving us the whole afternoon to relax, ready and wander about pointing at goats and 'dzos (improbable yak/cow hybrid). The scheme is pretty impressive, bringing extra income into rural agricultural households through the valleys and getting trekkers a more comfortable night's sleep and window into Ladakhi life. You do eat alot of chapattis thought. Chappati breakfast, chappati lunch, chappati at dinner. A whole world of chapatti if your gut is ready for it. Our second host Dolma, at Rambok, was a very bright and welcoming young woman with one of the most beautiful babies I've ever seen - a gorgeous little gnome in bright knitwear sat with perfect posture and a steady gaze. Her cosy kitchen even extended to viewing the India-Australia cricket match, followed intently by older male relatives and farmhands growing gradually more slurred over their watered down Indian whisky.

Goman gompa next to our guesthouse, Leh

We weren't sure how we'd cope with the bright lights, big city of Leh on our return for our final evening in Ladakh at the awesome Cafe Jeevan and our final sleep at the endlessly gracious and welcoming family-run Goman guesthouse who'd allowed us to come and go leaving our bags as necessary throughout the week.

I think I'll be back to Ladakh. It's easy to say that when there's a whole vast unexperienced world out there. But it's quite singular - understated, dignified and beguiling, sharing more with Tibet in many ways than India. And while we feared the risk of 'gompa-fatigue' as hill-top temple succeeded hill-top temple, it never really got old for me. Most perched precariously but nimbly to the cliff-faces like mountain goats, taking the breath away - Diskit, Sumur, Sankar, Tiske. The latter particularly noteworthy for its incredible Maitreya Buddha, a vast icon barely contained in a temple room, upper and lower halves accessed through two different levels  - one of the few buddhas to actually take my breath away (indeed they display a quote from the Dalai Lama to this effect - and I paraphrase - 'I've seen a lot of Buddhas in my time but this one takes the biscuit, well done guys'. But also for distracting us past the last bus back to Leh, stranded on the dusty roadside as night fell, our frankly rubbish hitch-hiking attempts only alleviated by a passing monk (never far away in Ladakh, as in Dharamsala) whoe bantering promises of guaranteed moksha secured in 2 minutes what might have taken us all night to achieve - a lift back to Leh, speeding off into the darkness towards its flickering lights with a couple of amiable chain-smoking, baseball cap wearing 30-somethings.

And flying out, just when you thought your jaw couldn't drop any further...

Flying overhead