a month in ladakh.

we just returned from a month away. a month up north in an area of indian called ladakh, which is more tibetan than indian, it sure didn't feel like the india we've gotten to know so far. we flew into the city of leh, a little green oasis in the midst of barren hills and snow-capped peaks. leh is at around 12,000ft so acclimitizing was a great excuse to just lay low for a couple days, eating, reading, sleeping, and planning our big trek.


i'd read about leh claiming to have the highest golf course in the world... so after some digging i found it's location. a picturesque 18 hole course, run by the army... no grass though. just barren sand and rock. you have to carry around a little piece of carpet for hitting off of! and the greens and called browns, as they use a mixture of old engine oil spread on the sand to stop the dust... but no, i wasn't allowed to play as it's only for the big-shot army guys, it was still great to see, it's there in the distance, the patch of sand surrounded by a small bowl of hills.

so the trek we decided to do was around a 3-weeker, starting from a small place called lamayuru, heading south through a region known as zanskar, which was a small kingdom until recently, crossing around 8 passes and eventually leading us to the state of himachal pradesh. here are some ladies in lamayuru, as we were walking past one of them piped up "photo?", so we couldn't resist, and then "rupee?"... clever ladies



it was amazing how green the areas near water were... there were some pretty elaborate canal systems and the villages all nestled around the streams were amazing. people were busy at work together while the weather is good. once the cold winter settles in, they spend their time relaxing with their homebrew and visiting, but now was work time.



one of the cutest babies, full of smiles. it was amazing to see the older siblings looking after the young ones, this sometimes being a 5 year old looking after a 1 year old, or else seeing the toddlers just playing in the dirt while the others worked in the fields.



we came across a lot of yaks on the trip, mostly up in the high pastures. most of them had their winter coats sheered for some sort of weaving, but they still looked pretty strange.



this is looking up towards the highest pass on our trip, the singge la, around 16,500ft. we had to start around 5:00am to get through the deep snow before it thawed in the hot sun. it was a pretty tough climb, especially for the horses as they would sink in a lot.



there were quite a few spots on the trip where getting wet was unavoidable. all of a sudden the trail would disappear into a river or stream, and we'd be forced to take the boots off and venture in. they were usually smaller side streams but this one is in the big zanskar river.



we passed numerous "hotels", all still closed though as the main season hasn't quite begun yet. it's amazing what some cultures define a hotel as, some quite scary. we were happy to have our tent to say the least.



the area we went through was almost entirely tibetan buddhist, it was great to see this lived out by the people in a variety of ways, one of them being the "mani-wall". these stone walls would dot the trails, and have intricately carved prayers and mantras on the tops of them. we were told that people would carve them during the cold winter months. you would always have to pass by them on the left as well...



this is the phugtal monastery. it was an amazing place, with the main prayer hall located in the large cave in the cliff. we went in for some tea and lunch with the monks... some of them so young and curious, always asking lots of questions, mainly about our horses and horseman. i think that a lot of their fathers worked with treks in the summers so they were trying to see if they knew him. i'm still amazed at the precarious locations of the monasteries, always clinging to cliff or rock.



christina was excited at the amount of wild flowers on the trek. we'd read about the blue poppy and she was lucky enough to spot one with her well trained eye.



the women in this area were super outgoing and curious, a lot different from near mussoorie. but these ladies were heading out to their nomad huts for night and stopped by for a chat and curious stare. most people only spoke the local dialect but some knew some hindi and english so we could understand a bit... very funny though.

after 10 days of walking we made it to the town of padum, the first and only road connection on the trip. it was a pretty gross place, it's amazing how the road and "advancement" affects a place. but christina did manage to find some pretty cool zanskari boots made of yak hair... so she atleast has good memories of padum.

another interesting aspect of tibetan buddhism was the prayer wheels. some of them were up to 6ft tall and amazingly decorated, and others were made of small tin cans.

the tall peak to the left is called gumburanjun, a white granite pinacle that's a pilgramage place for the local people. you can see chris crossing the bridge, which we later realized was a mistake as we had to cross back over, with no bridge... burrrr

this our campsite just below our final pass, the shingo la. we awoke to a thick layer of frost and cold toes.

here's the crew, tashi the horseman and kalsang the cook... it was great to get to know them over the trip and they were a lot like dads by the end, making sure we'd phone them once we arrived safely home.