Asia > India > Jammu & Kashmir > Ladakh > Articles > Hoof of the World: Trekking in Ladakh

Scanning the jumble of houses, I spotted a pair of mules munching fodder on the flat roof. Their tails twitched contentedly. If I had a tail, it too would be twitching - with relief. My pack bulged with a week's rice, dhal and soya, and my back was having none of it. Their wily owner watched my nonchalant approach. How does one casually hire a mule? We ate a business lunch and drank fraternal tea. An hour later his son cajoled one rather grumpy mule laden with my gear. We wound through a ravine and climbed to the pass.

Ladakh is one of India's most otherworldly districts. High in the Himalaya-bordering Tibet, it boasts some of the country's most pristine landscapes. Sparsely inhabited valleys lie between stark mountains, white-washed Buddhist monasteries perch improbably on crags and cliff tops. Its culture and geography justify the name 'Little Tibet' but this is no Shangrila; beyond the short blissful summers, life is harsh.

Trekking is increasingly popular, with tents, guides and cooks organised to the last spoon. These miniature expeditions swoop along the trails but rarely sweep up after themselves. Preferring a less detached approach I had simply turned up at Lamayuru, one popular trailhead on the road between Leh and Kargil.

Lamayuru's monastery is one of Ladakh's most famous and picturesque. There's been one here since the 10th century though the extant complex is just a few hundred years old. Frescoes of demons and spirits writhe across the walls of its prayer halls, and the drone of absorbed monks fills dim rooms and corridors. Their lives seem as austere as the rugged mountains beyond.

It was "grass-cutting", harvest time so my mule could only be spared a day. Just about every able hand was out scything barley and millet. As we laboured towards Prinkiti La, crumbly Bad Land hills closed in around us. Sonam my muleteer was glad for the break; fields meant work and this was just a good stroll.

At 3700m, Prinkiti is a low pass by Ladakhi standards. Sonam indicated a faint col, Konzke La. "You cross in two days. Always cold" he said ominously. I regarded this distant notch with amazement for it seemed a week away. Ladakh's crystalline air and lonely landscapes conspire beautifully to mock perspective.

Two hours later we shuffled into Wanlah. A small monastery and tiny ruined fortress loom over the village from a steep ridge. I went off in search of a muleteer called Dorje; voices soon hollered his name from rooftop to window to fields and back again. Dorje proved a shy young man and a small crowd watched our negotiations. He seemed ideal; friends explained he cooked, knew the route and was experienced. The school teacher described him as 'hale and hearty'. We fixed a price and agreed a 7am start.

Wanlah's only tea shop doubles as an inn. The one room has two beds and I occupied both. At breakfast, chai wallah nodded towards the door. I looked, and looked again. Dorje seemed to have aged enormously overnight and gained around two stone; in fact he now strongly resembled his father, Tashi. A foal nuzzled my new mule. I hadn't bargained on a family affair.

Our little circus headed up-valley by the Yapola River, past gigantic boulders and dry stone walls. An old man with a walnut face and brocade robes rode by, seemingly from the last century. There was one last village shop at Phanjila, shelves stacked with candles, drinks and biscuits; I bought coconut cookies. Tashi sauntered along, still wearing his heavy coat and woollen hat which was never, ever removed. We headed up a side-valley towards Hinju village and Konzke La.

Harvest, I decided, is Ladakh at its most sensual. Shaggy yaks stomp around threshing circles, ears of barley are thrashed with sticks and winnowed by singing villagers in twos and threes. Tashi's daughter - we had stopped at her husband's home - dolloped rancid butter into a cylindrical wooden flask. Tea was added and a robust brew infused with a plunger. Later, chang - the sharp milky beer of the Himalaya - was ladled into cups. Tashi's refills concluded with a spluttering display of affection, and I doubted our planned early start.

At 4900m Konzke La is the highest point of this trail; all but the fittest puff and pant in such rarefied air. I took it easy, the others slowly. The stark valley narrowed as Hinju fell away and even hardy strands of willow gave up the ghost. The thin, steep trail zigzagged past wearying, false summits. Elation was to glimpse limp prayer flags and rough cairns with goat horns that marked the pass.

Then, an almost supernatural stillness. Beneath razor peaks encased in ice or flecked with snow, lay vast folds of rock tinged mauve and jade. Ladakh is composed of extremes, opposites: intense summer sun can burn fair Western skin in minutes, winter sees absurdly low temperatures. There are either lush irrigated fields or desert, with just a village wall between the two. Warm and clear when I arrived, Konzke La turned raw and cloudy in half an hour. It is no place for mere mortals and we plunged into the Sumdah Valley without delay.

Just two villages endure its isolation and we walked for hours without seeing a soul. Shepherds' stone huts and pens were empty, grazing having ended before the onset of winter. The trail meandered through clumps of willow, crossing and re-crossing the stream many times. It was late afternoon when the fields of 'Great' Sumdah appeared like oases. We were spotted immediately and a welcoming committee of children cheered our arrival.

Ladakhis are exceptional hosts. They welcome strangers into their homes, provide fodder for their mules, there's always a sleeping space - even a 'spare' room - but they don't fuss unduly. It is a dignified hospitality, no need to squirm at being the pampered, uninvited guest. But they always plonked me down before the stove, the warmest part of homes that even on summer nights are invariably cold.

I was tearing into a packet of biscuits when startled by a sepulchral voice: "Oh young of Ladakh, turn away from cigarettes and strong drink, the harmfulness of packaged foods...." They fell around laughing at my amazement; then the cloth was whipped off the stereo. Solar panels, now common even in the wilds, are used mainly to power dim tube lamps. This family managed to get a few plays of the Leh Nutrition Project's "Awareness Raising Songs" from a day's sunlight.

The songs - sung in Ladahki and spliced with morose English commentary praise wise old traditions and encourage self-sufficiency. For all its harshness, Ladakh's is a fragile environment, and purists might balk at the kind of meal my hosts cooked that night. Friends, brothers and sisters returned from the fields one by one with potatoes and a sort of cabbage. But the staples were rice and lentils, foods which cannot be grown at this altitude. Ladakh is slowly losing its hardy self-reliance, one price of development.

Ten of us crouched about the stove as night smothered the valley. A knob of butter anointed the rim of a jug from which chang flowed freely. Tsampa, the ubiquitous roasted barley flour of Ladakh and Tibet, was spooned into cups of butter tea, and changed-up Tashi scolded me for not having more. To many Western palates, tsampa tastes like soil but it is the ultimate survival food; you don't even need to add water.

Another day, a final pass. My hosts wrote a note for friends in Chiling village, which we hoped to reach that night. As I surged ahead, snatches of Tashi's whistling echoed across ravines. Somewhere across the river, we needed to find the path to Dundunchen La. "Dundunchen La?" he repeated as one might a foreign name for the first time. Were it not for my trekking book, we might still be blundering about.

Half way through the climb, I reached a herders' camp. All was still; Tashi prodded mother mule in the distance. Not for the first time a voice startled my reverie, singing from within the pen. A friendly shepherd beckoned. His companion sat in a dark cell making cheese, the wooden whisk spun with leather thongs, a picture of contentment. They gave us creamy yak yoghurt buried with an inch of tsampa and for once I truly relished its nutty flavour.

The curse of most passes is not the stiff climb but those immediate knee-cracking descents. Dundunchen La was exceptional, 4700m of sweeping views and near level trail for 30 minutes. Tashi pointed out a faint line on distant mountains - the Leh-Nubra road, reputedly the highest drivable road in the world. Closer to, the silty Zanskar River, snaked between the dun flanks of tomorrow's valley.

There was, of course, a merciless descent. Chiling appeared at dusk and we found lodgings within minutes. The large house boasted a cavernous kitchen, its stylish stove embossed with beaten metal designs and studded with turquoise. But there was no banquet this night. The women chewed tsampa dough like goats and my cook watched me cook with rapt fascination.

Next morning I distributed my food and fuel. Chiling's famous metal-workers were harvesting their fields rather than tending their furnaces. Tashi set off to re-cross two passes. He hadn't been much of a guide and was even less a cook. But, as the teacher said, he was hale and hearty. And, hiking alone to the main road, so too was I.

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