Ladakh - An Experience To ‘Die For’

Achal Dhruva explores the pocket of culture and adventure amidst the mightiest mountain ranges of the world

Resolutions, I guess, are meant to be broken. But if there was one resolution I desperately wanted to keep, it was that of making an annual pilgrimage to Ladakh. It was love at first sight and the indelible bond with the land was sealed after my second lease of life following a flipover while rafting on the Indus.

Ironically my ‘face-off’ with death took place after we had cleared all the rapids on the run, down the Indus from Karu to Leh. We were cruising down the river (at a good speed as Indus is a fast moving river) enjoying the scenery and had just passed the Shey monastery when the raft got stuck against a clump of bamboo trees quite close to the shore.

"Back paddle," our instructor yelled. Even as we executed the command with fervour I knew it was going to be a wasted effort against the strong current. "Shit! the raft is going to turn sideways and the current will force it up the bamboo trees and flip over....." my thoughts were translated into action even before I could complete them.

All of a sudden I was plunged in darkness with icy cold water roaring in my ears. I was trapped beneath the raft. Despite the life jacket I could not surface as I hit the dry box (a huge wooden box in the raft used to store stuff). Unfortunately, on my second attempt to surface I hit the dry box again. All this while I was also fighting against the current to avoid my head getting trapped in the bamboo trees and for breath as it was nearly close to a minute underwater.

Magnetic Hill

Finally, I was third time lucky and managed to find an air pocket inside the raft. Gasping I swam out from beneath the raft and tried to latch on to the lifeline running along the raft. But before I could get a good grip, the raft jerked and floated downstream with me in hot pursuit bobbing like dead wood. I was speeding down a channel very close to the shore and began grabbing bits of foliage. After floating for about 500 meters I managed to latch on to a thick overhanging branch and haul myself out.

‘Shaken and stirred’, back on terra firma, my ordeal was far from over. The rafts were about 500 meters downstream. With no other options, fingers crossed I let myself go once again into the chilly raging waters till I was fished out. I was the only ‘lucky one’ to be trapped beneath the raft and left to the mercy of the current as other members had managed to cling on to the raft.

The run on the Indus was the highpoint of my ten-day sojourn to Ladakh way back in August ’99. An adventure lover’s paradise, Ladakh offers a plethora of activities (see box) and is a veritable mosaic of religion, culture and natural beauty.

Bounded by two of the world’s mightiest mountain ranges, the Himalayas and Karakorum and two other smaller ones, Ladakh and Zanskar ranges, this high altitude desert, located from about 9,000 feet at Kargil to 25,170 feet at Saser Kangri in Karakorum, is an expression of a stark and startling beauty. It is a land of extremes, where a person sitting in the sun with his feet in the shade can suffer from sunstroke and frostbite at the same time!

Ladakh is also a place of astounding quirks of nature like Magnetic Hill, located 30 kilometres from Leh on the Leh-Kargil-Batalik Highway. It has magnetic properties, which attracts metallic objects and even moves heavy vehicles up to a speed of 20 kmph while their engines are switched off! A major tourist ‘attraction,’ the local administration has put up a huge board near the hill and marked a particular spot on the road where the vehicles move ahead on their own towards the hill. Even though I experienced the phenomena, my mind refused to believe it. There had to be a gradient, a teeny-weeny one at least, and just to be absolutely sure I stretched out on the road. There was indeed a gradient but it was upwards! We did a few more runs but with the same results. The driver informed that Indian Air Force pilots steer clear of this hill as years ago a chopper had crashed into it. Talk about ‘fatal attractions’!

Confluence of Indus and Zanskar rivers at Nimo

Gompas or monasteries are a major attraction of Ladakh. Most villages are crowned with a gompa, which could be anything from an imposing complex of prayer halls and monk-dwellings to a tiny hermitage housing a single image and a solitary lama.

Central Ladakh is the historical and cultural heartland of Ladakh and has the greatest concentration of major gompas. Lamayuru located 130 kilometres to the west of Leh is the farthest and oldest. Hemmed by soaring scree-covered mountains, the white-washed medieval gompa is perched on top of near vertical weirdly eroded cliff. The gompa, founded in the 10th or 11th century, is a major landmark on the old silk route. Within walking distance are some extraordinary lunar-like rock formations at the start of the main trekking route south to Padum in Zanskar.

Alchi, located 70 kilometres west of Leh, close to the Leh-Srinagar Highway, is the jewel among Central Ladakh’s religious sites, even though nobody regularly worships here. Nestling besides a bend in the Indus, it has an extraordinary wealth of ancient wall paintings and wood sculptures, preserved for over nine centuries inside five tiny mud-walled temples. The two oldest buildings inAlchi, Du-khang (assembly hall) and the three-storied Sumstek, house vibrantly coloured murals from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Thikse, 19 kilometres south east of Leh, is one of the most architecturally impressive gompa. Founded in the 15th century, the Maitreya temple in Thikse has a gigantic gold-faced ‘Buddha-To-Come’ seated in lotus position. Bright murals depict scenes from Maitreya’s life. The view from the roof of the monastery is a patchwork of barley fields and tiny villages on the valley floor surrounded by a gallery of snowflecked desert mountains. The primeval groans from the gompa’s gargantuan Tibetan trumpets played on rooftop during the early hours of the morning give an ethereal touch to the serene atmosphere.

Prayer wheel in street corner at Leh

Hemis gompa is famous for the pomp and pageantry of the two-day Hemis Setchu festival held every summer. Located 45 kilometres south east of Leh, the 17th century gompa is one of the most famous in Ladakh. It has on permanent display an exquisite Buddha inlaid with jewels. The monastery comes alive with cham dances during the festival.

Leh, the Ladakhi capital, sprawling from the foot of a ruined Tibetan style palace is a bustling maze of mud-brick and concrete wedged between cream-coloured desert and swathes of lush irrigated farmlands. Leh became the regional capital in the 17th century and was the busiest market on the Silk Road. During the 1920s and ’30s, the broad bazaar that still forms its heart received more than a dozen pony and camel trains each day. The busy streets of the bazaar are cluttered with kitsch curio shops and handicraft emporiums selling everything from Tibetan trumpets, prayer wheels, cham dance masks, thangkas, prayer flags, Bhutanese cross buttoned shirts, tie-dyed rope soled shoes etc. Clean shaven lamas in sneakers and shades rub shoulders with half bearded Baltis (an ethnic clan) and elderly Tibetan refugees whirring prayer wheels in the bazaar while the bottom end is dominated by women from nearby villages sitting behind vegetable piles with stovepipe hats perched jauntily on their heads.

Leh also has a thriving restaurant and cafe scene, which has been cornered by the refugee Tibetan community. The most popular Tibetan dish is momos – crescent shaped pasta shells stuffed with meat, cheese or vegetables, ginger, steamed and served with hot soup and spicy sauce. Equally delicious are the small round loaves of Ladakhi wheat flour bread (tagi shamos) cooked in households and eaten piping hot with honey or jam or butter. Chang, the local barley brew, is hard to come by but a must try and only those with a strong stomach should wind their way to the illegal hole-in-the-wall chang bars tucked away in the backstreets of the bazaar. The old town past Jama Masjid, a labyrinth of tiny lanes with flat roofed houses, crumbling chortens and mani walls, seems to have been frozen in time.

Tso-moriri lake

Looming large over the old town, perched on a craggy granite cliff, is the derelict palace of the 16th Century ruler, Sengge Nyamgal. Apart from the flaking murals that decorate the ruined royal apartments and state rooms on the upper levels, the palace, a textbook example of medieval Tibetan architecture deserted by the royal family in 1940 has very few remnants of the royal splendours. The main reason to pick your way through the gutted interior is for the splendid view of the town from the roof. Namgyal Tsemo gompa on the cliff behind the palace is also worth the stiff climb. The red Maitreya temple thought to date from the 14th Century houses a giant Buddha statue flanked by bodhisattvas.

Shanti Stupa, a tooth-paste white monument, is a relatively new addition to the rocky skyline around Leh. Located on a hillock above Changspa village three kilometres west of the bazaar, the ‘peace pagoda’ whose sides are decorated with gilt panels depicting episodes from the life of Buddha has its own unique charm at dusk. One is filled with a sense of tranquillity and exhilaration watching the town below twinkling like a fairyland in the setting twilight and the snow capped mountains glow with an orange purple hue. One can’t help exclaim, ‘Jhule!’, the multi-purpose Ladakhi greeting meaning welcome, good-bye, come again and everything else.