India Travel

A spellbinding divide between two of the world’s most formidable mountain ranges, the Suru Valley winds south from Kargil to the desolate Pensi La - the main entry point for Zanskar. Since a fair-weather road was bulldozed all the way to Padum, you can travel to the heart of this remote region by bus (albeit a clapped-out J&K state one), in a single haul of around fourteen hours. The first leg, usually undertaken in the pre-dawn darkness, leads through the broad lower reaches of the Suru Valley, whose fertile floor is strewn with Muslim villages, clustered around gleaming metal mosque domes. By the time the first rays of daylight appear, the surrounding mountains have grown vast, bare and brown, only cultivated along the narrow strip lining the river. Gradually, the pristine white ice-fields and rocky pinnacles of Nun-Kun (7077m) nose over the horizon. Apart from a brief disappearance behind the steep sides of the valley at Panikhar, this awesome massif dominates the landscape all the way to Zanskar. Shortly after Panikhar, the Suru veers east around the base of Nun-Kun, passing within a stone’s throw of the magnificent Gangri Glacier. Having wound across a seemingly endless boulder field, closed in on both sides by sheer mountain walls, the road emerges at a marshy open plain surrounded by snow peaks and swathes of near-vertical strata. Juldo, a tiny settlement whose fodder-stacked rooftops are strung with fluttering prayer flags, marks the beginning of Buddhist Suru.

The climb to the pass from Rangdum gompa, across the flat river basin from Juldo, is absolutely breathtaking. One glistening 6000-metre peak after another appears atop a series of side-valleys, many lined with gigantic folds of rock and ice. The real high point occurs shortly beyond Pensi La (4401m), as the road, swinging around dizzying switchbacks, overlooks the colossal S-shaped Darung Drung Glacier, whose milky-green meltwateis drain southeast into the Stod Valley, visible below.

Besides upmarket hotels like the Siachen, finding somewhere to eat in Kargil is a toss-up between the small tourist-oriented cafes on the lane from the truck park to the bazaar, or a dhaba on the main street. Choice is even more limited for breakfast: all the restaurants are closed, but hot chapatis and omelettes are served from 7am onwards at the chai stall just up from the Naktul (take your own plate). A couple of chai-wallahs also hang around the bus stand at the crack of dawn.

If you’ve heard anything about Kargil, it is probably that its hotels are dreadful - which may be unfair on the few up market places, and the J&KTDC Tourist Bungalows, but is certainly true of the rock-bottom “guesthouses” around the bazaar. The Kashmir crisis, which reduced tourist traffic to a trickle, has aggravated the problem by squeezing half the hotels out of business. Those that remain are either geared towards tour groups, or else are total dives. What’s more, room tariffs soar in July and August, when a flea-infested win-dowless hovel without running water can cost as much as Rs250. The rates quoted below apply to peak season; discounts are usually available at other times; most of the more salubrious hotels offer meals, with substantial discounts if you don’t take the option.

Buses arriving in Kargil from Leh, Srinagar and Padum either puil in to the main bus stand, immediately below the top (west) end of the bazaar, or at the truck park above the river, two minutes’ walk downhill from the mam street. If you plan to head off early in the morning, check when you buy your ticket where the bus leaves from. There are only a couple of buses every day for Mulbekh but you may be able to catch a Matador - a shared minibus. The buses to Padum in Zanskar are subject to delays but run on alternate days and include A-class (Rs200) and B-class services (Rsl20).A taxi is far more comfortable and rewarding but the one-way fare to Padum is Rs7000 (Rsl200).

J&KTDCs tourist reception centre (Mon-Sat 10am—4pm, July & Aug nil 7pm; 01985/2228) is on the east side of town, around the corner from th» taxi stand and most of the hotels. As well as the usual leaflets on Ladakh and Kashmir, they rent out Norwegian trekking equipment, including four-sa son sleeping bags, tents, coats, and boots. If you need to change money (Or travellers’ cheques), the State Bank of India (Mon-Fri 10am—2pm, Sat l0am-noon) is in the middle of the main street. Its rates are poor, but better than at the Siachen Hotel, which is the only place to cash currency outside bank hours.

Even though it is surrounded by utterly awe-inspiring scenery, few travellers find anything positive to say about KARGIL, capital of the area dubbed “Little Baltistan", which rises in a clutter of corrugated iron rooftops from the confluence of the Sum and Drass rivers. Close to the Ceasefire Line and Pakistani positions, Kargil served as the logistics centre for 1999’s Kargil War, targeted by Pakistani artillery. The Pakistanis caused the Indian army great embarrassment by destroying the underground ammunition dump at Kargil in the early stages of the conflict. Aside from the odd building destroyed, much of the town escaped unscathed as the army bases lie on the outskirts of town: on the surface, Kargil has changed little. If you’re overnighting on the way between Leh and Srinagar, virtually all you’ll see of the town between the time the bus pulls in (around 7pm) and leaves (5am the next morning) is the grim bus stand and, as likely as not, the inside of an equally grotty hotel. If, on the other hand, you’re bound for Padura in Zanskar, an eighteen-hour journey south down the Sum Valley, two or three days waiting for a bus is par for the course.

Unusually for Ladakh, the majority of Kargil’s 5500 inhabitants, known as Purki, arc strict Muslims. Unlike their Sunni cousins in Kashmir, however, the locals here are orthodox Shias, which not only explains the ubiquitous Iranian Ayatollah photographs, but also the conspicuous absence of women from the bazaar. Descendants of settlers and Muslim merchants from Kashmir and Yarkhand, Purkis speak a dialect called Purig - a mixture of Ladakhi and Balti. Indeed, had it not been for the daring reconquest of the region by India during the 1948 Indo-Pak war (the Indian, army forced their Pakistani adversaries out of town after transporting an entire tank division over the Zoji La pass), Kargil would today be part of Baltistan, the region across the Ceasefire Line which it closely resembles. Prevailing Islamic laws make it, advisable to dress conservatively, and women in particular should keep their arms and legs covered.

Once you’ve found Some where to stay, there’s little to do in Kargil other than take a stroll along the main street. Formerly a major market on the old Samarkand Srinagar caravan route, the busy bazaar is nowadays a run-of-the-mill string of provision stores, ironmongers, hole-in-the-wall cafes and flyblown butchers. Among the bearded and woolly hatted passers-by you’ll also come across the odd white turban of an Agha. Kargil’s puritanical spiritual leaders, who have banned polo and dancing in the town, still travel to Iran to receive religious training, which they follow up with bouts of study at the famously austere Imambaras Shi’ite theological colleges - at the east end of the main thoroughfare.

West of Lamayuru, the main road crawls to the top of Fatu La (4091m), the highest pass between Leh and Srinagar, then ascends Namika ("Sky-Pillar") La, so called because of the jagged pinnacle of rock that looms above it to the south. Once across the windswept ridge, it drops through an Arizona-esque landscape of disintegrating desert cliffs and pebbly ravines to the wayside village of MULBEKH. The last sizeable Buddhist settlement along the road, before the Muslim Purki settlements around Kargil, is scattered around the banks of the River Wakha, whose glacial waters flow through a lush carpet of barley fields peppered with poplars and orchards of walnut and apricot trees.

Formerly an outpost of the Zangla kingdom of western Ladakh (the deposed monarchs, King Nyima Norbu Namgyal Dey and his queen, Tashi Deskit’ Angmo, still live in a dilapidated four-storey mansion on the western outskirts of the village), Mulbekh would be a sleepy hamlet were it not for the endless convoys of trucks and tourist buses that thunder through while die passes are open. Those visitors who stop at all tend only to stay long enough to grab a chai at a roadside dhaba, and to have a quick look at the seven-metre-high Maitreya {"Chamba” in Tibetan) statue carved from the face of a gigantic boulder nearby. The precise origins of the shapely four-armed Buddha-to-be are not known, but an ancient inscription on its side records that it was carved between the seventh and eighth centuries, well before Buddhism was fully established in Tibet. The best place from which to view the bas-rclicfis the flat roof of the small gompa that partially obscures it. The single-chambered gompa dedicated to the 1000-armed Chenrazig (Avalokiteshvara), is decorated with particularly beautiful murals. No entrance fee is charged, but the lamas appreciate a donation.

Another incentive to prolong your stay in Mulbekh is the two village gompas, perched atop a smooth 200-metre rock lkm west of the Chamba statue. A steep flight of steps winds up to die whitewashed temples, one of which is occupied by a small community of young nuns. Neither houses any great treasures, but the views down the Warkha Valley from their terraces make the climb (a very stiff one if you’re not yet acclimatized to the altitude) well worthwhile.

Accommodation in Mulbekh is limited to shabby rooms above the tea shops such as the Paradise and the Tsomo Riri on the main road opposite the Chamba statue, where you can get thukpa, dhal, rice, momos and butter tea; in the evenings they turn into cheap drinking dens. The Tourist Bungalow, 500m down the road towards Leh, is a far better bet with attached baths, but is poorly maintained. Around 4km to the east of Mulbekh on the road to Leh, lies the small and relatively new nunnery of Jangchup Choeling, governed by Rhizong, which has a school and pleasant garden courtyard, and where rooms are available for women visitors.

Latnayurn lies too far from either Leh or Kargil, 107km west, to be visited in a day-trip, so you either have to call in en route between the two, or spend the night here; unfortunately the present choice of accommodation isn’t great. Buses stop opposite the Dehung Labrang Restaurant, which serves simple, uninspiring meals: avoid the grubby rooms.The Monastery Hotel currently has two basic rooms and a dorm with bathrooms outside. It’s a great spot overlooking the monastery: the monastery courtyard around the corner k being developed into a large mid-range hotel. Other accommodation includes the Shangrila on the motor road to the lower village, with basic grubbi rooms and outside toilers, though some improvements are being made, and a great terrace. By far the best option is the welcoming family-run Dragon Quest Home with a range including one coveted glass room, and a pleasant garden restaurant which is the best place to eat in Lamayuru. The Mooitlattd garden restaurant next door looks attractive but is dull in comparison.The regular bus service to Leh departs at 10am and the one to Kargil at noon.

If one sight could be said to sum up Ladakh, it would have to be LAMAYURU gompa, 130km west of Leh. Hemmed in by a moonscape of scree-covered mountains, the whitewashed medieval monastery towers above a scruffy cluster of tumbledown mud-brick houses from the top of a near vertical, weirdly eroded cliff. A major landmark on the old silk route, the gompa numbers among the 108 (a spiritually significant number, probably legendary) founded by the Rmchen Zangpo in the tenth and eleventh centuries. However, its craggy seat, believed to have sheltered Milarepa during his religious odyssey across the Himalayas, was probably sacred long before the advent of Buddhism, when local people followed the shamanical Bon cult. Just twenty lamas of the Bngungpa branch of the Kagyu school are left now, as opposed to the four hundred that lived here a century or so ago. Nor does Lamayuru harbour much in the way of art treasures. The main reason visitors make the short detour from the nearby Srinagar Leh road is to photograph the gompa from the valley floor, or to pick up the trail to the Prikiti La pass - gateway to Zanskar - which begins here.

The footpath from the highway brings you out near the main entrance to the monastery, where you should be able to find the lama responsible for issuing entrance tickets (Rs20), and unlocking the door to the Du-khang. Lamayurus newly renovated prayer hall houses little of note other than a cave where Naropa, Milarepa’s teacher, is said to have meditated, and a rancid collection of yak-butter sculptures. If you’re lucky, you’ll be shown through the tangle of narrow lanes below the gompa to a tiny chapel, whose badly damaged murals of mandalas and the Tathagata Buddhas are contemporary with those at Alcru.

Blocking the head of a rocky ravine, the towering monastery of RHIZONG remains hidden off the main highway 72km west of Leh. A wealthy monastery, presided over by Shas Rinpoche and linked to Sumur in the Nubra. the atmospheric Rhizong is a relatively new gompa dating from the seventeenth centuty Getting there is half the challenge as there is no public transport along the five-kilometre road leading up from the highway between Khalsi and Saspol.

The road follows a stream past a small nunnery - Thardot Choling - to a ca park from where you walk up the ravine which can become incredibly hot in the middle of the day.

Inside the Du-khang, draped with thangkas and exquisite but smoky murals stands the central image of Shakyamuni flanked by Amitaus, the Buddha of long life, and by Avalokiteshvara, otherwise known as Chenrazig - the Buddha of compassion. The struggle up to the gompa is further rewarded by the hospitality of the monks who are likely to offer you tea, and, if you are lucky, will invite you to one of their informal prayer meetings. With shafts of light filtering through darkened rooms and the throb of chanted prayers, a visit to Rhizong takes you to the heart of Buddhist Ladakh.

If you don’t have your own transport, coming from Leh you will need to get off any Khalsi-bound bus at the appropriate junction and walk the rest of the way. Very basic accommodation is available at the gompa and women can look for a place to stay at the nunnery below. But, strictly speaking, Rhizong remains a day-trip. A new road which is being blasted up to the monastery from the car park to cope with the increasing number of visitors will cut out the climb through the ravine, but then that’s half the challenge.

One bus per day leaves Leh for Alchi in summer (around 3.30pm), taking three hours to cover the 70km and returning at 7am next day. Other buses heading in that direction leave Leh at 5.30am (for Kargil) and 9am (for Dah-Hanoo) you can catch one of these, get off at the turn-off past Saspol, and walk the remaining 4km via the motorable suspension bridge west of the village. Though there are obvious shortcuts, you may find a ride.

Of the growing selection of guesthouses in Alchi, the Lotsava, left of the main road as you approach the Chos-khor, is pleasant and simple with earth floors; the landlady serves filling breakfasts and evening meals in the small garden if you give her enough warning. Around the car park, the Potala, just above the tea stall, has simple rooms sharing common baths while the Zimskhang Hotel, near the top of the path to the temples, is a decent place to eat with a pretty garden, but the rooms are grungy and overpriced especially during the high season; their annexe, the Royal Choskor across the path is roomier with hot water by the bucket. By far the most attractive option is the purpose-built Sam Dubling, a new guesthouse 100m above the taxi stand approached by following the stream behind the Potala. The Alchi Resort (01982/52520) near the taxi stand consists of luxurious huts aimed at tour groups while the popular and friendly Choskor, 800m before the taxi stand on the left, is a traditional house with simple rooms and a pleasant garden with camping.