MARKHA VALLEY TREK, LADAKH | LETTERS & PICTURES FROM ASIA, 1988 | PART 11

In 1988, when I was eighteen years old I set off from New Zealand to Asia on an adventure. Accompanying me was my high school friend David. We were inspired by Tintin comics and National Geographic magazines. Although we had never actually been overseas before, we wanted begin our travels somewhere more exotic than the usual teenage Kiwi destinations. Our plans were vague - first Nepal, then India - then, after that, as far as our meagre holiday savings would take us. Once on the road, I wrote detailed and mostly illegible aerogrammes home, which my father kindly typed up to make readable for the rest of the family. My father also generously lent me his Pentax Spotmatic camera to ensure I got some good pictures. 

This is the eleventh letter, sent from the Himalayan region of the Markha Valley in Ladakh. Read the very first letter from Kathmandu here.

Leh
Ladakh, India
23 June 1988

Dear Everyone,

Well, here I am in Hemis Gompa having just completed the Markha Valley trek; it took 7 days and was perhaps the most amazing experience I have ever had. I stayed with the Ladakhi villagers in their own homes; they are the most lovely people and it gave me the most amazing insight into their culture. It was a really wonderful experience and so I will tell it to you in day-to-day sequence.

Early on the 16 June I caught the bus to Spitok Gompa where the trek starts. The first thing that happened was that I wandered into a restricted military zone by accident and was quickly escorted out. A great start!

Spitok is a large gompa sprawling over a hill by the Indus. I didn't go inside because I wanted to get some distance along the road, but it was pretty impressive from the outside.The first day was difficult because I had all these doubts in my mind as to whether it was a good idea to trek alone, and I also wasn't fully recovered from my bout of the flu. The way was across hot flat, desert-like plains, the trail eventually turning up a side- valley to the village of Zuichen, where I found a house to stay. Villages here are like green oases in the barren red-yellow hills so they are quite striking. I slept on the dirt floor of a spare room. The family, who could speak no English, brought me rice and tea, repeating every word that I said with amusement among themselves. They were nice but it wasn't the best place that I stayed.

The next day I continued up a narrow jagged valley until it opened out into some fields where women tended their sheep and goats. In the afternoon a storm began to brew and it started to snow and get really windy. I was worried that I was going to get caught in a serious storm. I was trying to get to a village marked on the map; eventually I turned a corner and there it was. It was just like in a ghost story; staggering through the storm and eventually coming to an old castle, which was all that the village turned out to be. It was actually a spooky old monastery, unused now by monks. Feeling somewhat apprehensive I walked up to the big wooden door (there was actually thunder and lightning at the time!) and knocked.

After a long wait it creaked open and there was a small child who took me inside to an old lady. She led me to a room upstairs. It was very dirty and smelled old. Hanging over the door was a big head of a musk deer with turquoise stone eyes, mounted on wood. It was a really scary place, but I had no choice because by now there was a big storm raging outside. Later, an old man came into my room to investigate; he was also scary! It sounds stupid but it was a frightening place, just like in a horror movie. Classic!

Everybody has very wild and vicious dogs which are always let loose for the night. In the middle of a very disturbed sleep I woke up with that terrible diarrhoea-urge, the one where if you are not at the toilet within 30 seconds, it is too late!. This was in fact the first, and I hope the last, time that I had had it for a few months. The problem in Ladakh is that ’toilet’ means ’outside' and outside are the wild dogs. The problem was in fact solved by a risky venture into the darkness! In the morning the only person around was the old lady, so I left her a small donation. This was a strange place.

The next day I crossed the Gandela Pass at 4900 metres (16,000ft.). I met up with a group of three English people and crossed with them. These were the only tourists that I saw on the whole trek and I only saw them once again after this. They were camping and had ponies and were thus on a different schedule. I descended through a village called Skingo, clinging to the side of a cliff, and continued on to Sku. The pass had great views and soaring way above was a golden eagle, according to the English people's ponyman.

I stayed with a great family in Sku. The room was very dirty; all I got was a small piece of cardboard on the dirt floor. The family invited me into the main room, which was a kitchen, bedroom and living room all in one, and we drank chang and ate tsampa (flour and water). The roof was black with soot, the floor was dirt, the walls were lined with pots and the air was filled with smoke. This was a real Ladakhi home and it was great. Although no-one could speak English they all laughed and joked with me, refilling and refilling my cup with chang until I was fairly drunk. You can't stop them refilling your cup; the tradition is that they fill it, you take a big mouthful, they then refill it, you take another mouthful, then hey refill it again. We also drank butter tea, which is thick like soup. They were a really big, lively, happy family and very hospitable. In the night I'm sure that I could hear rats or mice but I didn't want to look!

The next day, the 19th, was the first day in the Markha Valley. It was a really beautiful strip of green down the middle of amazing rocky hills. The rock formations were really amazing shapes and colours, twisting and jagged; but where it was green it was really lush. I arrived in Markha in the evening and stayed with perhaps my favourite family. They couldn't speak any English as usual, but were extremely gentle and kind. I slept in the main room on a mat with them all. It was funny trying to communicate with them and we spent a long time looking at the pictures in my guide books - the one that you gave me, Roger. I can speak a little Ladakhi now, so that helped; just the essentials. These places feel like they would have been the same a few hundred years ago; the people hadn't even been to Leh.

On the following day the trail continued down the very beautiful Markha Valley. As usual, I stopped half way to cook my lunch of noodles or porridge and read my book, 'The Essence of Buddhism', which I think I told you is a series of talks by various Tibetan Rinpoches. Next time I trek I will onIy take porridge and lots of dried fruit as I think that it is easier and still tasty.

I passed a few locals, which I do most days, and also a tiny gompa situated on top of a completely pointed rock, absolutely crazy.

In the evening I reached the village of Hankar. At first there appeared to be no-one there, but eventually some children found me and took me to their house; there were actually only two houses in the whole village! The place was very rough. They showed me a sack on the dirt floor of their very smoky kitchen; it was so smoky that my eyes were watering and I was coughing. A plate of old meat was pit in front of me and they become rude and offended when I couldn't eat it; I made an attempt but it was like old car tyres! They also had a wild dog whose chain stopped about one foot from the door so every time you walked in or out you had this drooling, barking mongrel snapping at your ankles.

I had already been feeling pretty lonely but this was too much. I escaped for a while to sit and read on a rock. I was so disturbed by this terrible situation that all I wanted to do was to go home where things were nice. I sat on the rock feeling very far away from my parents, family and friends. In this difficult moment I decided that this trekking out in the wilderness was horrible and I wanted to go home to something nice and familiar. I really felt homesick and any sense of reason was lost. The main difficulty was the difference between what was familiar and mysterious present surroundings; I was in a completely foreign culture where there was nothing familiar to me and I was all alone. Everything overwhelmed me; it all seemed too much and I just wanted something ’safe’.

Just as I was recovering and I was dreading the thought of going back to this unpleasant house a man leading a pony turned up. It turned out that he was a Ladakhi schoolteacher sent from Leh and his house was just up the hill; I had been told that there were no more houses for hours. He was the first person that I had met who had good English. I went back to the house to get my pack, passing the mad dog praying that the chain was still attached strongly!

The schoolteacher's house turned out to be in a village further up the trail, that wasn't even marked on the map. His family was friendly and I spent the evening learning Ladakhi words from them. They were distinctly more westernised than most, with tattered Bruce Lee posters on the wall. The teacher talked a lot but I could understand onIy about half of what he said because of his strong accent.The second to last day was also very difficult as it involved crossing the 5200 metre (17,000 ft.) Langramaru Pass. I got off late because the teacher wanted me to take family photographs and that took a long time. Once I started off the path just climbed and climbed and climbed. I find that the best way to do this is to get into a real rhythm; I either count in fours like in music (1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, etc.), or do the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum", which you have to say all the time anyway when you pass the mani walls. Of course I have to synchronise all this with my breathing.

After several hours of walking and climbing I got to the top of what I thought was the pass and sat down to eat the chocolate that I had saved for this moment. It turned out that this was not the top of the pass after all and that it was further on and far higher. This really freaked me out because it looked like another two hours very steep climb. Later on when I talked to the NZ/English couple who were two days ahead of me they had had more troubles. They had had an argument in the morning of the day that they had crossed the pass, and had consequently ended up walking separately. The NZ girl had got lost for three hours and couldn't find the pass. The English guy had crossed the wrong pass and also spent hours finding the right trail. It was a very confusing pass!

At the top of the pass it was very windy and I couldn't find the steep trail down the other side. This was perhaps the only time that I feared for my safety. It was very steep loose rocks and I had to scramble my way down for about three hundred metres worried that I would create a major landslide. At the bottom after his ankle-twisting nightmare I could just see the very poor zig-zag path.

The trail then continued down into a narrow valley and I had to cross a fast dirty river at least a dozen times; it was well above knee-deep. I also crossed it sometimes by snow-bridge or climbed high up the bank. The main problem was that the river was so brown that I couldn't see where it was deep or shallow, and so the possibility of falling was real.

Towards the end of the day I was really tired, and this had certainly been a very challenging day. Just before I reached the village where I intended to stay I met the English group again, and they insisted that I stay with them so I slept outside with their guide. In the evening we saw a line of ibex, the deer-goat like animals that balance their way across steep cliffs. I also saw a lot of marmots, the funny little animals that stand on their back legs and whistle. They were on an 'Our World’ programme once. Other wildlife that I have seen include hares, mountain mice (like small rabbits), wild horses, yaks, and many many birds including the eagle. I left early the next day before the English people and it was an easy day's descent to Hemis.

It was quite a shock to hit civilisation. Hemis was gearing up for the big festival and there were already many tourists there. I met the English/N.Z. couple and the Swiss/Israeli couple that I had travelled with before. It was really excellent to see this latter couple again because we had become good friends. People were camping in the woods and all the hotels were full. Buses were streaming in. There were restaurant tents everywhere.

Last night I slept under the stars with a group of other people. We all built a big stone wall so that the wind wouldn't blow dust onto us. The stars were lovely but there seemed to be so many satellites; is this because we were near the equator or are they Chinese or Pakistani spies?!

The festival begins tomorrow so I will finish this letter when I return to Leh.

Love, Ben 

Read the next letter about the Hemis festival

Read the previous letter about travelling by truck to Leh