Into the Zanskar Valley
In the early hours of the morning, in the midst of an agonising, messy few hours in our hotel bathroom, I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I was reminded of Regan projectile vomiting in ‘The Exorcist’, but with violent streams coming out of both ends. If I’d have been laid on my side on the floor I’d have rotated like some weird, revolting Catherine Wheel.
Helen was fine, so I suspect my distress was caused by a gifted apricot* as I sat in the offices of a mobile phone company trying to get a SIM card (which I got after an hour & a half and it worked not a jot). The moral of the story? Never accept unwashed fruit from well-meaning random women…. *Note it was given to me, it had no special talent or anything.
Against this delightful backdrop, and still no better, we set off from Leh on what turned out to be quite the expedition to the town of Padum in the Zanskar Valley. Normally, you have to make the long trek up to the town of Kargil in the north of Ladakh and then down to Padum from there, a journey of around 12 or more hours, but a new mountain through-road is now open, cutting the journey to around 4 or 5 hours. I say ‘open’, but we were slightly dubious as the road only allows traffic over on Wednesdays and Sundays, so we anticipated it wouldn’t be entirely plain sailing…….
We’d arranged a taxi to take us over on a Sunday, but it soon became clear that the driver had not attempted the journey before and was a little nervous. It turned out he was right to be. The first hour was pretty easy, but manic and torturously stomach-churning as we hurtled down the tarmac to the village of Chilling, where the new road stops / starts.
The building of the road is a real feat of engineering, or at least it will be when it’s completed. It largely follows the meandering Zanskar river and whilst some stretches are metalled, the majority is still either flattened dirt or loose rock chippings. There are areas where dramatic overhangs shade the passageway, where thousands of tonnes of rock have been blasted out. Huge sections are still in the process of being dynamited and work-teams drilling holes for linked-up blasting patterns are a common site. There are, however, hardly any measures to stop nature reclaiming the road for its own – there are no cages, nets, wall ties, nothing to stop the random and frequent rock falls and landslides that seem to dog the project.
Scenically, the middle section of the road is the most dramatic as the river narrows & churns and the mountains are squeezed ever higher. It’s a beautiful, stark place where your human insignificance beneath the might of your surroundings is all too obvious and attempts to carve a path through it all seem puny and precarious. Nevertheless, the teams of Indians working the road, all from much poorer states further south, and living in conditions that resemble desperate refugee camps, push on regardless….
Traffic zooming under an overhang
An hour or two in, the road became little more than a single lane track and it became increasingly difficult to make progress due to the lack of adequate passing places. On several occasions we were forced to retreat back to wider ground as large trucks bore down on us. The twists and turns were short and sharp and at each passing we prudently asked whether drivers knew of anything following that needed a further wait on our part.
Looming. menacing trukcs bear down on us…..
Our taxt driver quizzes a motorcyclist on the state of the traffic behind
At one point, roughly half-way into the journey, we rounded a bend covered in large, silver-coloured scree and descended to a relatively flat, narrow track beneath overhanging rocks. Ahead of us was a fairly innocuous scree slope (or so we thought) ascending to another bend. The driver hesitated, but after getting out to move a few larger stones to make sure we had enough clearance, put his foot down. We didn’t get even a quarter of the way up before bogging down in the loose stone. We all got out, dug-out the wheels with our hands, reversed back down and tried again, this time minus the weight of Helen and myself. An improvement at least as the taxi got about half way up before miring itself once more. We tried again, digging out, reversing back and this time taking all the luggage out (unceremoniously dumping it in the white dusty stones). Alas, not much better – a little more than half way again. The driver looked despondent. “It not possible.” he said, hopelessly. “Nonsense,” I retorted, “we’ll push you up.” Coming from someone who’d not properly eaten for 2 days, had thrown up several times that morning and could successfully sh*t through a sieve if he tried (with a wife who’s pathologically afraid of scree slopes), our prospects did not look overly good.
Nor was the outcome – we tried hard, but couldn’t get him any further up the hill. We considered our options. Go back to Leh as the driver wanted, abandon him and try & hitch a lift the rest of the way, or keep trying.
Our dilemma then got considerably worse. Some way out of sight behind us, a large section of the rock face chose this moment to come crashing down onto the road, blocking the way out. We only became aware when another, quite frantic driver came running towards us saying his car had just missed being flattened by the fall. So, at that precise moment in time we were quite literally stuck between a rock (fall) and a hard place (the ‘impossible’ slope). A mini bus then arrived on the scene behind the rocks and another car appeared at the top of the slope above us. We were well and truly hemmed in.
We kicked into gear and the adrenaline took over. We ran down to the fallen rocks and began moving as much as we could – me, the panicky driver who’d just missed meeting his maker, Helen and a few French tourists from the mini-bus (note: most of our Gallic cousins did NOT help and neither did our taxi driver!!). After half an hour we’d cleared it to the point where cars had a fighting chance of getting through. Luckily there were no huge stones we couldn’t shift between us. We were totally covered in white dust.
We then had a chat with everyone – we could try and get our taxi up the slope with more people pushing and help get the minibus and other cars over the remains of the rock-fall if they needed it. The small crowd brow-beat our driver into agreeing to try again. This time he slammed on the accelerator and with 5 people running full pelt behind him we finally got him to the top. The minibus successfully waddled over our rock clearance, rounded the bend, then manically careened up the slope with stones flying everywhere and to much cheering from the Frenchmen. Motorbikes suddenly appeared from both sides, whizzing up and down and totally confusing the scene. Our driver had disappeared as we wheezed-out a recovery at the top of the slope, so we cadged a lift from the near-miss man to catch him up. The whole chaotic episode lasted about an hour and we were utterly exhausted, hot, sweaty & filthy at the end of it.
Cars start to cross our cleared rock-fall
Adrenaline depleted, I started to feel woeful again, but managed to hang on for the remaining few hours it took to get to Padum. Though the worst was over we were held up several times by drilling machines pounding their way into the rock to make holes for explosives, or JCBs clearing more fallen rock or the remnants of the latest blast. We finally made it Padum and paid the driver his dues, advising him to invest in a vehicle with an engine capacity slightly larger than that of your average lawnmower, though this was probably inapt knowing he had to go back the same way to get home…..
Drilling holes for explosive charges
Our day almost over, we found a Korean-run cafe down a Padum side-street and wallowed in delectable chocolate and banana cake. At least Helen did. I sat there with my head in my hands wanting the end to come quickly. The lovely Korean lady owner came over to me and stuck three of her fingers into my chest. “I’m massaging your stomach”, she at least informed me. I let her. “Squeeze the flesh between your thumb and index finger.” She did it for me. “Guaranteed, you’ll feel better tomorrow”. We left. I went straight to bed and Helen had a simple meal at the guesthouse with some new Indian friends.
Despite me feeling like death warmed up to the point of bare tepidity, we pushed on the next day and toured a few of the local monasteries. Our first stop, Zhongkhul, was definitely the best – an externally bright, traditional gompa built into a high cliff, with wonderfully dark and murky spaces inside. We ventured up into a cave-like prayer room where a monk explained in Tibetan the meaning of the several shrines, statues and paintings that adorned the room, all translated, coincidentally by a Tibetan speaking Russian who just happened to be there with a couple of Russian tourists. Notes and coins pushed into the black, sticky ceiling glistened in the candle light. One coin found its way onto Helen’s head. Rather than keep it and spend it on sweets, she gracefully returned it to the slightly puzzled monk.
Approaching Zhongkhul Monastery
The wonderfully atmospheric Zhongkhul Monastery
Sani monastery was partially locked up, probably due to the festival that had taken place here just before we arrived. A low rise structure, the gompa sits subtly in its surroundings and was almost deserted except for a few Ladakhi pilgrims. We wandered around the prayer wheel corridors, set in a square, gently stroking the prayer wheels into action.
Sani Monastery
Karsha gompa, set picturesquely high in the cliffs above the village, was also largely closed up and the monks there were a little indifferent to our presence, however the setting and views from the monastery roofs were spectacular.
Karsha Monastery complex clinging to the cliff-face
Karsha Monastery
View over the Zanskar Valley from Karsha Monastery
Stongdey was our final stop, a dilapidated ruin of a place that looked like it might crumble back into the rocky ground it was built on at any moment. However, as at Karsha the views across the valley were stupendous and here at least, unusually, you’re allowed to take photos inside. Alas, in the most interesting section of the prayer hall, bedecked with large and grotesque festival masks that were themselves partially masked with muslin scarves, photography was strictly forbidden.
Stongdey Monastery
Stongdey Monastery
Stongdey Monastery
Stongdey Monastery
View from Stongdey Monastery
A far cry from the commercialism seen at the monasteries surrounding Leh, the Zanskar monasteries exude character and seem to operate, one imagines, largely as they always have, relatively free from the intrusions and distractions of tourism. There were no charges to get in here, just an ask for a small donation which we were glad to oblige. But beautiful though these places were, they were not our main reason to come to the Zanskar Valley. What we really wanted to see was the remote monastery at a place called Phuktal, about 50km further south and only accessible from a couple of hamlets via a trek of several miles. Unsurprisingly, that’s the subject of our next post….
Footnote: One of the features of travelling in this region are the helpful signs that dot the roadside warning of the dangers of drinking and speeding. Some are prosaic, but others are quite inventive. Whether they are meant to amuse or not remains to be seen, however these are some of our favourites;
~ “Better Late than Late”
~ “Safety on Road, Safe Tea at Home”
~ “After Whiskey, Driving Risky”
~ “Be Mr Late, not Late Mr”
~ “Speed has 5 letters, so has Death. Slow has 4 letters, so has Life”……hmmm
Footnote: By the end of the next day, I felt vastly better. Was it the three-fingered oriental intervention that did it? Was it the prayer that the Korean lady’s Indian husband performed on my behalf (as he told me a few days later)? Or was it the drugs I got from the chemist? Who knows………..
Simon (11th August 2025)
Well what a journey i am worn out just reading this. Sorry you had a bad session of the sh…. think the cafe lady made you better.. Hope you managed to wash the dust off you. Take care. XX
Yes it was a ‘fun packed’ day for sure. First time I’ve been ill in India in the 5 times I’ve been here…………
Oh my good god! What’s delivering an IT programme compared to trying to organise the United Nations getting through a rock fall and a scree slope, all with a severe dose of the what-nots!! 😂 Amazing 🫡
btw Helen am loving that you have nail varnish on your toes! A little bit of glam amongst the dust 😍
To be fair, most of the other Indians were as active in getting things going as we were, but Helen and myself were the first to get stuck into the rocks nevertheless……
Helen says she’s glad someone else appreciates her efforts!!
The things you do to keep the plans on course, impressive!!
Indeed – can’t let things like natutral disasters get in the way now, can we?
Glad you felt better, not sure how you carried on especially if exorcist like, though I imagine you didn’t incorporate her potty mouth…..
Ha ha – no I was quite restrained in that department….