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An inside track to
otherworldly experiences is something I have come to expect of
travels with Shakti, a small-scale tour operation in the
Himalayas,founded by Jamshyd Sethna, a Parsi businessman from
Bombay. Having previously raved about Shakti’s 360° Leti as the
closest I have come to heaven (four glass-and-drystone cottages on a
remote bluff, surrounded by the Kumaon Himalayas,
and furnished only with the most congruent luxuries), I went on to
travel with them to Sikkim. There the idea was simple and novel – to
travel the region staying in far-flung village houses that had been
adapted to Western standards. The logistics boggle the mind. But the
intricate choreography of the supporting corps of drivers, guides,
cooks and staff proved as flawless as the experience was memorable.
On learning that they were doing something similar in Ladakh I
booked in as soon as possible.
Flying from Delhi to the capital, Leh, the clouds part to reveal the
first, heart-stopping, indication of just how isolated this region
is. Below, the serrated metamorphic mass of the Great Himalayas
extends relentlessly in every direction with, here and there, some
iconic peak soaring above the rest in ermine-white majesty.
Concertinaed between these mountains and the mighty Karakorams to
the north, lies Ladakh. The climate of this high altitude desert is
as harsh as the landscape, from a burning summer sun to a biting
-30°C that confines all supplies, families and livestock under a
singleroof during the winter months. We touch down on the valley
floor at the foot of Spituk Monastery, and park alongside a troop
carrier and a MiG-29.
Spituk Monastery, and park alongside a troop carrier and a MiG-29.
Ladakh opened to tourism in 1974. The playground of the Great Game
between the imperial aspirations of Russia and Great Britain during
the
19th century, it forms part of the Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir, but is close to both Pakistan and China. Yet within this
sensitive, militarised zone, Ladakh contains India’s largest
concentration of Buddhists: a smiling, peaceable people whose brand
of Tibetan Lamaism tinged with Bon animism informs every aspect of
local life and culture. Indeed, cosseted within this time warp of
towering mountains, precipitous monasteries and idyllic rural
villages undefiled by any hint of progress, one could easily imagine
oneself in pre-1950s Tibet.
We drive to Stok, the first of Shakti’s three village houses: just
half an hour from Leh, yet light years from civilisation. Here,
surrounded by fields of shoulder-high corn, abundant orchards and a
small vegetable garden, was home: an imposing traditional
whitewashed mud-brick building, with ornately carved window frames
and multi-coloured prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Rounded,
white chortens – monuments containing holy relics – dot the fields,
irrigated by channels of burbling meltwater and surrounded by bald
mountains the colour and texture of elephant hide. Families work
collectively, using primitive tools, sharing a donkey, a yak or a
song. A woman scythes grasses for winter forage, carrying her bundle
like a walking haystack, to dry on some neighbouring rooftop,
alongside a carpet of apricots. It is a scene typical of the fertile
valleys in which most villages lie scattered, claiming the meagre 17
per cent of Ladakh’s land that is cultivable.
With a ringside view of Stok Kangri’s shimmering peak – at 6,121m,
the highest in the Zanskar Range, and the abode of the rare blue
sheep – I breakfasted on the terrace: a feast of just-picked
apricots, yoghurt from the cow, which serenaded me from below, eggs
from the resident chickens, pomegranates, mountain honey, freshly
milled porridge, local herb teas, and (hoorah!) Italian coffee,
stylishly served in bowls of beaten metal. Clearly I was not going
to be asked to survive on momos (local wontons) and salt tea.
As with the other Shakti houses in Taru and Nimmu, further along the
Indus valley, the ground floor is occupied by the host family. They
go smilingly about their daily routine uninhibited by our presence.
The traditional wooden kitchen, candlelit for dinner on cold
evenings, is lined with shelves of bronze and copper pots,
reminiscent of a Dutch genre painting. The first floor has been
converted and day beds have been set out on the flat roof, from
which to contemplate impressionistic shifts of incandescent light.
Mud floors are decked with slate, wood and Tibetan rugs, and
bedrooms equipped with simple cedarwood furniture, traditional
bukhari stoves, unstinting mattresses, fluffy duvets and crisp
linens. Most impressively, en-suite bathrooms have been installed
complete with showers. The hot water might be a tad capricious but
it would be churlish to quibble. |
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‘I have always
loved walking in the Himalayas,’ explains Sethna of the Shakti
concept. ‘But travelling conditions were terrible: uncomfortable
accommodation, awful food… So I decided to create a better
alternative, without sacrificing the immediacy and authenticity of
the experience.’ By encouraging interaction with villagers,
moreover, he is introducing local communities to the practice of
sustainable tourism. At Nimmu, 67-year-old Tashi Norbu shows me
round his domain. Dressed in a long, sash-waisted mulberry gown and
trendy trilby, he reminisces about his childhood: the corrupt feudal
system that kept farmers in poverty during the 1950s, the invasion
by Pakistan in 1948, and the arrival of the first aircraft, a
military Dakota, that same year. Tashi is now village head man
responsible for resolving disputes, medicine man, archery champion
and all-important churpun, in charge of water distribution. ‘The
village relies on a meltwater stream for drinking, bathing and
irrigation,’ he explains, through my guide. ‘My job is to ensure
everyone gets his fair share of water.’ To this end, he employs
eight volunteers who, armed with rocks, daily patrol the stream,
damming and unblocking irrigation channels to permit equitable flow
to each section of the village. It is a low-tech system that has
worked well for 800 years (rather like the polyandry that is still
practised in this matriarchal society – but no-one speaks of that).
In a region whose base lies at 3,300m,
acclimatisation is vital. ‘Saddhus come to Leh from the plains,’
warns Siddhartha, ‘and even their snakes get altitude sickness and
refuse to perform.’ Starting gently, we visit Stok Palace, a
dilapidated pile which has been home to the deposed royal family
since 1843 – and where, should you wish, Siddhartha can swing an
audience with the king. Three of the 80-odd rooms have been turned
into a makeshift museum displaying, inter alia, 400-year-old
thangkas (banners holding religious art) and royal headdresses
studded with coral and turquoise. Though a far superior collection
is found at Hemis Monastery, one exhibit held me transfixed: a
sharp-edged, heavy steel sword that had been bent and knotted like a
pretzel against the (unscathed) throat of a Tantric monk at Matho.
To approach the monasteries by floating down the gentle reaches of
the Indus, its banks lined with omnipresent willow, poplar and
sea-buckthorn, is the postcard-perfect introduction. Their setting,
for one thing, is surreal. To our left, the brittle, granite outline
of the Zanskar range; to our right, the softer flank of the sandy
Ladakh range. As black-necked cranes fly overhead and a brahminy
duck plunges beneath the raft, we are swept round a bend to a
fairytale vision: Dragon’s Nose Monastery, teetering high atop a
crag. Mystical Matho looms in the distance. We paddle on, beneath a
bridge festooned in prayer flags, and an even more imposing sight
hoves into view: the 12 levels and 10 temples of Thiksey, a
15th-century monastery, tumbling from a mountain in a frozen cascade
of reds, ochres and whites.
We return to Thiksey the following morning at 5.30am. Despite the
patronage of Hollywood types, this is one of Ladakh’s strictest
monasteries, famed for its morning prayers. We ascend in the watery
light of dawn, spinning prayer wheels as we go, and inhaling
fragrant incense of juniper. Monks of all ages are scurrying to the
prayer hall where, amid images of the Buddhist pantheon, a hypnotic
chant is already in progress, punctuated by muted drums and sforzato
blasts from shrill clarionets. But we have come to witness something
else. On the rooftop, dominating the entire valley, two monks are
taking up their positions between golden finials. They don the
yellow hats of the Gelugpa order and, balancing 12-foot burnished
copper horns, begin their mournful ode to daybreak. The lowing sound
reverberates through the valley, bounces off the now-pink mountains,
and echoes back at us. In the surrounding stillness, it is
hauntingly beautiful. |
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More adventurous
types can test their mettle rafting along the boiling waters of the
icy Zanskar – though, in truth, the mountain roads are every bit as
hair-raising as anything the river can offer. We drove along a ledge
of the deep, serpentine Zanskar defile, prone to rockfalls and
traversable only by chair pulley, to the enchanted village of
Chilling, through which the prized pashmina goat roams free.
Chilling is famed for its traditional metal-workers, and we followed
the clink of an anvil chorus to an orchard, where father and son,
using a forge fanned with goatskin bellows, were fashioning an
ornate copper, silver and bronze teapot, commissioned for the Dalai
Lama. You can have your very own, a snip at £1,100. Just remember to
bring cash.
There were longer excursions, too, that took us up steep hairpin
bends and over the Ladakh range towards disputed borders. On the way
to Lake Pangong – a long finger of salt water at 4,267m that
penetrates into China – we came across yaks and their nomadic
Changpa herders who invited us to tea in their black yak-hair tents.
We forded boulder-strewn river beds that turned into torrents by
midday, then picnicked by the deserted lake, into whose tempting
azure, crystalline waters the clouds and surrounding mountains
plunged. To reach young Bakula Rimpoche in Nubra, we headed
towards Pakistan, scaled the Khardung Pass at a breathless 5,606m,
erected prayer flags for protection against the treacherous roads,
and descended into a landscape of awesome, barren drama. Broad,
braided rivers and glaciated valleys, hanging scarps that threatened
to fall like guillotines, rock-faces buckled to form lofty organ
pipes, contorted striations of browns, greens and purples.
Unexpected creamy sand dunes, surrounded by snowy peaks, come
complete with a herd of shaggy, double-humped Bactrian camels. They
come from Turkmenistan, their handsome, blue-eyed driver told me – a
throwback to the days of the Silk Route.
Apart from a brief visit to Leh Bazaar – once an important trading
post, now the haunt of backpackers, and repository of chunky Tibetan
jewellery and Kashmiri shawls – I met not one single foreigner. For
a week, I was lost in the magic of this vast, unspoilt, pre-lapsarian
paradise, heartened by the friendly cheerfulness of the local people
and cosseted by the ever-attentive Shakti staff. And then there was
the blessing of a two-year-old guru! Such is the stuff of dreams.
MOUNTAIN HIGH
Shakti Ladakh’s Village
Experience: seven nights from £2,126pp, inclusive of private guides,
porterage, activities, meals and beverages. Shakti Ladakh’s 2010
season runs from 15 May to 30 September. Contact: info@shaktihimalaya.com
or www.shaktihimalaya.com |
