Travels around Ladakh part 3

---

It was with a degree of trepidation that I departed the fabulous Indus River Camp, after a hearty breakfast, to go on a 4-5 day trek along the Markha Valley. I had done quite a bit of research and it appeared that it was possible to do the trek staying at homestays dotted along the route, with food provided as part of the package. Most of the shorter Markha Valley treks seemed to start at Chilling, about 1hr 15mins from the camp, but I decided to start the trek at Zingchen which was a bit closer to Leh (in distance but not necessarily time), taking in an extra 4900m pass to get to the Markha Valley.



The taxi soon turned off the main road into narrow, twisting, lumpy bumpy lanes steadily climbing towards the snow capped peaks. After a while the road hugged the side of a tributary through a narrow gorge, which had recently been subjected to a number of landslides which the road works crews were working hard to clear. Eventually the road became so impaired that I said to the driver that I would walk from there. He seemed concerned about leaving me there but I assured him it was fine and paid my dues and waved goodbye. After just 15mins walking there was a section of road that had completely washed away, and I had to leap over the cascading torrent, so it was just as well to have got out when I did.



Initially the route followed what was probably a jeep track. There were a couple of abandoned cars caught the less useful side of the destroyed road, given that the jeep track morphed into a donkey trail after just a couple of kilometres. This is definitely the land where donkeys are king. I soon came to a split in the river with Rumbak on the left hand side, and the route towards the pass on the right. As I was on the left this meant I would have to cross the quite powerful looking river. There were a couple who had just crossed in the opposite direction. They had taken the “boots off” approach, which I didn’t think my rather pathetic feet would endure so I elected to splash through with my boots on. The midget poles came into their own to help stabilise me against the raging torrent. So I made it across without a hitch, albeit with a minor chance of getting trench foot from having soggy feet the rest of the day.



I passed another small village and a couple of other hikers descending, and then followed the donkey poo onwards and upwards, and yet more onwards and upwards. That side of the mountain was pretty barren and aside from a few birds the only creatures I saw were lizards. There was not a soul in sight either for about five solid hours, so not an overly popular route (assuming I was actually on the right route). Eventually I made it to the top where there were the obligatory prayer flags, and piles of rocks. I chilled out for a while before starting to descend. It was a bit greener on this side of the pass, and I spotted lots of furry plump bottomed marmots, a woolly hare and some Tibetan Snowcocks which are similar to grouse. After about 7 hours of hiking I finally made it to the hamlet, with two homestays. The first one turned me away which made me a bit anxious as I definitely didn’t have the energy to trek another 5 miles or so to the next village. Luckily the next one, only accessible by a stepladder leading up from a gully, had space for me.



The place was incredibly basic - mattresses on the floor, no sign of any blankets, and a bucket cold water shower (as the pipe for the solar heated water was blocked) and a rather grim long drop toilet out the back of the accommodation. Nocturnal tinkles are not going to be fun!



After my initial not very favourable impression, I actually warmed to the place. I had the room to myself, two blankets turned up and there was a spacious dining room where I had filling dinner of vegetable soup followed by yummy momos (Tibetan dumplings) with spicy sauce and steamed vegetables, while chatting away to the three other hikers and their two guides. I slept like a log, until about 1am when I unfortunately did need to reacquaint myself with the long drop. The moon was nearly full and so bright that I didn’t need my torch, and thankfully the light was working in the “dunny”, so I wasn’t at peril of falling into it.



The next day I wasn’t entirely sure how far I was going to manage as a map never offers much info about the terrain that needed to be traversed. Broadly speaking there was the shorter option: about 12 miles to Sara; or the longer option: 18 miles to Markha. I set off at 8am after breakfast, equipped with a pack lunch (1500 rupees, ~£15, covered bed and all three meals), following the river down a narrow ravine. There were multiple river crossings, some of which could be executed by hopping from rock to rock (my midget poles were very handy), at other times you just had to get your feet wet. I didn’t mind as it was pretty warm so the dunking averted prickly heat.



I passed the French couple and their charming Nepalese guide who had set off about ten minutes before me. It became harder to determine which route to take as the recent rains had washed away some of the path. At one point I was following the path about six feet above the ravine when half of it had been washed away, leaving a narrow ledge not more than nine inches wide. It was not clear how “weight bearing” it would be, so I inched around it holding onto a few branches to hopefully reduce the impact of a fall if it did give way. At least the others were behind me to pick up the pieces!



After a couple of hours of enjoyable picking my way down the shaded ravine I got to a village with a dirt road running through it, which was a bit disappointing as I had thought that Markha Valley was car free. How annoying progress can be! The benefit was obviously the speed to cover the ground, the drawback was that it made for rather uninspiring, unchallenging hiking. Traffic certainly wasn’t a major issue as I only saw about six vehicles all day - about a fifth of the donkey/ packhorse tally.



I tried to deviate off the road in a couple of spots- the first time was to take a route down along the riverbank rather than looping up inland. The track petered out with a big boulder blocking the way. I used a tree branch to lever me up, but the drop off the other side was a ten meter slither down the near vertical rock face into a gushing tributary. I erred on the side of caution and backtracked to the road.



As I was making reasonable progress, I decided to head onto Markha (18 miles from base). By the last couple of miles I was pretty spent. Much of the route had been devoid of shade, so I bailed at the first homestay I got to - a pretty filthy affair, with an acrid smell of cat pee in the hallway, but then again I was too knackered to quibble at this stage. On the positive side the toothless widow running it seemed very sweet, and I felt a bit sorry for her so I couldn’t bring myself to gather up my things and head to a better place. There was also lots of hot water for my bucket shower so at least I was clean even if none of my clothes were, or the bed I had to sleep in.



After a basic but filling dinner in the kitchen with the proprietor, with the TV on in the background (which I established that she couldn’t understand, it being in Hindi as opposed to Ladakhi), I hit the sack. I was somewhat concerned that I would awake it the middle of the night with a cockroach scuttling across my face, but ended up sleeping reasonably well.



The next day once again there were a few options - the deciding factor obviously being how challenging the terrain was, and my rate of progress. The shortest option was just 7.5 miles to Hankar, the medium one 10 miles to Tachungtse, and the longest one 14 miles to Nimaling Campground where there were allegedly some rental tents available. The amount of ascent to Nimaling was around 1000m, to over 4800m, so altitude was going to be an important factor. At Markha the jeep track finally petered out after I crossed a rickety wooden bridge so at least the route was likely to be a bit more interesting than my experience of the Markha valley to date.



A few kilometres out of town was a wide river and no option but to take off your boots, roll up your trousers and transpose everything that won’t benefit from a dunking into the top part of your rucksack. There were three people who had just crossed on the other side of the 20 meter wide raging torrent of glacier melt. They offered shouts of advice and encouragement as I plunged into the ice cold water. The force of the water nearly pulled my legs out from underneath me, and it took all my concentration to keep up right and not topple over, especially with the weight of my rucksack further impeding my balance. I was so grateful for the midget poles that at least provided some extra support when I was able to pinion them into the stone strewn bottom of the river.



As I inched across, struggling to find a foothold with my bare feet, the water got higher and higher, up to the top of my thighs. At this point the guys on the other side waved at me to go back as I was clearly not crossing a suitably shallow point. I dragged myself up onto the bank, a cold and bedraggled wreck with a bleeding gash in my ankle, wondering how the heck I was going to make it to the other side and definitely not relishing the thought of having to plunge into the swirling torrent again. Just as I was wondering which alternative spot to attempt the crossing, a group of packhorses appeared. Their guide nimbly leapt onto the back of one and they crossed about 30 meters downstream at a point that was obviously far less deep. I subsequently successfully traversed where they did without too much difficulty, the only casualty being my precious stash of toilet paper which I had forgotten to move.



For several miles we crisscrossed the river, occasionally by bridges, sometimes by jumping from rock to rock. Periodically the route looped steeply up into the chalky rock face away from the river. When I wasn’t following strings of packhorses, I was usually following their poo as it was as good a route guide as any, most of the time. Some time in the afternoon the route veered upwards through wide scrubland with a number of 6000+ meter snow capped peaks in each direction. It was teeming with Ladakh Pikas, akin to baby bunnies, and a few more Himalayan Marmots, as well as lots of birds - it seems to be a popular spot for London pigeons to take their summer holidays.



The route was a steady uphill grind, and my regular checks on Map.Me to find out how much further I had to go persistently yielded very disappointing results. I passed various groups of trekkers- largely post-Army service Israelis, French and quite a few Indians - so that was a good excuse to take a breather and have a bit of a chat. Eventually the campsite came into view, after nearly eight hours, ~1000m ascent and twelve miles of plodding, scrambling or battling the icy rapids. Such a relief!



On arrival I joined a French group for a couple of mugs of remedial sugary tea before trying to find the manager. I was pointed in the direction of a large static tent that appeared to be operating as the kitchen. A dreadlocked chap came out to see what I wanted. On requesting a tent for one person he shook his head and said they were very busy so only sharing tents were available. Beggars can’t be choosers, eh? I affirmed that would be fine. I was getting settled into my abode when the zip was opened and I was introduced to my perspective sleeping partner- an aging French hippie called Vincent. The inside of the tent was approximately the same size as a queen sized bed, thankfully with separate blankets and mattresses for each person, so this was going to be interesting. They did give me a let-out but I said it would be fine, and actually he was really friendly and quiet as a mouse as a sleeping companion, so I am glad I didn’t make a fuss.



Day 4 kicked off, after brekkie, with a steep climb up the final 300m ascent over a couple of miles to crest the pass. Hiking at an altitude of ~5000m is not easy, so even when languidly trudging up I still had to stop regularly to catch my breath. I made it after about an hour and twenty minutes. Than the downhill. It was so far removed from a gentle stroll with gravity doing the hard work. It was a really steep zigzagging path covered in loose soil and littered with rocks, so it was completely treacherous. I hit the deck once landing hard on my right ribs and bent leg - post my ACL reconstruction the knee has never been able to fully bend so aggressively forcing it to do so isn’t optimal. However apart from sore ribs I escaped unscathed.



On one of the rare occasions I surveyed the scenery rather than my feet I was rewarded with an excellent view of a flock of the rare Blue Sheep. Quite why they are called that, I can’t fathom as they are neither blue nor sheep (they are actually closer in genus to goats). Another time I nearly trampled on a Tibetan Snowcock (or Snowhen?) shepherding her chicks across the pathway.



After an hour or so of descent the route once again tracked the river, which involved umpteen river crossings of various degrees of challenge (albeit none as terrifying as the previous day’s one), and several precipitous loops high over the bluffs bordering the ravine. While gingerly picking my way down a particularly slippery one of these, I came across a young French couple. The girl was having a complete hissey fit about the steep slippery terrain, stamping her feet and emitting a tirade of French expletives that I certainly understood quite clearly. I could sympathise.



I eventually made it back to base, after a few unintentional detours, and joined a shared taxi with the French couple - the girl was very apologetic about her outburst. Then back to Leh for the most wonderful long shower, and an afternoon of relaxation prior to one more day of luxurious laziness and delicious food at the Indus River Camp before heading home. If you don’t mind a bit of roughing it, and are interested in culture and hiking then I thoroughly recommend Ladakh as a place to explore.

---