Padum, looking for Mules

---

We're in Padum, the capital of Zanskar. A long time ago, it must have been a nice place. But the old town has been abandoned and it is almost destroyed. For the rest it is a stuffy scruffy town. A few shops, but not so many vegetables stalls.

We have an "appointment" with a horseman that we had met in Lamayuru when we started. Yesterday, there was no sign of him, and for that matter no sign of any horseman at all. :-(

But today we are more lucky, around 11 am, we saw some horses and, yes, the old man was there. He was accompanied by a younger horseman who proposes to cook for us. The deal is made, and although they have 6 horses/mules, they agree to go come with us. It will be a lighter trip for the animals and they are going back to Darcha anyway. We will start tomorrow at 9 am.

So again we do our shopping for the coming 2 weeks. We try to look for some internet, but there is barely electricity here, so no internet. We did manage to get some laundry done though.

Another particularity of Padum is the quite large Muslim community. In fact the only road that comes to Padum is coming straight from Kargil, Cashmere. But the army is building a road to connect Padum with Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh. It is far from finished, but the day it will be; it will change things here; the Budhist people of Zanskar will be less dependent of Muslim Cashmere, but then there are already a lot of Muslims who moved here... Let's hope things won't degrade here!

---