Blogs from Zanskar, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, India, Asia

This was my first winter trek and by far the most thrilling and adventurous. After a gap of two years I was again planning to do the thing I love most “trekking to offbeat locations”. The month was December which is among few months where we have winters in India. Though the southern part of India remains warm and humid throughout the year the northern part can witness very cold climate at the plains and freezing subzero temperatures in the mountains. Having done a lot of research about the place where I should visit this winter, I finally zeroed down to the “Zanskar river” trek also known as the “Chadar river trek “(Chadar in English is bed sheet or blanket). During winters the complete length of the river develops a thick sheet of ice over it ... read more

Today we went from the foot of Gumbarajon to the Lhakang, Shingo La Base camp (4740m). We didn't go over the pass today as after the pass there will be a long descend. And also it cuts a big climb into 2! But it's getting colder and colder. Today was also a very short day, so we had to wait at the base-camp for several hours. I didn't feel like climbing anything around us as it was to cold. So I decided to give this camping ground a major clean up! (In special honor of my sister Ann-Laure) You have to know that there is no garbage truck driving around here! With the previous horseman, we managed to explain to him that we wanted to keep all of our garbage with us so we could throw ... read more

Purney 3900m to Tantse 4000m in 5hours. Not much to say but the fact that it was a rocky day!!! It was a bit of a steep climb just after we left Purney and then it was more downhill afterwards. Voilà nothing else for today.... read more

Hello everybody, First of all I want to remind all of you who only go see the blog when I send the mail that I post everyday on this blog, I am just not sending a mail. You can also leave comments if you want just like with FB. Any way, Day 16 of our trek. Since Padum we haven't gained much height, only about 500m. We're now at 3900m. It's a slow ascend of 10 days to our last pass of 5100m, but that's for later. Today we walked 5,5 hours to Purney. In Purney we'll stop for 2 days because from there we'll have a day trip to Phugtal Gompa. Phugtal Gompa... I have been dreaming of that place for almost 30years now. I saw a documentary about Ladakh and Zanskar when I was ... read more

F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, Everything was so smooth until now. So, we were supposed to start at 9 this morning but at 10:30 we were still waiting to start. Shashi the younger horseman, our "cook", acts a bit strange. We don't understand why, until they start to load the mules. In fact he has made a deal with 2 other tourists. He is taking them to come along with us. Well, we're not so happy about that, because we are completely "timing" free, we don't have a plane to catch and we're completely self sufficient, we have tent, food and cooking gear. For those two guys, it's another story, the only want to stay where there are lodges and where they can eat as they have no food with them, and they have exactly 10 days to ... read more