Zanskar is frigid, forbidding and faraway. A place with a geographical character of its own. A land of bizarre mountains, treeless valleys and rocky plains zig zagged by narrow blue rivers where, even in the milder parts, the growing season is only from end of April to the second half of September.
Autumn is a season of calm and uncomplicated beauty in Kashmir. Something out of a children’s tale. We spent only 24 hours in Srinagar, on a houseboat, enchanted by the goldening leaves of the chinar trees, ducks waddling in single files, coots and moorhens pecking on the water hyacinth, eagles spreading their wide wings soaring through the evening sky, and especially when night fell, the mid autumn festival’s full moon reflecting on Dal Lake from a shikara.
But there was no time to linger. It was the last day of September. We must leave for Zanskar or Ladakh before the winter snow closes the mountain roads in one to two weeks time.
A celestial first sight from the car windscreen of the great Drang-drung Glacier below the Pensi-la. Karsha, visible for miles and probably the biggest gompa in Zanskar, is situated on a mountainside high above the central plain. The abbot and monks were making their way down to the village for prayers as we arrived.Young mother and her baby in a sling, Sani village
In the morning I gave Firdaus, the houseboat owner, a quick excuse to cancel the car he said he had arranged for us to Leh. I had found a driver who called me on whatsapp to offer his “new” car – a four wheeler to take us to Padum, the nub of Zanskar valley for 34,000 rupees, stopping a day in Kargil to acclimatise.
Politically, Zanskar is governed from Kargil, one of two halves of Ladakh after that region was separated from Jammu and Kashmir on 31 October 2019 to become a Union Territory under direct rule from Delhi. Put another way, Zanskar is a predominantly Buddhist district of a Muslim county inside a Buddhist province that was previously part of a majority Muslim state but now answers directly to a Hindu majority secular republic.
Rocks and stone wall fragments around the Zangla Palace summit site School kids at a road junction prayer wheel shrine in Padum. The Nunnery in Zangla
Ever since the modern road through the Pensi La pass completed in 1980, Zanskar had been on the travel list of those in search of ethereal landscapes and heart-stopping terrain. As far as Himalayan journey goes, Zanskar is the real deal. Covering an area a bit bigger than the US state of Delaware but slightly smaller than Selangor in Malaysia, the Zanskar Valley lies between the Great Himalaya Range and the Zanskar Mountains at an altitude of between 3,500 meters to 7,000 meters. Protected by high mountains and deep snow, this remote region had been a fortress of Tibetan culture and a sacred millenium hideaway for monks, manuscripts and mysticism. Books, online stories and youtube videos have helped paint a vivid picture of a place that was as tantric as it was tantalising.
Pilgrims and visitors snack on maggi noodles in the cafe at the bottom of Phugtal GompaYoung guest at a wedding, Pipiting villageZanskar means white copper in the local Tibetan language.The culture of Zanskar is an interesting mixture of Tibetan and Non-Tibetan elements. Zanskar is the western extension of the great Tibetan plateau. The people are mainly of Tibetan stock with some amount of Central Asian and Indo-Aryan genes.Colourful prayer flags fluttering in the wind on the abandoned hilltop ruin of Zangla Palace. A hundred years ago the Hungarian philologist Sándor Körösi Csoma stayed here from 1823-24 where he studied Tibetan, compiled a dictionary and slept on sheepskins in a 9ft by 9ft room in the old palace.Afternoon samosa and chai in a Padum teashopVillage elder at a wedding in Pibiting The Tsarap river (a tributary of the Lungnak) flowing through the gorge as seen from the high level trek to the Phugtal Gompa.The cook and caretaker of the Gompa, Phugtal Road to Stongde Monastery. Zanskar is dotted with gompa (secluded monasteries) and chörten (roadside shrines) and is known across Ladakh as the Land of Religion.A shy guest outside the window of the wedding hall, PibitingLate season flowers at Omasila Hotel located just a road turn from Padum Despite its secludedness and harsh environment, Zanskar wears an air of wholesome self-reliance and modest sufficiency.Blazing fall colours, Stongde MonasteryA delicious free lunch of simple nutritious rice, beans and tomatoes at the community meal room of Zangla NunneryThe main street and market in Padum, the capital of ZanskarAsking for direction from a helpful villager in Zangla. Zanskari is mutually intelligible with Ladakhi, both belonging to the Balti-Ladakhi subgroup of Tibetan. Most Zanskari can also speak and understand Tibetan, Hindi and Urdu.Himalayan flowers sunning on the rocks. A surrealist landform sculptured by wind, snow and iceThree women carrying loads on their back walking back to their village near Zangla. With 20,000 people inhabiting 7,000 square km of land (much of it is uninhabitable), Zanskar is one of the least populated places in India with one person to an area the size of sixty soccer fields. Zanskar is the domain of ibex, wolves, markhor, sheep, goats and the elusive snow leopardDzongkhul Gompa, a monastery of the Drugpa Order of Tibetan Buddhism, is situated in the Stod Valley near a side valley that leads to the Omasi-la, an important pass across the Great Himalaya range.Stoic and content without material comfort . Sociologists studying happiness in countries like Finland, Denmark and Bhutan as well as longevity in places like the Greek Islands and Okinawa should spend some time in Zanskar where they might find the answers.Finally Phugtal, by far the most dramatic monastery in Zanskar and maybe the whole Himalaya
All photographs and texts copyright Kerk Boon Leng November 2023
Kerk Boon Leng Photographs & Notes 