Zanskar

Have just returned from the remote and romantically-named valley of Zanskar, which
was a three-day-each-way trip, taken at a reasonably
leisurely pace. The ride was one of the most stunning
imaginable, first through mountainous moonscape desert
with dunes at over 4000m, then following the tortuous
Indus Valley with huge drop-offs straight into the raging
river.

At Kargil, right by the Pakistani border, I dropped south
following a lesser, mainly unpaved, road for about 200 miles.
There were lots of deep river crossings and extremely rough
sections, but it was worth it for the views, especially of the
7000m Nun/Kun mountains and their glaciers, which tumble
down to very near the road.

After the high pass at Pansi La (4400m) we were into the
Zanskar Valley and one of the strangest landscapes you'll
find anywhere - flat-bottomed stony valleys, complete with
ancient white monasteries and dotted with flat-roofed,
straw-covered, Tibetan-style houses. All around are snow-
capped peaks, glaciers hanging into the valley walls and
remarkable folded rock formations. As the sun moves across
the sky, the colours of the rocks - green, red, beige - shift.

As I rode along, Himalayan marmots, furry, waddlesome creatures, would shout warnings to each other before bolting into their burrows.

The capital of Zanskar is Padum, centred on an ancient
gompa (monastery), but now spreading its concrete tendrils
along the roads and out into the valley. It's still a very small
town, however (as seen in the view from the gompa). Its
fertile surroundings are criss-crossed with an intricate and
ancient irrigation system, much like those for the rice
paddies down south, only tiered to take account of the
gradient. As with much of the mountain country, the main
crop is barley and this was under attack from a plague of
locusts - as if the recent flooding hadn't been Biblical
enough...

A couple of spectacular villages share the valley, clinging to
the steep mountainsides like insect colonies. One such,
Karsha, on the opposite side of Zanskar looked especially
interesting. In the clear air, it appeared to be only two or
three miles away, so I set out to walk there. It took three
hours to reach the Gompa and climbing it took a further
half-hour. As there was no bus back, I also had to walk the
return - a total distance, it transpired, of nearly 20 miles.


There are 20-30 tourists in Padum at any one time,
recovering from the jeep ride and waiting to leave on multi-
day treks. All of these were Italian, French or German when I
was there. All the locals I spoke to, from Kargil to Padum
said I was the first Brit they'd met.

Two days was enough in Padum, as there really is stuff all to
do when, like me, your unfit to walk - an old hip injury gave
me severe gip after the Karsha excursion.

The return to Leh, where I am once more, was even more
spectacular as the sun was out and the air crystal clear. As
on the outward journey, I spent a night in the small Muslim
village of Panikhar where bed and board cost the equivalent
of £1.20.

In the next couple of days I will leave Leh and back-track
over the high passes to Manali, where I'll pick up some spare
tyres before moving down to Shimla. I'm not sure exactly
what I'll be doing from there, but I plan to sign on for the
Rally Raid de Himalaya race, which is held at the end of
September.

Meanwhile, Pankaj, down in Bombay, is arranging to ship his
bike back to the UK, where our main sponsor, Devitt
Insurance, want to put it on their stand at the NEC Bike
Show. It may then be shipped to Germany, where our
luggage and off-road bits supplier, Metal Mule, want to use it
in another show.
Damon