The picture perfect Nubra Valley

Hugh & Colleen Gantzer

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Like the legendary bear, we went over the mountain to see what we could see. And all that we did see was Nubra, but we couldn’t have asked for more. Here’s how it happened. In the more halcyon days of J&K, before Kalashnikovs spat their lethal anger across the exquisite fields of tulips and saffron, we met a very friendly tourism official: Urgain Lundoop.

Urgain said “You’ve come so far. Why don’t you come to my village in Nubra.”

“Where’s Nubra?”

“It’s behind the Himalayas.”

We live in the Garhwal Himalayas and anything beyond, leading to the high, cold deserts of Tibet, was definitely an unknown territory, terra incognita. And, therefore, very attractive, very challenging. We looked up at the high mountains rising behind Leh. Dark grey clouds roiled angrily above them. We said, “Perhaps next time, Urgain”. He nodded and smiled because he knew we meant it.

This was ‘the next time’.

At 12:15 pm we left our vine-hung hotel in Leh. We passed South Pullu, 15,300 feet: white snowfields quilted the slopes; icicles hung in crystal pendants on dark rocks. Our breaths puffed, like steam, in the frigid air. Then, groaning, churning and sliding through the thick slush of the road, we reached the pass of Khardung la.

It was very festive. Prayer flags fluttered above the snow-covered hillsides and visitors took selfies standing at a sign proclaiming Khardung la, 18300 ft — The Highest Motorable Road in the World.

This is a very welcome comfort stop. We stretched our travel-cramped legs, bought a souvenir from the Army’s shop and topped up with hot, sweet, coffee and snacks at their ‘wet canteen’.  There, the Ladakhi manager grinned diplomatically when we asked him if he had seen any Abominable Snowmen. Those mysterious creatures probably feel a bit beleaguered with the influx of so many visitors in their once pristine high-lands!

Then we started on our way down the back of the Himalayas, facing the great, cold, plains of Tibet and Central Asia. We turned a corner and there, far below, was the Shyok river: braided ice-blue streams flowing across a platinum-grey bed with the cold neon-flare of the sun glaring behind the distant hills. Our 4×4 clung to the Himalayan road and carried us deeper into the valley.

It became a shade warmer when we reached a village.  Willows danced in the breeze, their green skirts flaring. A patchwork quilt of barley fields and vegetable gardens spread, flat-roofed houses stood stapled to the hillside.

Back of the Himalayas 

From the village we wound down to the die-straight road, arrowing through the silver sandy bed of the Shyok river. We stopped and looked back. There, beyond the green fields of a village, and the cold mercurial glint of the river, rose the bluing backs of the Himalayas. We had pierced the high bastions of India, and here, on one side, stretched the awesome black mountains of the Karakoram.

This is a legendary, almost mythical-magical, land and we felt a frisson of excitement ripple over us. A little later, still elated, we drove into the village of Tegar and our homely Yab Tso Hotel. It had the welcoming fragrance of sun-warmed wool and cedar. We slept very soundly at 10,000 ft and were woken up by birdsong and the sun glistening on snow-capped peaks framed in poplar trees. Our breakfast could not have been better: oven-fresh Ladakhi nans with honey and butter, corn-flakes and sweet, hot, milky coffee. We were now fortified and ready to face a Nubra day.

Ancient trail 

A sign on the road said we were on the ancient caravan trail. Two local women and a child, waited for a bus: Bactrian camels are now a tourist attraction! Before the high frontiers were closed in 1962, trans-Himalayan camel caravans would come plodding in. When they passed an ill-omened spot, exhausted traders and travelers would throw a stone at it and these, in time, became chortens. Bell-shaped Buddhist stupas grew out of them.

Stupas also enshrine the relics of revered persons and protect wayfarers and natural resources. Not far from the hot spring of Panamik, four stupas, painted white, yellow, white and blue, stood. A dense herd of long-haired goats with great, curving horns, and a few sheep bustled past us. The soft pashmina wool, known as the expensive cashmere in the west, comes from the thick under-hair of these high-altitude goats. There were about 200 animals and a few of the lambs and kids scampered down, tasted the water, and jumped back shaking their heads in disgust. The herder said, “This is the first time they have come on this road. They will remember not to touch Panamik water again!”

Other little flashes of magic glittered in floor of that hidden riverine valley. A field of white crystals spread. “Salt peter” our guide said. “It’s an essential ingredient in gur-gur tea. We export it around the world.” Chemically, it is potassium nitrate and traditional medicine prescribes it for both diabetes and arthritis. It also gives a pink colour to preserved meats and is effective against a type of food poisoning called Botulism. Clearly, the sustaining gur-gur tea is also a great tonic. Then, passing a small cottage, we were assailed by an overpowering scent. It came from masses of pink roses cascading over a stone wall. We wonder why no entrepreneur has thought of bottling this compulsive fragrance.

When the perfume of Indian Buddhism mingled with the mystic nature religion of Tibet’s Bon, it adapted and evolved. On our way out of Nubra we visited a monastery capturing this syncretic tradition. A gilded and painted altar held an image of  ‘The Buddha who is to come’ as well as that of  “A teacher who came from far away” as a young monk-guide described him, “probably India.” His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, believes that Bihar’s Nalanda University was the fountainhead of Tibetan Buddhism

In the magically beautiful Nubra Valley, India does seem to be a distant, but very protective, motherland.