Flowing – Trekking from Phuktal to the Camp

26. September 2024

 

3.830 m -> 3.980 m -> 3.900 m / 6 hiking hours / 14 km

 

 

In the morning, the Phuktal monastery also looked pretty. My digestion wasn’t quite as pretty, there were a few squats without being really bad. But that meant I got going a little later than I had hoped. First we went round the bottom of the monastery and then up the other side:

 

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There was also a beautiful view of the village opposite:

 

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At the top was a small pass with prayer flags. This was the highest point of the day.

 

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There wasn’t much difference in altitude on the day, but it was up and down again and again, so by the end of the day I had accumulated quite a bit. I started off very cheerfully and was pleased at how well it all went. And then this landscape! I hadn’t travelled through it for too long. Except for one day, the tour went along rivers the whole time. This was the Tsarap Chu, which meandered through the mountain desert in such a beautiful turquoise colour. There was a beautiful view from the small pass and my heart was laughing with joy.

 

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The path always led along the top. The next day we were supposed to reach a village. We didn’t meet anyone the whole day. Not a person far and wide. Once again, I wondered about humanity. What could have motivated them back then to wander through the mountains and think that there might be a piece of land somewhere where they could settle? Back then, there were no footpaths and some places were not prepared – they used to have to cross the river. Just the fact that they had built the Phuktal monastery. They used to have to walk a long way to get there. Well, you had to walk everywhere, but some places in Zanskar are much easier to get to than others.

 

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The mountains look as if they have looked the same forever. But there is movement, sometimes something breaks off. A few years ago, a whole mountain collapsed into the river and formed a lake, which then broke up again.

 

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After the first 2 hours of walking went really smoothly, the next 2 were a bit tougher. Even though I had already been at this altitude for a few days (or a little below), I was not used to the strong sunlight. There was no real shade anywhere. I felt a bit dizzy and thought: oh dear. But what else can you do but keep walking? The landscape was anyhow great:

 

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Lobzang, my horse man, was told to stop every now and then and look after me. And I was told: the horses are number 1, the tourist is only number 2. That day it worked very well, later on not so much, I only saw him rarely.

 

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And just as I was beginning to despair, the campsite turned up. There had never been an opportunity before. You walk along the water all the time and still can’t get there.

 

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So I had an agreement with Lobzang: I would buy everything, he would cook porridge and tea water in the morning and packet soup and rice or something else with vegetables in the evening. He did that very well. I actually wanted to put up and take down the tent on my own, but he often helped me. With his strong hands, he could simply roll everything up much better and smaller. So I had a nice big borrowed tent and he had his little tarpaulin, where we had the food. Oh yes, I always made my own packed lunch. And Lobzang usually cooked so much in the evening that he still had a good portion for breakfast. In the end, he realised that porridge actually tastes very good too.

 

We spoke very little, we simply didn’t have many words in common. And he probably spoke a bit of his own dialect, I didn’t even understand which village he was from. I had bought Maggi 2-minute noodles especially for him every day, they are extremely popular here. And while everyone else always says ‘Mäggi’ clearly, he says ‘Ma-Yi’. Sometimes it was a bit of a shame with the language, but it wasn’t really bad. In principle, we got on quite well. But I didn’t know anything about him.

 

Whilst I was always fighting at some point, he hopped light-footedly behind his horses without resting. More on that later.

 

In any case, I recovered quite well and was looking forward to the next day.