A Himalayan high: Tibetan Buddhism is alive and well in Ladakh, and it's easier than ever to try a spiritual pilgrimage
Jeremy Clarke For Daily Mail 19 December 2016
Bring on the Buddhist monks, nuns, lamas, prophets and oracles, I thought (spiritually) on my way to Ladakh.
But arriving at Leh, capital of the Himalayan desert kingdom, after a helter-skelter approach and violent landing, and looking around at the surreal grandeur of the mountains, I was appalled.
Never before had I seen such an arid and inhospitable landscape. With the thin air at 3,200 metres, walking from the plane to the bus rendered me puffed out. I also felt slightly, though pleasantly, lightheaded.
Situated at the politically sensitive apex of India between Pakistan, communist Chinese-run Tibet, and Kashmir, Ladakh is a country of lavender and rose-pink-hued mountains; and, when one comes across them, surprisingly verdant oases along the rivers, foremost of which is the mighty Indus.
Since China put the colonial half-nelson on Tibet, Ladakh is the last stronghold of Tibetan Buddhism.
Racially and culturally Tibetan, it is a country of Mongolian faces; bleached and tattered prayer flags; long, low mani walls to keep the evil spirits away; thousands of white-washed reliquary tombs; oracles, healers and astrologers; colossal monasteries perched high up on the mountain crags; yaks and marigolds; and scarlet and orange-robed monks calling the shots over a peasantry of startling innocence. And all of that under the bluest of blue skies.
Ladakh was closed to the outside world between 1948 and 1974. For the next 40 years the trickle of foreigners was largely confined to hippies, anthropologists, Himalayan trekkers and pilgrims.
The slow pace of change has been accelerated by the 2009 Bollywood smash-hit The Three Idiots, filmed in Ladakh, and which signalled an influx of curious tourists from the Indian sub-continent.
More recently, mobile phones and satellite TV have broadened the horizons of the Ladakhi youth, who are beginning to look to the outside world for education and employment.
The only road into the kingdom has also been improved, though it is still impassable between November and May, when the inhabitants gather around their dung-fuelled household fires to weave yak hair woollies and sing songs.
In winter, it is said, a person sitting outside with his face in the sun and his feet in shadow will suffer heatstroke and frostbite simultaneously.
My week’s stay was divided between three of Shakti’s village homes. The company rents the upper stories of these houses from Ladakhis and has furnished them to a high standard. I would describe the accommodation as Ladakhi peasant vernacular with chrome mixer taps. At each house, I had my own chef and waiter-cum-servant.
The three houses I stayed in belonged respectively to a healer with a hard stare; a carpenter with a shrill, thousand-year-old mother; and an antediluvian farming couple with a fairy-tale beautiful daughter.
The first, called the Medicine House, was spectacularly placed beside the confluence of the Zanskar and Indus rivers. Here, I acclimatised for a day. I needed it. Even cleaning my teeth made me gasp for air. At night, the candle flames were attenuated in the thin air.
On the second day, feeling more aspirated, I began to get out more with the help of the excellent local guide and a driver. I’d wanted to see monks, and monks was what I got.
I seemed to spend all day, every day, at monasteries, taking my shoes off and on, panting and mingling with monks: monks with Ronnie Kray spectacles and hearing aids; monks wearing Crocs; barefoot monks; tiny tot monks; matinee idol monks; irreverent monks; melancholy monks.
I talked to monks who were more worldly and well-travelled than I will ever be. I sat cross-legged for hours among chanting monks and in a hypnotised state slurped rancid butter tea by way of a break. I dreamed of monks at night.
I went to an old monk doctor about my stiff neck. He took my pulse then spooned some dried herb balls from a sweet jar into a little paper sack. Take three twice a day with warm water, he said. My neck was better after two doses.
The next day I visited an oracle at her home. It was arranged that she would go into a trance for me and take questions about the future. She ran outside and stuck her head in a pail of water and returned possessed by a turbulent demon.
It made her shriek, gave her hiccups followed by a sneezing fit and then threw her to the ground. The demon was called Nyntangla, said the interpreter. Did I want to ask Nyntangla a question? No thanks. Afterwards, when Nyntangla had vacated possession, the oracle was serene, back in her right mind but tired.
Ladakh. Amazing place. Back home, I feel like the oracle woman post-spirit possession: returned to my right mind, serene, tired; with the incense-fragranced memories of extraordinary things seen and done in that high thin air.