Landscape near Lamayuru, with the yellow "moonland"
Landscape near Lamayuru, with the yellow "moonland"
For the trek, we had a cook, a guide, and two men to mind six amorous donkeys and a lone horse. After visiting the Lamayuru gompa, we followed the trail out of its green valley, past the so-called moonland, and into the desert, climbing rather slowly up to the Prinkiti La (3750m). The land was sandy and golden brown and the sun was very hot--we passed the bleached bones of a donkey. From the pass we descended a dry gully to the campsite at Wanlah. Although you might not have known it from all our cribbing on the climb up to the pass, in the end it was a short and easy day (4 hours of walk time), and our guide in good humor advised us to enjoy it.
Looking back from the Prinkiti La
Rocks on the Prinkiti La
The view on the other side of the Prinkiti La. The Konze La, our
destination on the third day, is visible on the horizon, to the
left of the white peak.
The gully we followed (while trying not to think about flash floods)
Just as we were stretching out to a lazy afternoon, three gregarious Wanlah girls discovered us. At first they settled themselves in to a comfortable afternoon of gaping at us, but, after David broke the ice with his camera and we got over the initial awkwardness of exchanging civilities, the charming girls put on the most entertaining song and dance program for us. They sang and danced to songs in Ladakhi, Hindi, and even English. The girls then demanded that we entertain them in return, and we agreed that it was only fair. So after much memory racking and arguing, David, Matt, and Minette improvised a dance to accompany The Sound of Music's "Do Re Mi", and also attempted a revival of that old classic, the "Macarena". We thought it was enormously hysterical and entertaining, but the Wanlah girls were unimpressed and yawned, "Ah! Amateurs!"
Soman (right) and friends dancing for us
Mani stones and a Wanlah field
View from the Wanla gompa
That evening we got our first taste of our cook Gyatzo's delicious cooking. Not only the quality but also the variety was impressive, as he seemed equally adept at Ladakhi, Punjabi, Chinese, and even Italian cooking.
That night we also became familiar with the social habits of donkeys--perhaps more familiar than we had bargained for. Notwithstanding our guide's insistence that all of our hired donkeys were male, it was quite apparent that a couple of them were in heat; as a result, the others (who were most definitely male, indeed quite alarmingly so for those of us who did not grow up on a farm and are not used to seeing such things) were in a state of constant violent agitation, screaming and fighting whenever they could, including most of the night.
Extra photos from Day 1
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