After a break for chowmein, Ladakhi roti with curd and a local salted brew called khunak, we arrived at Diskit. The central market road, so many hotels and lodges to house tourists, narrow, circular lanes hedged with seabuckthorn and then, across the photogenic Diskit gompa, the camp. We were welcomed with wide smiles, fruit juice and surprisingly robust wi-fi. The design of the camp was different from Thiksey, and it gave off a distinct off-grid vibe. They had laid out lunch for us outside the tent – salad, pasta arrabiata and fruit custard. And we took it all in.
It may have been only our second visit to Ladakh but it was Ahtushi’s fourteenth! Early on, we’d left the planning of our days to her and Phuntsog, and their plans for Nubra included the far-flung village of Turtuk. What we heard was very exciting: a Muslim habitation just short of the border, Turtuk was part of Pakistan till 1971, when it was taken over by India. It was opened up to visitors only in 2010, and the Balti people misliked strangers tramping through their village, we were told, although they were coming to terms with the inevitability of it.
“Ladakh isn’t a trekking destination, it’s actually a driving destination,” Ahtushi had said. We saw what she meant on the 85-km drive to Turtuk. At every turn, the river Shyok flowed rapidly alongside, so speedy it sometimes overtook the car. Shyok is Uyghur for ‘River of Death’, a name traders on the Silk Route gave it, bewailing perhaps the many losses of man and beast in its treacherous grey waters. The route is spectacular – gompas dot the cliffs, a few villages, fields, irrigation channels, but mostly river and rock, river and rock. And sky. And mountain. Scrub, wild flowers using remnant moisture from rock-shadow and sandy dunes to push their heads above ground.
