This is a short post on where I went west of Leh en route to Kashmir by road. It doesn’t include the places I went to that were within a few hours driving distance from Leh, which I included in the main Leh post. If you are going to or from Leh from the same route, I would recommend stopping in some of those places, including the Alchi, Basgo, Saspol Caves, and some others depending on your interests, so check out the Leh post for more info.
Aryan Valley
We stopped here for a night, breaking up the journey from Leh to Kargil. The village we went to, Garkone (not to be mistaken for the nearby Garkon), was around 4 hours from Leh. From Garkone it was around two hours to Kargil. Because we went this route we weren’t able to see Lamayuru, which looked awesome, but I wanted to meet the original Aryans.
Are they really Aryans? And/or descendents of Alexander the Great? I suspect this is just marketing to attract tourists, but anyway, their outfits and hairdos are pretty cool and the region is very beautiful, and I liked staying in a small village, which was fun to walk around. The village we went to has an old house museum which I recommend, though it’s not that different from others I had seen at that point. Overall the Aryans (or Brokpas, to use a more accurate term, I think) aren’t thaaaat different culturally from the rest of Ladakh, but they’re the only people I’ve ever encountered in India who drink goat milk, and I think that alone justifies a visit here. We also met someone with two moms, and polygamy in general is/was a thing in Ladakh but this is the only place where I saw it in action (well, not in that sense…).
We had reached out to stay at the Payupa Guest House (next to the museum and started by the same guy), which was the only homestay there (now it appears there are more), but they were out of town and had us stay at a relative’s house nearby. The accommodation was pretty basic but it was fine. We asked for local food and it was pretty good (not different from what you get elsewhere in Ladakh), and they gave me fresh goat milk upon request. It would have been cool to stay at Payupa and get to know the museum founder, though, as he seems very passionate about preserving and sharing the local culture. It was still a good experience and the village is really beautiful. I think I liked this more than most of my other village stays, mainly because the area was prettier.
I surprisingly got decent network here too and actually got some work done. Don’t plan for that, though.
Kargil
I liked Kargil more than I expected and kinda recommend going, even though I think most people won’t like it and there’s no reason to really go out of your way for it. Very much worth a stop for a day or two if passing through, though.
I never hear anything about Kargil other than the war but it’s more interesting than being just a geopolitical flashpoint. I find something exciting about a smallish city with a rapid river running through it, and though it's mostly ugly new construction, if you walk around you’ll find great old buildings with old bearded men sitting in the windows. Those buildings along with the ethnic mix you’ll notice in the faces of people will give you a sense of the old world Silk Road crossroads town that this used to be. So will the surprisingly excellent Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum (also known as the Central Asian Museum), which is full of items collected from the old caravanserai at the center of town.
Otherwise, the Kargil culture is a bit elusive. There are no homestays, and I found myself wishing I could peek inside the gigantic homes at the top of the hill, or some of the old buildings in the town, but it’s all pretty closed off. Still, I had fun spending a few hours just walking around. I really liked crossing the old wooden bridge and briefly exploring the other side. That’s about it.
There’s more to do nearby, though. A tour company called Roots Ladakh (who started the hostel where I stayed as well as a cafe in town) has a lot of options for tours and day trips. We did one to an abandoned village called Hundarmann, built into a rocky hill (and previously part of Pakistan). This was really amazing and highly recommended! One of the houses has been turned into a museum and it’s super cool to see. I’d rank that as a Ladakh highlight.
Don’t expect much food wise in Kargil. The highlights seemed to be the street food market area (you’ll find it, I think it’s Apo Bazar on Google Maps, somewhere in that area), though none of it was vegetarian. But there are kebabs, biryani, momos, and most interestingly Tibetan sausages which are hard to find even in Leh. I can’t say how any of this is or if the biryani and kebabs are distinctly local in any way. Beyond that there’s nothing really local to get. No homestays to offer homemade food (though when we had done a tour of Hundarmann our driver said they offer their place as a homestay). Local bakeries didn’t offer anything you don’t get in Kashmir, though that stuff is kinda fun. Small eateries didn’t have any local options either, and didn’t seem worth the food poisoning risk.
We ate exclusively at the Black Sheep hostel where we were staying, and it was surprisingly pretty good, just basic North Indian food but not too rich, heavy, or oily. They even had good quality baked goods. My wife ordered a veggie burger against my wishes but it was better than I expected as well, with good homemade buns. The only other place I considered eating at was at Hotel The Kargil, which is the one high end hotel and it’s where celebrities stay when they’re shooting in town. I don’t think the food would be anything interesting or special, but probably solid North Indian and other standards. We were planning to go for dinner our second night but my wife was feeling sick so we stayed in. If you enjoy grocery stores as much as I do, there were some surprisingly niceish ones here, if I recall correctly the best I went to was Highland near one of the taxi stands.
If you can afford it, Hotel the Kargil is the place to stay, but it’s just a generic hotel so I didn’t feel a need to splurge. There are no homestays, but thankfully Black Sheep Bed & Breakfast is a good mid-priced option. They have dorm and private room options and I decided to save some money and go for the dorm. I regretted this because I slept horribly for two nights. I don’t think I’ll ever stay in a dorm again. But this is no fault of the hostel, which is probably the nicest hostel I’ve stayed at in India. Very clean and well run, the people there were nice and the food was better than I expected from a hostel. I’m just a light sleeper and would wake up every time someone in the room snored, and I found the whole dorm setup to be uncomfortable. I’m too old and fussy, I guess. If I were to go back I’d go with a private room, though I would request one that isn’t facing the road as there was quite a bit of noise from trucks in the night. The hostel also had a nice work space and I had no issue getting work done here.
The owners also run the Roots Ladakh tour agency, so you can just book tours at the front desk here, and there are also typically daily morning group tours you can join, listed on a white board.
If you walk around Kargil you’ll notice posters of Ayatollah Khomeini (and also Khamenei, I think, but they both look exactly the same to me) around town and in many shops. I would not have guessed he had many fans in this small Himalayan town in India! Kargil is majority Shia, and this is just one of those quirks of globalization, I guess. (Interestingly enough some of Khomenei’s ancestors spent time in India, though nowhere near Kargil.) See the “Culture” section for more on Kargil/Iran ties, very interesting and I would like to read more on the subject. More info here. "Unlike other regions in India like Lucknow and Hyderabad where Shia communities are more dispersed, Kargil presents a concentrated and coherent Shia community that can be more easily engaged with and influenced. The cultural and religious practices of the Shia community in Kargil align closely with those in Iran, through religious scholars, pilgrimage routes, and cultural exchanges."
Comentários