A trek where each tea house becomes a heartbeat.

 

“Some journeys don’t measure themselves in kilometers or passes.

They count themselves in kettles boiled, doors opened, and rooms warmed by strangers.”

 

The Valley After the Season

Autumn 2015. Ladakh was exhaling. The last tour groups had long since returned to airports and dim apartments; the shop shutters along Leh’s main bazaar came down earlier each evening; even the dogs had learned a gentler bark. We’d closed our season of trips the way you close a book you loved too quickly—thumb still holding the last page, not ready to let go. And with an empty week in my pocket, I decided what I always decide when schedules break and silence arrives: it was time to walk.

Not fast. Not far, if far meant numbers. Far, if far meant inside.

I’d circled the Markha Valley for years on maps and in conversations—staring at the clean geometry of its line from Zingchen to Shang Sumdo, reading about Ganda La and Kongmaru La like names in an old song. Friends spoke of barley fields turned to gold, of wild asses and blue sheep appearing like footnotes on ridgelines, of homestays where the tea arrived before you even knew you wanted it. They spoke of Kang Yatse, the pyramid of a mountain that sits at the valley’s head like a thought that has learned patience.

This time there was no group to shepherd, no daily debrief, no anxious eye on the weather for ten others. Just a pack, a map, and the subtlest of ambitions: to let the valley set the pace, to stop where a kettle boiled, to walk until each tea house felt like a heartbeat.

The route, neatly written and not so neatly lived: Leh — Zingchen — Yurutse — Ganda La — Shingo — Skiu — Markha — Tachungtse — Nimaling (views of Kang Yatse) — Kongmaru La — Shang Sumdo — Hemis, then the drive back to Leh. On that drive, I would glance at Shey, Thiksey, Stakna, Matho, Hemis again, and think: next year, I’ll walk the monasteries too—stringing them like prayer beads along the Indus.

For now, wind and stone. And tea.

 

Leh to Zingchen: The Edge of Saying Yes

The day began the way good days do in Leh: quietly. Old men dragged chairs to the sun like it was their job; a woman shook a rug from a balcony and a calendar of dust flakes briefly covered the lane; the bakery’s first batch of bread exhaled a smell that made patience unnecessary. My guesthouse host slid a thermos across the table. “For the first half,” she said, as if tea has its own seasons. “After that, the valley will look after you.”

We drove out of town under a sky that believed in blue. Past Spituk, past the confluence where the Indus and Zanskar once again pretended their meeting was an accident, past the military convoys that have memorized these turns. The road peeled away from the river and eased into the Hemis National Park—willows whispering, poplars not yet bare, the gorges narrowing like a sentence that wants to say something important.

At Zingchen, the jeep stopped where rock learned to be path. A small stall with a kettle and a handful of chips packets performed the familiar ritual of beginnings—“Where to? How many? Alone?”—and then we were all conspirators. I strapped my pack, rehearsed the habit of breathing, and walked.

The first hour is always about listening. You listen to your pack and how it speaks to your shoulders, to your shoes and how they argue with stones, to your lungs as they negotiate debts left over from city life. You listen to the path: the way goat prints splay then gather, the way sand tells you what water did last month, the way the valley does not greet you but allows you.

Chortens—white, patient—appeared like punctuation at the edge of turns. I touched the first one the way you touch a door post—a small admission: I’m here, I’ll behave.

 

Zingchen to Yurutse: A Single-House Village and a Room That Learned My Name

Tea house number one: a low room in Rumbak with orange plastic cups stacked in a pyramid and a kettle that didn’t stop working. Two lads on their way down from Stok La leaned against the wall like thieves in a story and told me about wind moving through passes like it owns the place. The owner asked no questions, only how much sugar, and then got it right without waiting for the answer.

Past Rumbak, the valley tilted, and with it my attention. The path climbed in a manner that wanted you to notice it but not make a big deal of it. The play of light on the barren slopes—the purples and browns and ochres—made me think of a palette knife and a painter with time. Above, the Stok range chose its cloud with the precision of a formal outfit.

Yurutse arrives like a sentence that turns out to be a poem: one house, a few animals, a field that has counted seasons like a monk counts breath. The homestay woman, whom everyone called Aama whether she wanted the title or not, waved me in the way a person waves away flies—automatic, generous, bored with the performance of hospitality because hospitality has become bone.

She poured butter tea that rewired memories, placed a plate of biscuits like a syllabus, and pointed to a room with a mattress and two quilts, and a window that knew how to hold the last light. As the sun folded itself into the opposite ridge, a line of sheep filed past the door, each one auditioning for the role of comic relief. Aama returned with a bowl of thukpa that had garlic’s memory in it. She asked about family, then told me about hers, and both of us believed the exchange made sense.

That night I learned the first lesson of the Markha: rooms remember. This one learned my name by the shape of my breath and returned it as warmth.

“The one-house village taught me a grammar of enough: one kettle, one window, one prayer flag, a thousand kinds of quiet.”

 

Yurutse to Ganda La to Shingo: Where the Sky Asks for Patience

Mornings at altitude arrive first as sound. Aama’s stove, early birds with good reputations, the small metal language of pots, the serious flutter of prayer flags doing their day’s work. I ate a simple breakfast—bread, jam, tea that had ambitions—and stepped outside into air that had chosen to be clear. Ganda La waited.

The climb was a book with marginal notes. Marmots did a late-season curtain call, popping up, deciding we were not worth the gossip, and popping down. Bharal (blue sheep) shaped themselves against slopes until movement betrayed them, then rearranged their camouflage like good magicians. The path turned switchbacks into advice. “Turn gently.” “Don’t argue on gravel.” “Listen to your knee.”

At a small shoulder below the pass, the first tea house of the day appeared, improbable as a joke: yak dung drying like library archives, a smiling face that had lost count of autumns, a kettle that had seen more weather than I had years. I sipped, not because I wanted tea but because I wanted permission.

Ganda La (4,970 m) is less a summit than a conversation. The pass wore flags the way an old man wears stories—faded, complicated, indispensable. The view opened in two directions: the Stok range behind me, the Markha’s first thoughts ahead. The wind—graduate of a school that believes in discipline—made sure we didn’t overstay. I left a pebble I’d stolen from a river somewhere and felt myself forgiven.

The descent to Shingo asked the usual price: attention. Scree sections that believed in gravity as a way of life; steps carved by boots with better ideas than mine; the first creek crossings that teased future river plays. Shingo’s first homes huddled into themselves like hands in winter. A tea house announced itself by steam and the smell of maggi that tastes better here because altitude is a spice.

Tea house number two. Two men returning to Leh, one pair of boots beyond caring, we laughed about the absurd ambition of weather, then fell into a silence that happens only when the same mountain has edited all your sentences. I walked the last bit to camp with the day’s tea warming the ribs like a second shirt.

 

Shingo to Skiu: The Long Descent into Barley and Bells

Shingo’s morning was a room with a view of responsibility: goats needed convincing; a child under a wool cap recited a lesson to a dog; a woman stooped to collect small wood with a dignity not often seen in books. My legs discovered their previous day’s choices. Knees do not negotiate; they recount.

The track slid toward the Shingo Nala, then practiced the fine art of side-hilling—cut along a slope, put your trust where stone says you can, lower your center like an apology. At a tight corner, a small cluster of chortens blessed and warned in the same breath. Below, the river threw tantrums into boulders until it tired and tried grace.

At the confluence, where the Markha River finally acknowledges your existence and asks what you intend, the valley opened like a book left in the sun. Skiu sat where river and path shake hands. Homes made of stone and light. Fields still carrying the story of summer’s work. A monastery leaned into its hill as if listening for something only monks can hear.

I wandered to the gompa first, because I always do. The caretaker unlocked the door like you unlock a memory you’re not ready to share. Inside, eyes multiplied—thangka and statues and a thousand watchings. Butter lamps remembered the names of people I will never meet. My breath, made visible by cold, felt sacrilegious until it slowed and learned the room’s rhythm.

Tea house number three, later that afternoon, offered apples that fell somewhere between tart and sermon, and gur-gur (butter tea) that at last convinced my city tongue to stop protesting. We sat under poplar trees that had chosen yellow and watched shadows practice winter. A man walked by with a radio pressed to his ear, carrying cricket commentary like a flag from a distant civil war. The world is ridiculous and entire.

At dinner, my host told me how, in winter, the Markha can be both mercy and judge. “Sometimes it is bridge,” he said. “Sometimes it is wall.” He said it with the calm of someone who has made peace with both.

Tea house heartbeat number four: the day closing on a cup that did not run out.

 

Skiu to Markha: A River That Teaches How to Walk

This was the day of bridges and not-bridges. Willows with their long sighs, mani walls instructing feet to go left, not right, and the river deciding where your socks would end up. We followed the Markha as it taught us how to be patient. At places, the trail hugged the left bank like a confession; at others, it darted to the right with the guiltless logic of local knowledge. Barefoot crossings demanded attention—toes searching for the next stone, stick taking half the decision, pack reminding you of everything you own.

At Chaluk, a woman turned chapatis on a tawa with a confidence that made my hunger feel juvenile. Tea house number five supplied skyû later—Ladakh’s dumpling stew that turns starch and fat and heat into a blanket you can swallow. A boy practised writing his name in the dust, then showed me with a seriousness that moved me more than I expected. He would be Tundup rather than Tundup’s son. A small revolution written with a finger in a valley where stone is the oldest signature.

Past Hankar, ruins watched the living. A fort’s bones remembered winter sieges and summer chants. Wildlife arrived like gods in living clothes: bharal again, a golden eagle’s grid across the noon, a fox reminding us that nothing about solitude is simple.

Markha proper felt like a small city after days of small houses—several homestays, a shop with noodles and advice, a primary school whose walls held the valley’s bright chalk future. I dropped my bag in a room that taught my belongings to be quiet and wandered to the ruined monastery that sits above the village like a thought still worth having. From there, the river’s voice organized the day into hours.

Tea house number six happened because I stood outside one long enough to be seen. A woman waved with a garment in one hand and a smile doing the heavy lifting. We drank salt tea, then sweet tea, then tea defined only as “again.” She told me about a winter when the passes forgot to open and air had to be rationed not because it was scarce, but because fear made it so. I told her about a city where you can buy strawberries in June and December and still feel poor.

“In Markha, I learned that abundance is a kettle that never quite empties when guests are present.”

Markha to Tachungtse: Ruins, Red Rock, and a Kind of Quiet

The path east of Markha climbs gently, as if walking you toward a sentence you are not supposed to rush. The valley tightens, opens, tightens again. Umlung and its chorten passed from left to right across my day like commas. Hankar sat in a sunlit hush, fields stubbled by harvest, children with cheeks bitten into by air.

Past Hankar, the red rock country begins—walls and spires shaped by a bored god into cathedrals and red rooms. Erosion here is art; gravity curates. The trail splinters and reunites like a family that knows how to disagree.

Tachungtse—spelled a dozen ways, held once—offered another tea house heartbeat and a chessboard where games are never finished because the wind has different ideas. A girl held a kid goat the way someone holds their first instrument. Men returned from a day’s grazing with stories and grass and not enough time. I asked about snow; the owner pointed at a ridge and said, “It comes from there first. It pretends to be late and then arrives in one sentence.”

That afternoon, I walked a little higher on a side ridge and saw Kang Yatse for the first time—just the top, a white wedge, not yet the whole idea. A line of clouds pulled across it like privacy. The mountain did not feel like a conquest. It felt like a presence.

Dinner tasted of carrots and cumin and the common salt of shared bowls. The night sent one shooting star and an apology for it being so quick.

 

Tachungtse to Nimaling: The Meadow at the Foot of a Thought

This is the day every footstep wrote up. The river that had been companion became background. We climbed toward Nimaling, the broad meadow that collects hopes and yaks and weather in equal measure. Kang Yatse stepped forward and stood still: KY I with its steep-shouldered dignity, KY II with kinder lines—both watching, both practicing boredom with human wanting.

Above Tachungtse, mani stones whispered their one-line sermon. I turned them the correct way, clockwise, not from superstition but gratitude. The altitude made language less interesting. My breath learned metronome. I understood the economy of movement: hands stay close; straps don’t flap; the world doesn’t need your commentary.

At the first tea tent on the approach to Nimaling, a woman with hands like small mountains poured out gur-gur from a steel kettle that looked like heritage. A dog with graduate-level begging skills lay his head on my knee as if we’d discussed this. She pointed her chin at Kang Yatse and asked if I would climb. I shook my head. Not today. Not this season. She looked relieved for me.

Nimaling arrived under a wide conspiracy of sky. Tents sat in a huddle; stones stacked into walls that understood wind; animals wrote their hieroglyphs onto grass. The meadow felt big enough to swallow any ambition and gentle enough to let it back out, kinder.

I set my duffel in a hired tent, then ran—okay, walked—toward the small stupa planted like a flag. From there, the whole amphitheater made sense: valley behind, pass ahead, mountain right, kneeling meadow all around. I pressed my palms together not because the mountain needed it but because I did.

Tea house heartbeat number whatever-we’re-on-now: a low roof, a warm corner, a bowl of soup that had the accuracy of medicine and the mischief of home. A shepherd told us about wolves with the tone you use for weather and taxes: undeniable, manageable, sometimes heroic. A student back from Leh for the season explained 4G as if speaking of a myth. A baby goat fell asleep in someone’s boots.

That night, the wind taught its full course. It came in with the confidence of a guest and rearranged the furniture in the dark. The tent rope hummed like a tanpura. I learned to sleep between gusts—two breaths of wind, four of quiet, repeat.

“Nimaling is not a campsite; it is a pause between appetites—the mountain’s, the valley’s, my own.”

 

Nimaling to Kongmaru La to Shang Sumdo: The Day of Learning to Descend

The start was black tea, fewer words, a zipper negotiating with fingers that had other plans, a hat pulled down like a vote. The path to Kongmaru La is a suggestion until it’s a switchback; the scree asks for gentleness until it asks for faith. Kang Yatse looked larger by the minute and yet less impressed with us—like a parent watching a child try long division without cheating.

At the pass (~5,200 m), flags in tatters argued their case to wind and won by simply remaining. East, the Zanskar waved its heavy shoulders; north, the Ladakh range arranged itself into geology; somewhere further, the Indus pretended not to overhear. A man in a red jacket tied a new flag, said something under his breath that sounded like a deal, and cried. I tried to memorize the air and failed. You can’t take thin with you.

The descent from Kongmaru La into Shang Gorge is an exercise in manners. You don’t rush red rock that has been practicing annoyance for eons. The canyon compresses you into scales: your voice becomes an offense; your footfall a statement; your camera a joke.

We passed a sulphur spring—the air changed its mind and smelled like the earth is alive (it is). We passed a place where the river decided the path should be not on one side or the other, but through it. We passed a tea shack in a slot of sunlight and did the only correct thing: sat down.

Tea house heartbeat near Chuskyurmo: biscuits softening on tongues, stories abridged to their essential nouns—pass, wind, sheep, water—nobody needing to narrate the last hour because each of us had done it with our legs. The woman at the kettle scolded a raven while her son scolded the kettle; both obeyed.

The lower gorge opened eventually, with a theatrical relief. Trees tried being trees again. The path pretended to be a road. At Shang Sumdo, a road became a fact—the first vehicle in days looked both ridiculous and miraculous. I climbed into a jeep with knees that had written their resignation letters and waved at the valley as if leaving a friend at a station.

 

Hemis: The Room Where Drums Remember

It would have been easy to ride straight to Leh and call the day complete. But Hemis Gompa rises on the way like a reminder not to end stories too quickly. We stopped.

Inside the assembly hall, the drums began without asking what I wanted. The young monk who led the chant had a voice like a rope—braided of many strands: breath, training, presence. Butter lamps wobbled and then remembered why they were steady. A tourist sneezed and the room forgave them. I stood at the back with my hat in my hand like a man holding a small animal. The chant braided into my breathing—not matching exactly, but related.

In a side room, the thangkas waited for festival. In a corridor, a cat demonstrated perfect indifference. On the terrace, the flagpole framed a piece of sky that had decided blue was still worth the trouble. I leaned on a low wall and let the day rearrange itself around me.

Hemis did what monasteries do when you arrive after a long walk: it didn’t add meaning; it revealed it. The trek was not about distance. It was about attention.

 

The Drive to Leh: A String of Monasteries, A String of Thoughts

The drive back along the Indus felt like a coda. The sun slanted into river and recollection. We passed Matho, Stakna—kingfisher-on-a-rock—Thiksey staging its Potala impression, and Shey with its palace that looks like a memory trying to stay relevant. Each one offered a thought, a possibility.

Next year, I told myself. Next year I’ll walk this monastic thread—a Shey Valley ramble from one bell to the next, sleeping under roofs that smell of butter and smoke, trading switchbacks for staircases. I traced an invisible line from Shey to Tiksey to Thiksey to Stakna to Matho to Hemis, the way a finger traces prayer beads—not to count, but to keep company.

Leh’s first houses arrived like old friends. The jeep sighed into the guesthouse yard. The owner, seeing my face, said, “Food first, story later.” Sensible.

“On the way home, I realized the next journey had already chosen me.”

 

Ethics for a Valley That Hosts You

By now I’ve learned that writing about a place is its own responsibility. So here’s the short, honest list I wrote in my notebook that night, while the steam from a bowl of soup kept fogging the edge of the page:

• Pay homestays fair, and a little more at season’s end. Money is not affection, but it respects labor.
• Carry your rubbish back. If a wrapper is light going in, it’s light going out.
• Ask before you photograph—people, altars, kitchens. Your lens is not a passport.
• Drink from kettles that can keep refilling—support tea houses and shops along the way instead of hauling too much packaged bottle water.
• Walk quietly past gompas and mani walls; keep to the left of mani walls; spin prayer wheels clockwise if you must spin them at all.
• Don’t chase the wildlife—your best sighting is the one you didn’t ruin for it.
• Tip the porter you didn’t hire—because someone else did and you drank their tea.
• Listen to advice given in few words by people who live there; they rarely need many syllables to save you a day.

Because Markha isn’t a theme park—it’s a neighborhood. We are guests.

 

Heartbeats You Can Drink

Back in city life—lifts that obey buttons, taps that forget gratitude, a fan that hums like a mild complaint—I keep hearing kettles. The quick boil in Yurutse when dusk needed help. The patient steam in Skiu under a canopy of poplar, leaves bright and dying at the same time. The thukpa kettle in Nimaling rattling its lid like a small opinion against the wind. Tea as heartbeat, and me as a body that learned to count by it.

The trek wasn’t one grand thing. It was the sum of small obediences. I obeyed the river when it crossed me. I obeyed the pass when it asked for slowness. I obeyed the tea house when it told me to sit. I obeyed my knees when they voted against running down a slope just because the sky was loud. I obeyed the wind when it had something to teach. I obeyed the room when it remembered my name by the shape of my breath.

And I learned that stone and wind are not opposites. They’re collaborators. Stone makes wind visible; wind gives stone a future. Between them lives a valley that tolerated my presence, recorded me in chalk, and then let the first snow erase my line so others could write theirs.

Kang Yatse still sits in my head like a mountain. Not as an ambition—though perhaps one day—but as a stern, kind teacher. When I get noisy, it looks at me. When I get lazy, it looks at me. When I forget that every cup of tea is a small miracle on a cold day at altitude, it looks at me until I remember.

I will go back. Of course I will. Maybe to walk from Shey to Hemis with monastery bells for milestones and butter lamps for constellations. Maybe to watch the barley green, then gold, then stubble. Maybe to drink tea in rooms that still know my name. Maybe to find out if the boy in Chaluk now writes his name without looking at his finger.

Until then, I pour a cup at home—a poor imitation; the altitude here refuses to cooperate—and blow on it with care, and hear an echo from a valley that knows how to be old without being tired.

Days of wind and stone.

A map of kettles.

A long room of sky.

And in the middle of it all, a heartbeat you can drink.