As awaiting my next departure for America, I’d like to share with you the story of an extraordinary adventure I had in the Himalayan region of northern India a few months ago. From extreme solitude to unexpected moments of happiness, trekking can be a roller-coaster ride! 

A rendezvous on terra incognita

The French poet Paul Eluard used to say: “In life, there are no coincidences, only encounters”. Mine was obviously with a book found on the shelf of a backpacking hostel in Saigon, Vietnam, in November 2024. In the common room, people often dropped off or exchanged their travel readings. I was very fond of mine: “Flash ou le grand voyage”, the true story of a young man who took the hippie route to Kathmandu in the 1970s, experimenting with many things along the way – including drugs (p.s. not my autobiography!). Inside the book, on the second page, was a handwritten note from the previous reader: “This book accompanied me on the road from India to Ladakh”. Curious, I began to search the Internet for information on these places, and discovered a region at the gateway to the Himalayas, accessible and offering multiple hiking possibilities. That’s the dream! So I grabbed my backpack, changed my plans and hopped on the first bus to the adventure road. A few days later, after an interminable journey, I was in Leh, the capital of Ladakh!

Ladakh is a mountainous region in the far north of India, sharing borders with Pakistan (notably the disputed K2 area), Afghanistan, Tibet and the Chinese province of Xinjiang. In other words, military camps are springing up like mushrooms! And yet, the Ladakhis are a welcoming people, ready to help you in any way they can, to the sound of their “julley” (a handy word, meaning hello, goodbye, please and thank you). Many Tibetans also live here, having fled oppression in the neighboring country.

Who wanna cross ?

Living above the clouds: an experience of solitude

Two things stood out for me from the very first hours of my trek: complete solitude and the crossing of passes at very high altitude. As soon as I arrived in Leh, the locals advised me to stay a few days in the area to acclimatize to the Himalayan mountains. I had therefore equipped myself at the town market for my trek (yak wool gloves and shawl, food…), the temperatures being very low in this month of November. I soon discovered, however, that this hike presented me with a new challenge: the lack of oxygen. Climbing high and hard! Until then, my “record” as a hiker was limited to climbing the summit of the Teide volcano, on the island of Tenerife, at an altitude of 3715 metres (around 12,200 ft). This trek to Ladakh was going to take me up mountains far higher than any I’d ever climbed in Europe!

Imagine how it felt to climb the two major difficulties of the route: the Namlung pass at 4990 meters (16,400 ft) and, above all, the Gongmaru summit at 5300 meters (17,400 ft), after a final ascent of over 1500 meters (5,000 ft)! Short of breath, panting, my face frozen by the wind and the extreme temperatures that burn the lungs, I knew I had to keep up a steady pace, drink plenty of water, and enjoy this unique reward, which was well worth the effort: the whole expanse of a mountain desert opening up to my eyes, as far as the eye could see, in shades of ochre, gold, sedimented over the centuries… all to myself!

So that’s what “breathless” means !

Ladakh isn’t as popular and frequented as nearby Nepal, and the region’s harsh climate at this time of the year doesn’t attract hikers: all the agencies offering excursions were closed, and most of the farmers had left their villages to spend the winter in town, in Leh or further south in India. So, from the first to the last day, I found myself absolutely alone on the trails, meeting only the rarest of locals as I passed through the valley’s villages. The trails were unmarked and sometimes hard to guess, the mobile network wasn’t working and the extreme temperatures were draining the battery of my old smartphone at supersonic speed, making the use of my offline GPS application illusory: I couldn’t afford to get lost or hurt! Most of the time, therefore, I made do with a paper map I’d bought in Leh, with a scale that was too inaccurate for hiking and the compass I always carried in my bag for emergencies. A real geographer’s adventure, back to basics!

Only one cairn leads to the grail – choose the right one!

Loneliness also crept into my mind during those long days of walking in the middle of the polar cold. Have you had that feeling too, when all the elements of nature are unleashed against you? When the only water resource available is under a thick layer of ice, and you have to get to the middle of the river to break it up, then collect the water without falling in? When you decide to wash your clothes and the sun disappears immediately afterwards, leaving all your belongings soaked for days? When you have to pitch your tent on rock-hard ground and a storm suddenly breaks and doesn’t stop? Well, ironically, it was one of these events that gave me my fondest memory of this hike, with its extraordinary humanity.

“Ok, apparently the path is behind this wild yak… Is it looking at me or not? Is now the time to panic?”

“The house of the rising sun”

One day, after a ten-hour walk, I arrived in a hamlet at dusk, near Skiu. There were three or four houses, and a small monastery a little higher up, dominating the valley with its colorful stupas and prayer flags. Everything seemed abandoned, and all you could hear was the roar of a wind heralding the coldest hours to come. It was indeed -20°C (-4°F): my equipment was at the limit of comfort at these temperatures, so sleeping in the tent didn’t give me the slightest source of motivation. Just as I was starting to set up my gear, the wind turned into a real storm: there was no lull, I couldn’t set up the damn tent, my hands were frozen, it was so cold! As night fell, I set out to find solid shelter, but it was all deserted and closed. However, there was a little hut not far from the monastery, at the top of a hill: it was my only hope, maybe it was open! So I climbed up, and at the doorstep, surrounded by pots of paint, bags of plaster and wooden beams, I managed to get inside: the hut was under construction, so there was no lock yet! Saved! It was already late, and dying of hunger and cold, I decided to cook a nice plate of noodles lying inside my sleeping bag, before falling asleep, satisfied to have escaped the storm that was still raging outside. 

Frozen 3: teaser trailer

I woke up at dawn the next morning and was surprised to see, still lying in my sleeping bag, three people, dressed in burgundy-red cloth, sitting cross-legged, their arms stretched out towards the sky. The interior of the hut, cradled by the first rays of sunlight, was warm: candles were lit all around a promontory, and the room smelled of incense. Raising my head, I saw an enormous statue of a golden Buddha, whose eyes were watching me intently: my hut was in fact an offering room, a place of prayer for the monks of the monastery! Feeling discomfort rise up inside me, I packed all my belongings into my bag as quickly as possible, so as to escape from the hamlet and head back into nature. I was still in my pyjamas! But as I descended the hill, I saw that a kind of small, uniform troop was blocking my way: they were the other monks from the monastery, they’d probably heard that I’d spent the night in their prayer hut, so I was in for a really bad time… 

“See how you’ll end up if you don’t work at school, son?”

After a few minutes, the group set off towards the monastery, inviting me to follow with a gesture. The enclosure, though minimal, was sumptuous, with carpets, paintings and sculptures, all very colorful. Once seated, I could feel the bustle in the next room. Some young men came out with a cast-iron pot of hot barley tea (known as tsampa), dry cakes and potatoes: breakfast was being brought to me! I couldn’t believe it: the monks had come to meet me in the early hours of the morning to offer me this unique moment of hospitality. My heart filled with emotion, I devoured my snack while listening to the melodies of the congregation gathered around me, to the rhythm of their bells. No coincidences, only encounters… Julley!