Delhi - “This is like landing on the Moon,” my fellow passenger exclaims as we step off the plane into a vast desert landscape. I gaze up at walls of rust-red scree encircling a massive, scorched dustbowl. But then the clouds gradually disperse to reveal the glittering, icy peaks of the Himalayas all around us.
It is a breathtaking sight. The one-hour flight from Delhi has catapulted us to the roof of the world – at nearly 11,500ft, I gasp for air in the rarefied atmosphere. Ladakh, wedged between Tibet and Pakistan, is part of India’s most northerly province of Jammu and Kashmir, and is one of the highest inhabited regions on Earth.
But not all of the area is a desolate wasteland. Green oases resembling clusters of emeralds nestle in the parched valleys where villagers have constructed irrigation channels around their fields. Rural life here has changed little since medieval times. Women in thick woven dresses lead their cattle to pasture and plough the land with dzos – a cross between a cow and a yak.
I’ve shunned the idea of staying in impersonal hotels and opted for village homes to get a real feel of Ladakh’s unique culture. But there is no question of roughing it.
The travel company Shakti Himalaya has converted traditional houses, with their whitewashed walls and carved casement windows, into luxury accommodation. It rents the properties from the owners, transforming the top storey of each house into stylish bedrooms and sitting rooms with shady canopies on the roof terrace.
At a 100-year-old house in the village of Shey, we are welcomed with refreshing damp towels and ginger tea. It is one of the grandest homes in Ladakh and previous guests have included high lamas from Tibet.
The owner, Yangchan, greets me in traditional fashion, touching her forehead with the fingers of her right hand. With a warm smile, she shows me her own simple living quarters on the first floor.
I feel acutely embarrassed thinking of my beautiful suite upstairs, decorated with Tibetan friezes, ornately painted doors and woven rugs. But the family moves into our lodgings during the long, harsh winter when their livestock shelter in the dark basement.
We have our own staff to look after us and the service is impeccable. Our two personal chefs, Michael and DK, prepare delicious lightly spiced meals featuring home-grown organic produce. A breakfast of fresh fruit and masala omelettes is served on the terrace, while fresh milk for our cereal comes from Yangchan’s cow.
Every evening, Stanzin, our guide, discusses the following day’s itinerary. He is a sensitive young Ladakhi who speaks excellent English and he lets us choose what we would like to do from a range of options.
There are visits to see kickboxing nuns, gourmet picnics in secluded apricot orchards, and excursions to the Ladakh capital, Leh. The sprawling dusty city bustles with market vendors selling sackfuls of dried fruits, nuts and grain on the kerbside. Trucks and motorbikes screech to a halt as cows amble across the streets while, high above, the imposing Leh Palace towers over ancient mud-brick dwellings.
There is also a palace at Shey, just a few minutes’ walk from our village house. With colossal adobe walls built into the cliff, it is surrounded by granite boulders painted with holy symbols.
It was constructed in the 16th Century by King Deldan Namgyal, who considered it so magnificent that he cut off the architect’s hands so that it could never be replicated.
I climb to the entrance, passing crumbling white stupas. These sacred monuments contain holy relics and resemble outsize pawns from a chessboard.
Religion lies at the heart of Ladakhi life. Remote and isolated, the region is one of the last enclaves of Tantric Buddhism. Monasteries cleave to the sheer rockface and ragged prayer flags flutter from rooftops, scattering their blessings on the wind. One morning I am up before dawn to attend prayers at Thiksey, where a monastery is perched on a rocky spur.
There are more than 300 steep steps leading up to the temple, which features a huge statue of Maitreya Buddha. I scramble, huffing and puffing, past the monks’ cells while Stanzin strides ahead, quietly chanting mantras. Padding barefoot into the dimly lit shrine room, I sit down cross-legged, the heavy scent of juniper incense catching the back of my throat.
Shaven-headed monks in maroon robes are murmuring their prayers, interrupted occasionally by the clash of cymbals, drumbeats and blaring horns. Young novices aged only ten scurry up and down the aisles, weighed down with enormous kettles and aluminium pans.
Our china cups are constantly refilled with salty butter tea and tsampa – a roasted barley flour, a staple of their staple diet. I stir it with my finger until it forms a sort of porridge before rolling it into a ball to eat it. The taste is not unlike a nutty cereal. Tsampa is also added to chang, the fortified beer that is the Ladakhis’ favourite beverage.
In the village of Nimoo, Stanzin invites me to his family home where his elderly grandmother plies me with her home-made brew.
As we say goodbye, a neighbour calls to us from her upper window: “Jullay, jullay, hello, hello.” She insists we stop to visit. Her kitchen is like a museum. The enamel stove is inlaid with coral and turquoise, and rows of exquisite copper and silver urns line the shelves. The highly decorative metalwork comes from Chilling in the Zanskar valley, which has been the home to metalsmiths for more than 1,000 years.
A man called Eshay Namgyal is still making hand-crafted pots there in his small, mud-walled shack. I watch him fanning the embers of his charcoal brazier with goatskin bellows. He is aged over 70 and has been working since he was ten, having learned the art from older members of his family. Some of the pieces are so intricate they take more than a month to produce. I buy a small brass spoon with delicate engravings as a souvenir.
The valley itself is stunning. The narrow winding gorge is gouged out of jagged rock in amazing hues of aquamarine, purple and green where pink roses miraculously bloom.
The churning torrents below are ideal for whitewater rafting and we kit ourselves out in helmets, lifejackets and wetsuits for an exhilarating ride down the rapids to the confluence of the milky-grey Zanskar and murky-brown Indus.
On my last evening, Stanzin and our drivers join us for dinner in the candlelit dining room while DK bakes a special farewell cake. Afterwards on the roof terrace, I watch a new moon and a canopy of twinkling stars hover over the barren mountains.
Below me I can hear the hypnotic sound of chanting from the family prayer room. It is a magical end to the holiday, one I shall always treasure.
Shakti Himalaya (shaktihimalaya.com) offers seven nights in Ladakh from £2,485 (about R30 000) per person, including private accommodation in village houses on a fully inclusive basis, all activities including two rafting trips, an English-speaking guide, private chef, support guide with a car at your disposal, and transfers from Leh airport. TransIndus (020 8566 3739, transindus.co.uk) offers return flights to Delhi, two nights in a five-star hotel in the city and return flights to Leh from £1,055pp. - Mail On Sunday