This is Stanzin's house from the outside - the roof is covered with fodder for the animals in the winter - there's a really red dry plant that they seem to find all over the place. There are also dried dung cakes stacked everywhere, ready for winter - to cook with and also heat the house. Here's some more Yak cake roofs:
Stanzin's younger brother - lives in a monastery called Phuktal Gompa - a beautiful place about 4 days walk from Padum - perched on a cliff up a side valley off the Kargiak river near Purne. We went to visit him with a message from Stanzin ('Make them tea and feed them') and recorded a video to play to Stanzin and his parents when we got to his village (Shi)
When we did eventually get to Shi, it was beautiful, on a big junction in the river with loads of pasture for the horses and Yaks. We had food there and camped outside the house. The rooms are all designed to keep out the cold, small doors - completely made from mud and wood. All the animals live downstairs during the winter and their heat keeps the people above them warm. The whole Zanskar valley is cut off from October until June, the only way out is over very high passes or for a few weeks in the middle of winter people use the frozen river as a road - a 10 day journey only takes 3 days. The temperatures are around -20C on average although in the sun it can hit 15C. Most people spend the winter sitting on the sunny side of the house, moving as the sun moves. The only time people really leave is to take the animals to water. Snow leopards come down from the hills and attack the animals (One of Stanzin's ponies had a huge wound on it's back from a recent attack and wasn't working at all)
Stanzin, being the older brother, provides for 12 members of his family including all his brothers and sisters, his parents, grandparents and his wife and daughter. He can manage about 4 treks a year if he is very lucky, but as we saw, most of the money he earns vanishes as he walks along the path - 2000 rupees here for his brother to see the eye doctor in Padum, 1000 rupees for his mother in laws medicine, 2000 rupees to take his grandmother to the hospital. He pays for one brother to go to a private school in Reru and another sister to go to a school in Padum. He is 31 and lives with his parents in the family home. His wife comes from one of the few villages with trees (Ichar) so he was saving up to build a house for himself in Shi. We set him up an email address to help him get work and I put it on several Ladakh forums and on the Lonely Planet website, but his chances of reading email are limited - at least 4 days walk away. He'd never used a computer before but was very quick to learn (moving the mouse up the screen initially meant lifting it in the air)
stanzingstobphial@yahoo.co.in OR stanzinstobphial@yahoo.co.in
The trek was amazing - we managed to buy a pressure cooker of a pony man finishing a trek with a large group, Stanzin ferretted around in Wanla and found enough food to keep us alive, flour, ghee, rice, dahl, jam, potatoes, cabbage, tea and soup....it wasn't exciting but it contained calories. For a few days eating wasn't easy anyway - altitude removes your appetite and when you walk 20-25km a day you're almost too knackered to eat in the evenings. We carried our stuff - Stanzin and the two ponies carried food and his things. The first 10 days were very up and down, 3 passes close to 5000m, lots of villages and hard work.
The second section, from Padum to Darcha was much easier and we spent lots of time with Stanzin's family and friends, at their houses, or just camped in their villages. Most of the walk followed the Kargiak river and then we climbed the 5000m Shingo La pass and walked down to Darcha.
