The region and its valleys
How Zanskar is put together: the Stod, the Lungnak, the rivers that join at Padum and the passes that close the valley in.
ReadWhere you are going
A high valley on the far side of Ladakh
Zanskar is a district of Ladakh, in the far north of India, wedged between the Zanskar Range and the Great Himalaya. Almost all of it lies between 3,600 and 4,000 metres. Around fourteen thousand people live here, most of them farming barley on the valley floors in a growing season that lasts a few short months.
- Region
- ≈ 7,000 km²
- Valley floor
- 3,600 – 4,000 m
- Population
- 13,793 (2011)
- Main town
- Padum
- Road access
- Summer months
Villages and monasteries
Karsha, Stongdey, Bardan, Sani, Phuktal — and the villages between them where people actually live.
ReadCulture and traditions
Buddhism as daily practice, the farming year, houses built of mud brick, and how to be a decent guest.
ReadBest time to visit
Month by month: temperature, road conditions, river levels, and what each part of the season is good for.
ReadGetting to Zanskar
Three ways in — from Leh, from Kargil and from Manali — with distances, driving times and season windows.
Read
Places
Three places to start
Phuktal Monastery — a Gelug monastery built around a cave mouth high above the Tsarap, reached on foot.
Padum — the administrative centre, where almost every journey into Zanskar begins or ends.
Zangla — our village, 32 km north-east of Padum, with an eleventh-century fort on the ridge above it.
Who is telling you this
We live here
Everything on these pages comes from growing up in the valley and walking it every summer since. Where something depends on the year — the state of a river, the snow on a pass, the date of a festival — we say so rather than pretending it is fixed.