Zanskar: the Hidden Kingdom

Michel Peissel was an experienced traveller, ethnologist and author - and had already spent much time in the Himalaya (Bhutan, Nepal & Tibet) before he undertook his journey into Zanskar. The reader benefits from his knowledge in what he explains of Zanskar, but what is immediately apparent from the start of this book is the authors ability to speak Tibetan gives him a massive advantage in being accepted by the people of Zanskar and obviously to be able to communicate first hand with them.

Zanskar is a secluded valley, formed by the Himalayan mountain range and the Zanskar mountain range which runs parallel to it. It is one of the most inaccessible valleys, especially at the time Peissel visited it in 1979. Zanskar is a part of the Union Territory of Ladakh, but at the time has was practically self governed and was ruled over by not one, but two Kings! These are the King of Zanskar, the King of Zangla, both of who Peissel met (he also met the King of Padum, so I am still a little confused, perhaps there were three). Buddhism is the dominant religion, split between the Yellow Hat sect (Gelugpa) of which the Dalai Lama is the head, and the Red Hat sect (Drukpa Kargyupa) more associated with Bhutan.

Peissel tells a fascinating story of his journey, his three guides feature heavily and he covers well all the religious and cultural festivals as well as daily life and enough history to form up the background. Clearly he has an affinity with these people, and his respect and understating comes through clearly in his writing. Peissel looks back to the few other travellers who have visited the valley, and speculates about what is to come in the form of tourism - the paradox being of course, that his book encourages those people to visit in the future.

I thought it a fantastic book to learn about a place almost certainly irreparably lost now, some 45 years later. Interestingly on his journey across the Himalaya on the way out of Zanskar he met a team of Indian Survey geologists who mentioned they, in conjunction with a team of geographers were planning the mapping and geological study of Zanskar. Perhaps that was beginning of the end, as anecdotally it is mentioned in the book that gold is present in apparently quite accessible quantities.

A couple of quotes I found poignant.

P85

Surely one of the reasons why strangers are unwelcome today in most of the world is that, what with modern communications, they have little or nothing to offer. The current price of wool or meat on distant markets is already known and news of distant relatives comes by post. Radios and televisions now satisfy people's curiosity and the traveller is seen principally as a possible menace, perhaps a thief, or a parasite; alternatively he may be regarded simply as a source of money.

P87

I stepped outside and again I was struck by the magnificent view: a full circle of peaks surrounded the flat sea of the central plain dotted with its villages, refuges in a world unfit for man. If ever there lay a valley cut off from the world, a hidden, secret land, it was Zanskar. I could hardly believe that only recently I had left a world which is polluted and overpopulated. Everything in Zanskar I found near to perfection: nothing, so it seemed, was out of place or unnatural. The rusty carcasses of tin cans and automobiles, and the death-like skeletons of electric poles, the hideous rust of corrugated iron, the soiled look of waste paper, the deadly gleam of scraps of plastic were absent; nowhere was there the slightest reminder of mechanical ugliness. I do not know what it is that makes all manufactured objects become so ugly the day they are old, worn or broken. Natural decay is rarely as revolting as say a rusty, broken washing machine.

There was nothing here to tarnish the harmony of nature in which man has his natural place blending with the earth, dressed and fed by its products, moulded by its demands and formed by its seasons. Every image was an ideal one: the horse with its wooden saddle, the yak-hair mattress covered by a woolen carpet whose design represented clouds and mountains.

I recently read another of Peissel's books Tiger For Breakfast, which was excellent, but quite different to this - the city of Kathmandu rather than the wilds of Zanskar. This was a reassuring second read, and I am glad he has published many others I can try to track down.

I also found at least two pdf versions of this book online (google search threw them up pretty quickly) for those who like to read in that format.

4.5 stars, rounded up.