31 January 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

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On this day we went back and revisited the village of Rumbak.

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This is the route across the frozen river to the first house.  There are two considerations here.  First, the ice needs to be thick enough to walk on and second, it can be slippery and you don’t want to fall over.  You can see footprints on the ice towards the right.  In general you find a flat place to cross, watch the colour and consistency of the ice and if necessary, you can throw some handfuls of dirt on it.  Disconcerting at first but almost normal after a while.

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I wanted to get some more pictures of the fascinating inscribed stones.

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And in some places there can be a lot of them.

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Inscribed stones and a stupa (or chorten).

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A row of stupas (inside the village).

A stupa was originally used to house the remains of the Bhudda. Later this became sacred texts and images, or the stupas were simply sacred in their own right as a supporting object for meditation.  Stupa is the Sanscript word, Chorta the Tibetan and Dagoba the Sinhalese.  In China, Japan and Korea, the stupa developed into the pagoda.

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Stupas and residences.

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One of the residences that also doubles as a homestay.

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There were maybe four of these, mini-stupas surmounted by blue sheep skulls and other “sacred” objects, and coated by what may be an iron oxide pigment.  I didn’t ask about the significance of these but I wonder whether they are to keep malign spirits out of the village and represent the pre-Buddhist Bon religion, whether rolled up as part of local Bhuddhism or separate.

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More engraved stones.

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This is I think a common redstart on the engraved stones.  It is actually out of focus, as with all the bird images in this post, but hopefully I can get away with it at this size.

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The shed and some of the houses in the background have animal feed on top, to prevent them being prematurely devoured.

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This is the Eurasian magpie, bactriana subspecies, unrelated to the Australian Magpie.

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I had wanted to get some photographs of them but they do not hang around when a camera is pointed at them so I sat down on a vantage point near the village and waited.

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This is a Tibetan snowcock, which I had previously seen but also been unable to photograph.

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They are quite different in colouring to the Himalayan snowcock I mentioned in an earlier post.  They are in the pheasant family and though they can fly, they seem disinclined to do so in most circumstances.

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There was something interesting the magpies in this small gulley.

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Hello!

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Mmm.  That bag looks interesting.

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Are you still here?

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Ahh.  Lunch!

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Blue sheep skulls on top of a shed.

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Skull, inscribed stones, stupa and house.

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Down below the camp, at the main river.  The platform is covered by inscribed stones and I presume it qualifies as a stupa.

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A frozen mini-waterfall in the village near the camp.

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And the wider view.

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