Leh Ladakh Holidays - Korzok Gu-stor and Tak Thok Tse-chu Festivals

Highlights

A journey to Korzok from Leh is unlike any other in Ladakh. The Leh – Manali road first brings us over one of the highest passes in the region, over the Taklang-la (5260m). From here it strikes off east on a rough track across the basin of the twin lakes, Startsapuk-Tso (fresh water) and the Tso-kar (salt water), then over a roller-coaster track to the head of Tso Moriri, a magnificent lake, and on to Korzok, a quarter of the way along the lake's 20km length. Containing the drainage basin of these trans-Himalayan lakes and known as Rupshu, this is a landscape of open, windswept high-altitude valleys. Korzok, situated at 15,000 feet (4,572 m) with its dozen or so houses and its gompa appearing like a mirage among the barren hills, is the only permanent settlement in Rupshu, and the stage for the region’s only monastic festival. The Korzok Gu-stor attracts scores of Chang-pa, the Tibetan plateau nomadic herdsmen, for whom this even constitutes the sole event of its kind and magnitude. Tse-chu at Tak Thok Gompa is unique in the fact that this is the only Nyingma-pa, Red Hat, monastery in Ladakh thus closely devoted to its patron-saint Padmasambhava. Mystic dances are performed by the lamas in the guise of various divinities and legendary characters. They perform the mystic dances as prescribes the protocol, consecrating and destroying the votive offerings 'Stor-ma' in closing of the propitious performance. Trip to Tak Thok promises another unique glimpse of the Ladakh landscape of trans-Himalaya. Located in the village of Sakti, about 46 km east of Leh, below Chang-la (5320m), Tak Thok is on the way to the Pangong Lake in the far eastern end of Ladakh.