Evening Light on the Mountainside Zanskar Ladakh.

Evening Light on the Mountainside Zanskar Ladakh., originally uploaded by The Wandering Hermit.

(excerpt from my diary)

As the evening gets on I start walking towards a viewpoint overlooking the village., the mountainside behind turns deep golden in this light, and very large. I climb the the nearest ridge one from which I hope to see the sun set over the whole area of Ladakh. It is steep, and I pause several times to take a drink from my water bottle, the weight of the camera and the tripod slowing me down even more and I feel the aftereffects of a day spent trekking in this rugged landscape under a hot sun. At last I reach the top a few minutes before sunset. The day is still very warm.
Far below me to the left are a few squares of harvest-ripe yellow barley and a crescent-shaped pool, and to the far right the dunes stretch out towards the Buddhist grottoes.

In front, the world lies undulating in fantastic ridges and stratas reflecting the tumultuous history of formation... Centuries compressed in stone. silents sentinels to history

The valley floor is dark green and gold, the few stringy poplars and corn fields ending abruptly in the distance, where the sand and stony plains of the Changthang take over. The gorged waters of the River look thin and innocuous from this distance. The electric lights come on Over and shimmer through the levels of cooling air. It is quite still

Above, the sky, marked with a few residual clouds, changes to a deep red, and the sun sinks over the vague horizon of the desert. For a few minutes afterwards, the underside of the clouds reflects a sun already invisible, and by a strange tilt of light the sky actually appears to become brighter and in a majestic moment lights up only the mountains opposite.. I am transfixed.. it looks like liquid gold...


Then the angle changes, the clouds turn grey, and above me is a sky of deep indigo. In this desert night the Milky Way is brilliantly clear.