The Himalayan trek shouldn't be mistaken to be a child's play. The weather is so unpredictable that you won't know when a clear and sunny day turns into a cloudy and eventually rainy day or even worse end up snowing. Lots of treks don't even have satellite phones. If due to some unexpected accident a trekker has to be sent back and if his condition doesn't allow him to ride on a horse back, then someone will have to walk a distance in order to get the Indian Army helicopter arranged for that trekker. There were times during my climb to the 16,000 feet Pass when I had to stop at every few steps and breathe hard to get oxygen flow into my lungs. And then there were times when I had to stop every few steps but this time to take pictures and capture the beauty of those landscapes onto the film. Ladakh's parched terrain has rocks with fiery colors, and then you'll find streams running down the mountains, beautiful bluish green meadows surrounded by various red blooms on hundreds of wild rose plants.
In Ladakh, there won't be any running water at your homestay, which are private houses that take paying guests for overnight, or at your campsite. Toilets too will be basically stone enclosures with a dirt floor containing a hole that leads to a deep pit. "Showers" actually meant splattering around in the icy chill stream. But don't be disheartened, there are opportunistic families in Rumbak who have installed a drain in the concrete floor of their tiny room, on handing $2 to them, they shall draw a large bucket of water from the stream and heat it on their wood-burning stove and send you to that tiny room with that hot water and a small plastic mug. That's how you get a lucky hot water bath in Rumbak.
But the pros overshadow the cons largely. Since most of the tour operators sponsoring Ladakh trekking insist on high hygiene standards, the place has very little litter as compared to the treks to Nepal. The people themselves have started to maintain high standards of hygiene. Moreover, the locals of Ladakh are exceptionally friendly and don't seem to be corrupted by foreigners who are far richer than them. I was invited to a lot of homes during my trek for a round of tea and biscuits and the most touching part was that they'll feel insulted when I tried to pay them for their service.
Money doesn't seem to be the driving factor amongst people of Ladakh. An example of the same was my horseman accompanying me during my treks. He supports a large family and earns a meagre $7 a day on days when he had work, yet when the trek was finished he would turn around with his horses so fast to head back home that I had to literally run behind him in order to hand him a $25 tip
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