Ladakh with Rigzen Namgyal… and how doing good always brings goodness back to you.

 

In December last year, I went to Morjim for a week for a family holiday because my wife had a reunion there with her college friends. Morjim isn’t a part of Goa I’m used to. I knew of the Gin Joint at Verandah but that was pretty much it. But considering the horrendous traffic heading towards Siolim we decided to stick to Morjim and figure food out as we went along. 

Large groups usually equal lowest common denominators when it comes to food and in India that’s a quest that often leads to momos. So when the kids saw a sign for a restaurant that served Tibetan and Ladakhi cuisine called Gyatso, we ended up heading there. But with my congenital inability to go along with group preferences when it comes to food, I was intrigued by what they meant by Ladakhi cuisine, especially since when I had last visited Ladakh a decade ago, I couldn’t find Ladakhi food in a single restaurant in Leh. 

We ended up with a spectacular meal. Chuutagi and buckwheat pasta and other Ladakhi delicacies I had never eaten before. The meal went from being a random momo meal to being one of the best meals I had ever had in Goa, so I asked if I could meet the owner. Which is when I met this warm, simple, generous Ladakhi gentleman called Rigzen Namgyal. Dressed in a T shirt and track pants with sandals, he seemed a world away from the often wealthy outstation restaurant entrepreneurs who I had encountered in Goa. He said that he had a hotel in Ladakh but that he wanted to keep his staff busy in the off season which is why he brought his team to Goa in the winter. Sadly though, he also said that he wouldn’t come back the following year because business wasn’t great. He wanted to serve good food with good ingredients and good service. Most importantly he wanted to look after his team and pay them well and provide them with good living conditions. So he couldn’t compete with the proliferation of places that cut corners with salaries and ingredients, that functioned almost like sweatshops. 

This simple man, the purity of his intent, his kindness and the excellence of his food really struck a chord in my heart. I went back and posted about him and encouraged people to go eat at Gyatso. Several people did. But most importantly, that group included Sid Mewara from the Big Forkers, who (unlike me) is an actual influencer whose voice and recommendations carry weight. Sid loved the place, went there twice, posted about it and started recommending it and slowly but surely, Gyatso’s season turned around. 

Rigzen with his warmth and generosity urged me to visit Ladakh as his guest as a way to thank me. He also shared stunning pictures of a village in the Zanskar Valley where he had set up a tented camp. Ladakh is one of my favourite places in the world but I hadn’t gone back in over a decade because I wanted to hold on to my memory of it as an untouched paradise, a place for serious travellers and not casual tourists. From all accounts, Leh and the places l had visited like Nubra and Pangong were now full of hordes of tourists. I didn’t want to sully my memories of those places by seeing them despoiled in any manner. But Rigzen promised to show me another side of Ladakh, through the eyes of a Ladakhi.. a Ladakh that is lived rather than visited, that is experienced rather than consumed so I ended up saying yes.

Of course, I told Rigzen that I would pay for my accommodation and travel. I had assumed that he was a regular entrepreneur trying to make a living in a tough industry like hospitality and F and B, struggling with tight margins. I see my role as helping and supporting people in this world, not take advantage of them. 

It was only when I landed in Ladakh and went to Rigzen’s hotel Ladakh Sarai in Saboo outside Leh that I realised I had made the classic city error of forgetting that a man’s simplicity of clothing and appearance reveals nothing of who the person is. Because Rigzen Namgyal, the simple restaurant entrepreneur who I wanted to help because he deserved goodness, turned out to be the godfather of hospitality in Ladakh! Starting out with treks almost three decades ago, he now has a series of tented luxury camps across Ladakh. His flagship Ladakh Sarai, which he and his partner acquired from their British owners fifteen years ago, is a legendary place that has hosted the likes of Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford. It was also the venue for the legendary restaurant Syah, which served a multi course tasting menu in Ladakh years before anyone else and was spoken about in hushed tones by serious food enthusiasts.

It wasn’t just Ladakh Sarai. Rahul Gandhi was in Ladakh when we were in Leh, and he and his team were staying in Rigzen’s camp in Pangong when they visited the lake. Rigzen (naturally) didn’t bother going to make sure his political VIP guests were okay, having full faith in his fantastic team, and chose to spend the day with his friends and us at Saboo. And the more time I spent with him and with other Ladakhis, the more I realised what a legend he was, a man whose company handled expeditions for more than four thousand global travellers every year who sought to experience and discover Ladakh through religion, local culture or food.

I’ve already shared how magical his place Tara Sarai high up in the mountains above the Zanskar Valley is. I think it’s one of the greatest luxury nature experiences anywhere. But it wasn’t just about Tara Sarai. Rigzen took almost a week off from his usual work to travel with us and take us to Zanskar and Ladakh Sarai. Conversations about Ladakh and the life of its people. Tibetan Buddhism. Stories over a fireplace about adventures in years past. Visits to holy mountains and monasteries perched on cliffs. Picnics on green meadows between lavender fields and snow fed streams. Sitting in prayer halls listening to monks chanting in the midst of incense and smoke. This is the stuff that you dream of and hear of and read of, but never get to experience. Until this visit and until Rigzen Namgyal entered our lives. 

There is a saying that if you give love to the world, the world will give it back to you thousandfold. Rigzen Namgyal is proof of that. I did something simple. I showed gratitude and appreciation for a special meal. I shared it with my friends and my community. And in return, I got an experience that was not a holiday but a transformative, spiritual life experience. An experience that filled my heart with clarity, gratitude, love and wonder. 

I keep saying that we must give without seeking. I try and give every day and I try to help every day. This is how I choose to live my life. People say I am naive, but I am not. You receive the energy you give out to the world. And in Rigzen Namgyal, I received kindness that is immeasurable and unforgettable. 

Thank you. To Rigzen. And to the universe…That is all I can say.