Tara Mountain Sarai… an untouched piece of heaven.

 

14,000 feet. 

That’s how high Tara Sarai is.

To get there you need to drive two hours beyond the frontier town of Padum, past the village of Purne, a place so remote that you don’t have anyone to ask for directions when you believe you’re lost and your GPS has no connectivity. A village without a shop to buy vegetables, a way point for pilgrims trekking 16,000 feet high to Phukthar monastery.

It is in this remote place that Rigzen Namgyal found a little farm perched near the top of a hill. A farm where ancient women tended yaks and grew barley and worshipped at a white stupa, a little patch of green between the steep mountain peak and the deep gorge where the Tsarap river rushes to embrace the Zanskar. 

And it is in this remote place where Rigzen Namgyal has built a camp that is probably the most luxurious, tented experience I’ve ever had, even more than Tanzania or South Africa. 

The tents are stunning, more beautifully done than most hotel rooms, with every piece of furniture being handcrafted, with all the prints on every fabric personally selected, with hot running water in the bathrooms and wooden floors. 

The food is gourmet, whether you’re eating Ladakhi food or a simple dal rice with turnips and mutton curry or a pad Thai noodles. 

But it’s the service that makes it truly luxurious. From the ginger tea with sea buckthorn that you’re plied with endlessly, or the meal set up for lunch in the garden under a clear blue sky, the team goes out of their way to make sure you’re looked after. 

They will take you on a trek to Phunsok monastery, perched on a mountain cliff. And on the way they be your guides and photographers and carry oxygen cylinders and water and fresh juice and food for you to eat and look after you a constant smile and care. 

Or they will drive you out to the stunning holy mountain of Gonbo Rangjon, they will set up a table in a meadow by a mountain stream where they will cook you a fresh hot meal with steaming hot momos and a Multi course sit down meal.

This is service with a warmth and attention to detail and a friendliness that the big luxury chains could and should learn from because it’s not just about politeness, it’s about making them feel welcome. And I don’t know if it’s because Rigzen himself is such a warm, hospitable human being but his team does this exceptionally.

And all this in a place that feels like a lost mountain paradise. You can sit there all day, watching the colours change on the mountains and the barley fields, as pillowy white clouds drift across the brilliant azure sky. Or you can wait for dusk and sit and chat while staring at the river gushing in the gorge below. Or just sit at night and stare in wonder at a sky studded with a million stars, so dense that you can see the cloudy twinkling clusters that make up the Milky Way. 

This is magic. This is paradise. This is a piece of heaven on earth. And it’s a place that you feel blessed to have experienced.