We camped two days and nights by its western bank for the sheer joy of listening to the honkings of hundreds of Bar-headed geese; after Tso Morari, this is the biggest breeding ground of these geese in India. Its shores are covered with extensive deposits of saline crystals which create the mirage of snow. Our most amusing moments were provided by a colony of the Himalayan marmots. Out of playful curiosity, every now and then they would pop out erect, three quarters of their body above their burrows and then vanish just as impulsively with a mischievous squeal suggesting, "Catch me if you can !".

On the last leg of our trek we entered the valley of the Shyok river. We set out to walk up its source at the Sassar La (16,500 ft.) and then beyond to Daulat Beg Oldie at the foot of the Karakoram Pass. One evening, a bit tired and the rucksack shoulder straps digging into flesh we were jolted out of our lassitude. Totally unanticipated, there about 20 paces away stood one solitary, magnificent specimen of the Bactrian camel. As he remained stolidly frozen on a low sand-dune in the vast, flat expanse at the mouth of the Nubra valley, his dark brown, thick and shaggy coat of hair and twin humps were on splendid display. He looked gigantic. My instinctive reaction was to clutch tight my wife’s anorak to restrain her as she is given to "talk to" and, when possible, pet any animal from an elephant to eel she comes across. This Bactrian had a haughty look of disdainful indifference. Never before had we seen a bactrian in flesh and blood. The adrenaline of excitement sent heartbeats pounding in our ears. I photographed a few frames before the Bactrian camel trotted away. It was an experience of a lifetime.

How many, how, wherefrom and when did they come Ladakh? This was our staple conversation with the locals of Nubra over the next few days. The tally of Bactrians varied from 30 to 50. That they had been in Nubra from as far back as local oral history could recall, there was no doubt. May be from the times of their great-great grandfathers at least. That would be 75 years ago or more. We did not come across more than six Bactrians that were tethered and used for loads. And we were delighted to sight two foals with their domesticated parents. The rest of the Bactrians roamed freely as the winds which sweep across the roof of the World.

Back in Leh, we spoke to a member of the Moravian Mission established over a 100 years ago. This, coupled with flashbacks from our earlier reading of Younghusband, John Keays ("When Men and Mountains Meet"), Robert Shaw ("Visits to High Tartary") and Sven Heden’s account of his explorations and crossing of the Takla Makan, the western extremity of the Gobi Desert, led us to believe that the bactrians perhaps first entered the Nubra valley in 1890 or thereabouts. The Nubra valley lies on the ancient trade route from Kashgarh to Leh. Bactrian camels must have been used by some enterprising Central Asian merchant for carriage of man and merchandise. Having got them over the Karakoram range, some 16,000 ft. up in the stratosphere, the Bactrians were probably abandoned in the Nubra valley. Over a period of time, almost all of them became feral and free-ranging so that today they may well be termed "wild". Where science is concerned, there are 700-800 Bactrians between Mangolia and the Gobi Desert, constituting the only surviving "wild" population of this species. How thrilled and lucky we felt to have chanced upon the Nubra Bactrians, the second living group of its kind in the world today.

Many years later, when we chanced to read an article by Arthur Weigall in the anthology Marvels and Mysteries of our Animal Kingdom, we laughed as the opening paragraph brought back vivdly the memories of our first and only encounter with a Bactrian:

"All camels are discontented. They hate being camels, but they would hate to be anything else, because in their opinion all other living creatures are beneath contempt, sepecially human beings. The expression upon their faces when they pass you on the road indicates that they regard you as a bad smell".