THE SUN WAS scorching hot, yet the breeze felt cool and comforting. The land below lay parched and yellow. One step at a time, one breath at a time, we followed the trails of Grandpa Norbu, a Ladakhi elder, who led us toward a hidden high pasture land in the Ladakh range. “Breathe in long and full,” I reminded myself. My heart drummed, and my lungs gasped for more oxygen. I paused, took a mouthful of water, and gazed into the horizon. The vast landscape quietly opened my heart, calming me inside. I’m doing okay, I thought. It was day three of my acclimation.

Over the past 10 years, I have made at least six trips to the Himalayas and led eight expeditions for participants ranging from high school students to senior citizens. At 4,000m above sea level, I felt at ease, at peace and at home.

“What drew you to Ladakh? Why Ladakh?” friends have asked me countless times. For someone who grew up in George Town, I couldn’t have been surrounded by more different terrain, climate and culture. Penang is tropical, green and humid; Ladakh is mountainous, dry and often barren. In Penang, you have cinemas, beaches, huge shopping complexes, clubs and bars—in Ladakh, you find few of these (perhaps only in Leh). Instead, you encounter monastery after monastery, patches of golden wheat-barley fields, stone mud houses in the middle of nowhere and towering mountains all around.

Both Penang and Ladakh thrive on tourism, but they couldn’t be more distinct in character. Penang boasts island beauty, a cosmopolitan pace, a diverse food culture and the harmonious integration of Chinese, Malay and Indian communities. Ladakh, on the other hand, juxtaposes an overcrowded, capitalistic Leh—its main capital—against a slower, more reflective countryside rooted in agriculture, nomadic herding and Tibetan Buddhism.

“Ladakh is dying. We are in a race against time,” I told a group of students last year. “The glaciers are melting. The indigenous culture is eroding. But here, through the lives of elders like Grandpa Norbu, I’ve found precious relics of ancient wisdom that have been lost in other parts of the world. I felt compelled to return and learn to do something to preserve these relics.”

Grandpa Norbu is my friend Gurmet’s grandfather. In 2010, one of the worst flash floods in Ladakh’s history—killing over 255 people—decimated Grandpa Norbu’s farm. Ladakhis stand at the forefront of the climate crisis, and he was no exception. The flood wiped out hundreds of poplar and willow trees, crops, and animals he had spent a lifetime raising. The residual mud left a hard, thick crust on his fields, making it nearly impossible to regrow anything. Most farmers would have given up and moved to Leh, where a new economy was booming. But Grandpa Norbu told himself, “I am a farmer and will always be a farmer. Whatever karma happens tome, it is my dharma—my life purpose—to deal with it courageously and with integrity.” He cleaned up the mess, tilled the soil and spent ten years re-vegetating his ancestral land.

Today, when you step into Grandpa Norbu’s farm, you’re greeted by lush trees, flowers and buzzing bees. He’ll offer you his best apples and apricots. If you want mint tea, he’ll walk out to the garden to pluck some fresh leaves. He has nothing to hide, and everything to share.

“If I had a group of gangsters and a plane, I would kidnap you and take you [to Ladakh] myself… Through Ladakh, I have come to see everything differently. If you have felt anything in these hours we have been together—any intensity, any truth—think that it was not just from me or from us, but from Ladakh too,” wrote the mystical writer Andrew Harvey, describing a friend’s passionate invitation to visit this special land. Before they parted, his friend repeated: “You must go to Ladakh. It will change your life as it has changed mine.”

My life changed in 2014 when my mentor, Victor Wee, brought me to Ladakh right after I finished high school. In my debut book, The Dao of Flow: A Journey to Discover the Ancient Wisdom of Water, I dedicated an entire chapter to Ladakh. On that first visit, I was introduced to Venerable Sanghasena, a visionary social monk who transformed a 250-acre piece of barren desert atop the Himalayas into a green oasis that includes schools and hostels for children from remote villages, monasteries and nunneries for spiritual seekers, and hospitals, hospices and a nursing home for the old and destitute. I was touched by Ven. Sanghasena’s warmth and noble work. He proved how much good one can achieve in 30 years with minimal resources. Perhaps it was destiny. I befriended one of Ven. Sanghasena’s close disciples, Stanzin Gurmet, who moved to Japan around the same time I studied at Waseda University. In Tokyo, we bonded over our love for the Himalayas and decided to start a nonprofit focused on sustainability, education, health and cultural preservation in Ladakh.

Still, I might never have fully grasped Andrew Harvey’s words had I not returned to Ladakh repeatedly. Each time, I came across a new story, a new friend or a new inspiration. Grandpa Norbu, for instance, would take us on different treks, explaining the significance of a sacred mountain or sharing childhood memories of these landscapes.

“I used to be a herdsman when I was young,” he recalled. “I would bring sheep here and stay overnight in one of those stone houses. Sometimes, we exchanged our livestock for money, food or butchered them for meat.”

Last year, he lost a finger while chain-sawing wood on his farm. Immediately, he rushed to his altar and bowed before the Buddha, atoning for past misdeeds. He often thinks about the animals he once killed and prays for them. That’s why he decided to give up animal herding and hunting to focus on farming instead. He still keeps a cow for milk and feeds her alfalfa hay with love. For the past thousand years, Ladakhhas been a critical hub for trade and cultural exchange between Central Asia, South Asia and China, sitting along the ancient Silk Road. They have produced the world’s finest cashmere wool and sold them to the Kashmiris, who were adept marketers and businessmen.

Ladakhis are content with a simple life. They have witnessed the rise and fall of nearby dynasties, and have learned to adapt to countless outside influences while remaining deeply rooted in their own culture. Despite the tides of globalisation and modernisation, Ladakh is fortunate to have many wise elders who are still preserving their traditional values and way of living, and a few visionary elders who speak out against the pitfalls of unbridled capitalism and offer alternative ways of thinking and thriving.

When we bring students to Ladakh, our goal isn’t mere sightseeing. Each year, around 300,000 tourists visit Ladakh—most stay in Leh’s crowded hotels. Many click, snap, shop, trek, litter and leave. Touch and go. That’s what millions of tourists do worldwide.

We aspire to seek transformative learning instead. In our expedition, students read Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-Hodge, which depicts how a once idyllic, non-industrial Ladakh was gradually affected by over-tourism, Western goods and economic pressures—leading to internal conflict, inflation, environmental damage and threats to traditional values. We ask students to compare what they read with what they see; and what they see in their lives back home. We visit monasteries, local nonprofits, farms and remote nomadic villages in the Far East, where students witness ancient rituals and converse with monks, farmers, nomads and local students. We practice “contemplative traveling,” holding regular debriefs, meditations and group discussions. We want them to experience deep, immersive encounters with Ladakhi people and landscapes.

“To be in communities with different ways of life, different languages have been very cool… but there’s still so much common ground… so much connecting we can do beneath the surface… All of the little moments of this trip, the little rays of the sun as they peak over the Himalayas, laughing with friends, picking apricots from trees, learning new things about each other… all those little moments really come together,” shared Sarah Leidecker, one of our American high school students from Flourish Foundation last summer.

Before leaving Ladakh, I spent my last day with Grandpa Norbu and Grandma Yangchan. We cooked chuutagi—a Ladakhi pasta shaped like donkey’s ears—and I later jumped into a glacier-water pond on the farm with Gurmet and a few neighboring kids. We swam, then sat by the window, basking in the sun to warm up. Grandma brought out some butter tea and almonds, sitting next to me and rubbing my hands when she saw me shiver.

“You two are always so busy hosting guests and running projects,” she said. “Next time, we should have more moments like this—just sitting together, doing nothing and enjoying each other’s company.”

I took out a piece of turquoise stone jewelry and placed it around her neck. She shook her head, telling me I should keep it. I shook my head, insisting she have it. She smiled like a child. “You, Gurmet, are my grandchildren. Come back next year.” As I prepared to leave, she tucked two bags of apricots into my arms to take home. I looked out at her from the window of the car as we left the farm. She did not take off the necklace.

It’s both simple and difficult to explain why I’ve grown so attached to this faraway land. Maybe it’s family. Maybe it’s the people, the stories or some kind of karmic connection. Maybe it’s a sense of purpose. Maybe it was something that’s been lost whence I came. Whatever it is, Ladakh tugs at my heartstrings—and keeps drawing me back.