The approach to Ladakh by air over the Rohtang Pass transforms one's image of the Himalaya. The of tortured and rock gar reminder of the Indian sub-continent folding up against the heart of Asia, lifting rivers and lakes up to incredible heights. Yet the world's greatest mountain range seems astonishingly diminutive, clothed in uniform layers of smooth and creamy snow. It is astounding that in this terrain, once known as the end of the habitable word, communities have managed not merely to survive, but to evolve a rich socio-economic and cultural history. Initial wonder gives way to awe, the harsh black rock-face — faces carved with snow, clouds and mountain mists deters any thought of conquest. The fact that we are to skim across the high ridges, almost at touching distance and make a sharp and sudden descent into the Leh valley heightens our sense of the dramatic. We plunge directly into the once unknown world of the Ladakh plateau. Having arrived seems an achievement in itself. Even by air unpredictable weather conditions make it difficult to reach Ladakh. Until the late sixties only Indian Air Force planes carried travellers there, strapped to benches and equipped with parachutes. Over the Zoji-la Pass, the flight throws into relief the grimness of the old trade route that crossed the plateau to meet the Shyok River where the summer trail linking Ladakh to Yarkand on the Silk Route was located. The main trade routes that crossed Central Asia had been laid across mountains and deserts, linking Sinkiang in western China with Eastern Europe. It took three months for the Chang Thang nomads and the traders on the Silk Route to go from Leh to Lhasa. Also visit – Kashmir tour packages Ladakh's population is composed of distinct ethnic groups, predominantly the Mons, Dards and the Tibetans. The Mons is a pastoral community from the south of the Himalaya who converted to Buddhism in the time of the emperor Kanishka. In most villages, they are carpenters and blacksmiths, though they are now mainly village musicians who chant the great epic of the Ladakhi, the Kesar Saga. The Dards are peasants of Indo-European stock settled in Dras. The Dards and Mons must have bartered their farm produce for animal products with the Tibetan Chang-pas, the nomads of Chang Thang. From Ladakh to Yarkand and Turkestan, the intrepid merchants continued to cross-fertilize culture when along with their goods they transported customs and technology. The ties are apparent in the common dress and linguistic unity, food habits and pastimes. It is almost as if the world beyond the passes has survived because the south-west-north-east axis was designed by nature to isolate the mountain communities, yet foster in them a curiously cosmopolitan outlook. The importance of these passes is clearly evident from the historical development of the area. Today, Ladakh is a melting-pot, an expression of the living tradition of central Tibetan Buddhism and Islam combined with the Dogra, Kashmiri and Sikh cultures. Fleeing monks, antagonistic princes, adventurers all found a way into these impregnable valleys, just as the purist mountaineer still prefers to find his — on foot. The contemporary wayfarer, travelling by road through the mountains around hairpin bends, can only dimly imagine the harrowing odyssey of travellers in the past. Today, the distance from Srinagar to Leh can be covered by road in two days at a comfortable pace, once the Border Roads Organization has cut through the walls of ice in mid-June. From the plains the route over the Bra Lacha-la is well mar, ked. It is the trail that the nomads from the Change Thang plateau followed to bring their Pashmina goats for the shawl-markers of the Punjab. Historically military campaigns have also used the Zanskar-Bara Lacha — Chang Thang axis more frequently than the Zoji-la route. Now that the Bara Lacha-la route has been made less treacherous by the all-weather Upshi-Manali road built by the military, it seems as if the discovery of Latah only awaited the reach of technology. For more information on Tradition of Leh Ladakh and Leh Ladakh tour packages contact Swan Tours one of the leading travel agents in India.
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AuthorSwan Tours one of the leading travel agnets in India Archives
January 2018
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