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Leh Ladakh Travel Guide
Leh Travel Guide
The
main town of the region, is dominated by Sengge Namgyal's nine-storey Palace,
a building in the grand tradition of Tibetan architecture, said to have inspired
the famous Potala in Lhasa, which was built half a century later. Above it,
on Namgyal Tsemo, the peak overlooking the town, are the ruins of the earliest
royal residence at Leh, a fort built by King Tashi Namgyal in the 16th century.
The associated temples remain intact, but they are kept locked except during
the morning and evening hours when a monk toils up the hills from Sankar Gompa
to attend to the butter-lamps in front of the images.
Down in the bazaar, the main sites to visit are the Jo-khang, a modern ecumenical
Buddhist temple, and the imposing mosque dating from the late 17th century almost
opposite. But the pleasures of Leh are not confined to the purposeful visiting
of sites. For locals and visitors alike, a stroll along the main bazaar, observing
the varied crowd and peering into the curio shops is an entrancing experience.
A particularly charming sight is the line of women from nearby villages sitting
along the edge of the footpath with baskets of fresh vegetables brought for
sale to town's people. Chang Gali, behind the main bazaar, is less bustling
but has intriguing little shops selling curious and jewelry; and further on
is the labyrinthine alleyways and piled-up houses of the old city, cluttering
around the foot of the palace hill. In the other direction, down from the bazaar,
are the stalls of the Tibetan traders where you can bargain for pearls, turquoise,
coral, malachite, lapis lazuli and many other kinds of semi-precious stones
and jewelry, as well as curiously carved yak-horn boxes, quaint brass locks,
china or metal bowls, or any of a whole array of curious. When you're tired
of strolling, you can step into any of several restaurants, some of them in
the open air- in gardens, or on the sidewalk - which serve local, Tibetan, Indian
and Continental cuisine.
Or you can strike off away from the bazaar, past Zangsti, the old coppersmith's
quarte, past the Moravian Church to the Ladakh Ecological Centre. From here
there is a footpath across the fields to Sankar Gompa- a half an hour walk.
Or
you can leave the main road from the bazaar near the Moravian Church and turn
off to Changspa, an attractive village, and practically a suburb of Leh, lying
below the hill on which stands the modern Ladakh Shanti Stupa, accessible by
a winding road. Down past the Tourist Information Centre in the Dak-Bungalow
Complex, you can follow the Fort road to Skara, another pretty and prosperous
suburb of Leh town, and admire the earthen ramparts of Zorawar Singh's Fort,
now housing army barracks. This road continues onward, swinging around the periphery
of the village to meet the main highway near a crossroads where the roads from
Srinagar and Manali meet. A side road taking off from here traverses the interior
of Skara to meet the main highway near the airport, an excellent drive through
the heart of the sprawling village.
Too far for a stroll, not far enough to be called a trek, there are several
attractive destinations within a 10-kms radius of Leh. Sabu, a charming village
with a small gompa, nestles between two southward-stretching spurs of the Ladakh
range about 9km away. In the same direction, but nearer town, is Choglamsar,
with the Tibetan refugee settlement including a child's village, a handicrafts
centre devoted largely to carpet-weaving, and the Dalai Lama's prayer-gournd,
Jiva-tsal. Some 8km on the Srinagar road is the turning for Spituk Gompa, and
village. On of the gompa's main features is the chapel dedicated to the Goddess
Tara, with twenty-three images of her various manifestations.
Ladakh Travel Guide
Ladakh
is a land like no other. Bounded by two of the world's mightiest mountain ranges,
the Great Himalaya and the Karakoram, it lies athwart two other, the Ladakh
range and the Zanskar range.
In geological terms, this is a young land, formed only a few million years ago
by the buckling and folding of the earth's crust as the Indian sub-continent
pushed with irresistible force against the immovable mass of Asia. Its basic
contours, uplifted by these unimaginable tectonic movements, have been modified
over the millennia by the opposite process of erosion, sculpted into the form
we see today by wind and water.
Yes, water! Today, a high -altitude desert, sheltered from the rain-bearing
clouds of the Indian monsoon by the barrier of the Great Himalaya, Ladakh was
once covered by an extensive lake system, the vestiges of which still exist
on its south -east plateaux of Rupshu and Chushul - in drainage basins with
evocative names like Tso-moriri, Tsokar,a nd grandest of all, Pangong-tso. Occasionally,
some stray monsoon cluds do find their way over the Himalaya, and lately this
seems to be happening with increasing frequency. But the main source of water
remains the winter snowfall. Dras, Zanskar and the Suru Valley on the Himalaya's
northern flank receive heavy snow in winter; this feeds the glaciers whose meltwater,
carried down by streams, irrigates the fields in summer. For the rest of the
region, the snow on the peaks is virutally the only source of water. As the
crops grow, the villagers pray not for rain, but for sun to melt the glaciers
and liberate their water. Usually their prayers are answered, for the skies
are clear and the sun shines for over 300 days in the year.
Ladakh lies at altitudes ranging from about 9,000 feet (2750m) at Kargil to
25,170 feet (7,672m) at Saser Kangri in the Karakoram. Thus summer temperatures
rarely exceed about 27 degree celcuis in the shade, while in winter they may
plummet to minus 20 degree celcuis even in Leh. Surprisingly, though, the thin
air makes the heat ofthe sun even more intense than at lower altitudes; it is
said that only in Ladakh can a man sitting in the sun with his feet in the shade
suffer from sunstroke and frostbite at the same time!
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- - -› About
Himalayas - - -› People
& Tribes of Himalayas
People & Tribes of Himalayas
The
population, settlement, and economic patterns within the Himalayas have been
greatly influenced by the variations in topography and climate, which impose
harsh living conditions and tend to restrict movement and communication. People
living in remote, isolated valleys have generally preserved their cultural identities.
However, improvements in transportation and communication, particularly satellite
television programs from Europe and the United States, are bringing access from
the outside world to remote valleys. These outside influences are affecting
traditional social and cultural structure.
Nearly 40 million people inhabit the Himalayas. Generally, Hindus of Indian
heritage are dominant in the Sub-Himalayas and the Middle Himalayan valleys
from eastern Kashmir to Nepal. To the north Tibetan Buddhists inhabit the Great
Himalayas from Ladakh to northeast India.
In central Nepal, in an area between about 1830 and 2440 m (between about 6000
and 8000 ft), the Indian and Tibetan cultures have intermingled, producing a
combination of Indian and Tibetan traits. The eastern Himalayas in India and
nearby areas of eastern Bhutan are inhabited by animistic people whose culture
is similar to those living in northern Myanmar and Yunnan province in China.
People of western Kashmir are Muslims and have a culture similar to the inhabitants
of Afghanistan and Iran.
The economy of the Himalayas as a whole is poor with low per capita income.
Much of the Himalayas area is characterized by a very low economic growth rate
combined with a high rate of population growth, which contributes to stagnation
in the already low level of per capita gross national product. Most of the population
is dependent on agriculture, primarily subsistence agriculture; modern industries
are lacking.
Mineral resources are limited. The Himalayas has major hydroelectric potential,
but the development of hydroelectric resources requires outside capital investment.
The skilled labor needed to organize and manage development of natural resources
is also limited due to low literacy rates. Most of the Himalayan communities
face malnutrition, a shortage of safe drinking water, and poor health services
and education systems.
Agricultural land is concentrated in the Tarai plain and in the valleys of the
Middle Himalayas. Patches of agricultural land have also been carved out in
the mountainous forested areas. Rice is the principal crop in eastern Tarai
and the well-watered valleys. Corn is also an important rain-fed crop on the
hillsides.
Other cereal crops are wheat, millet, barley, and buckwheat. Sugarcane, tea,
oilseeds, and potatoes are other major crops. Food production in the Himalayas
has not kept up with the population growth.
The
major industries include processing food grains, making vegetable oil, refining
sugar, and brewing beer. Fruit processing is also important. A wide variety
of fruits are grown in each of the major zones of the Himalayas, and making
fruit juices is a major industry in Nepal, Bhutan, and in the Indian Himalayas.
Since 1950 tourism has emerged as a major growth industry in the Himalayas.
Nearly 1 million visitors come to the Himalayas each year for mountain trekking,
wildlife viewing, and pilgrimages to major Hindu and Buddhist sacred places.
The number of foreign visitors has increased in recent years, as organized treks
to the icy summits of the Great Himalayas have become popular. While tourism
is important to the local economy, it has had an adverse impact on regions where
tourist numbers exceed the capacity of recreational areas.
Historically, all transport in the Himalayas has been by porters and pack animals.
Porters and pack animals are still important, but the construction of major
roads and the development of air routes have changed the traditional transportation
pattern.
Major urban centers such as Kathmandu, Simla, and Srinagar, as well as important
tourist destinations, are served by airlines. Railways link Simla and Darjiling,
but in most of the Himalayas there are no railroads. The bulk of goods from
the Himalayas, as well as goods destined for places within the Himalayas, generally
come to Indian railheads, located in the Tarai, by road. The pack animals and
porters transport goods from road heads to the interior and back.
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