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Leh Ladakh 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.
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Religion &
Culture
The traveller from India will look in vain for similarities between the land
and people he has left and those he encounters inLadakh. The faces and physique
of the Ladakhis, and the clothes they wear, are more akin to those of Tibet
and Central Asia than of India. The original population may have been Dards,
an Indo-Aryan race from down the Indus.
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Historical
Background
For close on 900 years from the middle of the 10th century, Ladakh was an independent
kingdom , its dynasties descending from the king of old Tibet. Its political
fortunes ebbed and flowed over the centuries, and the kingdom, was at its greatest
in the early 17th century under the famous king Sengge Namgyal, whose rule extended
across Spiti and western Tibet up to the Mayumla beyond the sacred sites of
Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar.
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Ancient Routes
For all its seeming inaccessibility, Ladakh's position at the centre of a network
of trade routes traditionally kept it in constant touch withthe outside world.
From Chinese Central Asia,the mighty Karakoram range was breached at the Karakoram
pass, a giddy 18,350 feet (5,600m).
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Modern Routes
Today, travellers from Srinagar drive on this route in the relative comfort
of taxis, local buses or their own vehicles, taking two days and breaking journey
at Kargil. It provides the best possible introduction to the land and its people.
At one step as you cross the Zoji-la, you pass from the lushness of Kashmir
into the bare uncompromising contours of a trans-Himalayan landscape.
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Central Ladakh
The geographical backbone of Ladakh, the Inuds Valley, particularly from Upshi
down to Khalatse, is also the region's histocric heartland. All the major sites
connected with the former kingdom's dynastic history are here, starting with
Leh, the capital city since the early 17th century when Sengge Namgyal built
its nine-storey palace. A few kilometres up the Indus is Shey, the most ancient
capital, with its palace and temples, their vibrantly coloured murals cleaned
and restored in the mid-1980s.
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Fairs & Festivals
The religious philosophy of Buddhism, however, profound and subtle doesn't preclude
an immense joie-de-vivre among its Ladakhi adhe-rents,a nd even solemn religious
enactments are made the occasion for joyous celebration. Many of the annual
festivals of the gompas take place in winter, a relatively idle time for the
majority of the people. They take the form of dance-dramas in the gompa courtyards.
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Oracles &
Astrologers
The Ladakhis believe implicitly in the influence of gods and spirits on the
material world, and undertake no major enterprise without taking this influence
into consideration. The lamas are the vital intermediaries between the human
and the spirit worlds.
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Arts & Crafts
There is little tradition of artistic craftsmanship in Ladakh, most luxury articles
inthe past having been obtained through imports. The exception isthe village
of Chiling, about 19km up the Zanskar river from Nima. Here, a community ofmetal
workers, said to be the descendants of artisans brought from Nepal inthe mid
-17th century to build one of the gigantic Buddha -images at Shey, cary on their
hereditary vocation.
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Cultural Tourism
Visits to the major Buddhist monasteries and other cultural or heritage sites
are the principal tourist attractions of central Ladakh and Zanskar. These sites,
most within reach of Leh, may be visited by bus or by taxi. Most villages and/
or monasteries are provided with regular bus services from Leh. Taxis are expensive,
with fixed tariff for almost every monastery or group of manasteries, but offer
good value in terms of comfort, convenience and time frame.
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Archery & Polo
In Leh, and may of the villages, archery festivals are held during the summer
months, with a lot of fun and fanfare. They are competitive events, the surrounding
villages all sending teams, and the shooting takes place according to strict
etiquette, to the accompaniment of the music of surna and daman (oboe and drum).
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Adventure in Ladakh
Trekking possibilities include short, day-long walks up and down mountain slopes
to visit isolated villages or monastic settlements, or across a ridge to enjoy
the sheer beauty of the lunar mountainscape. Or long, transmountain treks involving
weeks of walking and camping in the wilderness.
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About Ladakh
The remote, high altitude area of northern India occupies 96,701 sq km (including
Aksai Chin) of the eastern half of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is
called Ladakh. It is bordered on the northwest with Pakistan; the north with
the Chinese province of Sinkiang; and the east with Tibet.
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Information
How to Reach Ladakh
Leh - Leh is the main airport for this area. Direct flights link it to Delhi,
Chandigarh, Srinagar and Jammu. Kargil, Suru and Zanskar valleys - Srinagar
and Leh airports are both convenient.
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Ladakh Festival Calendar
Most of the festival events in Ladakh are the annual monastic festivals. Among
non-monastic events count the Losar or New Year celebrations and the notable
Ladakh Festival organized by the Kashmir and Jammu government. The monastic
festivals are dance-dramas in the gompa courtyards. The performers are the lamas,
the monks themselves.
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Places of Interest
in Ladakh
Leh:- Leh is the headquarter of Leh District, and the largest town of the region.
It is located to the north of the Indus River at an elevation of 3600m above
the sea level. The town is dominated by the nine-storey Namgyal Palace and Namgyal
Tsemo (victory peak), built by Tashi Namgyal on his victorious in reunification
of the Upper and Lower Ladakh.
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Monastries of Ladakh
Spituk Monastery:-
The Spituk Gonpa "Exemplary"; 7km. to southwest of Leh, was founded
by Od-Ide, in the 11th century AD; when the monastic community was introduced.
Meanwhile, Lotsava Rinchen Zangpo (the great translator) visited this monastery.
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Tour Packages of Ladakh
Lamayuru to Hemis via Markha Valley Trekking Tour:-
This is a very beautiful trek, in difficulty rated moderate to strenuous on
account of the high passes that need to be crossed. It includes an exciting
crossing of the Zanskar river by trolley at the village of Chiling.
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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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