Ladakh
From World travel guide
Ladakh is a mountainous region in North-West India and in the area known as the Trans-Himalaya, (the lands beyond the Himalaya: Tibet, Xinjiang and some of northern Pakistan. It's slightly smaller than Scotland, the settled population population live between 2700 m and 4500 m, and nomadic encampments even higher, and it's the largest and the least populated region of Jammu and Kashmir. The people are a mixture of Buddhist and Muslim. Buddhists are a majority in the east and a slight majority overall while Muslims have the majority in the west. Travelers are likely to see more of the Buddhists as the majority of the tourist attractions are in the east and directly related to Buddhism.
Contents |
Regions
Cities
- Leh - Ladakh's capital and the best base for exploring Ladakh.
Understand
Ladakh has many nicknames, Moonland, Little Tibet, and various Shangrala comparisons, all have some truth in them. Ladakh was an independent kingdon for nine centuries, but it was very strongly influenced by Tibet and also influenced to a lesser degry by the neighbouring Muslim lands. The architecture of Ladakh is almost identical to that of Tibet, both of residential buildings and of the monasteries. Cultarally, also, the Ladakhis have much in common with the Tibetans. The traditional practice of polyandry, where one woman marries to all the brothers of a family to prevent the famly's land from being divided, was common in both Ladakh and Tibet till recently. Likewise both countries practiced primogeniture, where the inharitence after a man's death (primarilly the land) would pass to his oldest son. The class structure, or more precisely the lack of a sharply defined class structure is common to Tibet and Ladakh, and is in sharp contrast to the rest of India. This may be related to the relatively high status, freedom and outspokenness of Buddhist women in Ladakh and Tibet.
However Tibet was far from the only influence on Ladakh. Where Tibet was largly closed off to outside influence, Ladakh was a nation where the caravan trade playd an inportant role. Traders from the neighbouring Muslim lands were a common sight in Leh's bazaar till the 20th century. The folk music is based on the styles found in the Muslim parts of the western Himalaya, likewise Polo was imported from these lands and enjoys popularity to this day with all Ladakhis.
Talk
The language of Ladakh is Ladakhi, a Tibetan dialect that is different enough from Tibetan that Ladakhis and Tibetans often speak Hindi or English when they need to communicate.
Ladakhis usually know Hindi/Urdu and often English, but in villages without road access neither can be expected. High quality Ladakhi phrasebooks are avalable in Leh and well worth getting. Not only will any attempts you make to speak the language be appreciated, it will be useful.
Ladakhi is romanised in a similar way to Hindi, the most important thing to remember being that the "Th" represents a "T" sound with a bit more air.
The first word to learn is "Julley", an all purpose word for hello, goodbye, and thank you.
Get in
Daily flights to Leh are run by Indian and Jet Airways from Delhi. These are, however, subject to inclement weather and may be cancelled at any time.
Buses run directly to Leh from either Manali or Srinagar. The sensible choice from Manali is to take the bus that goes as directly as possible as there is few sites worth visiting until near Leh. This is the choice that most travelers will want to take due to the tense security situaton in Kashmir, however the road is only open from June to mid October. Coming from Srinagar there are a few interesting places to stop on route (Lamayuru and Alchi that offer accommodation).
Get around
By bus
Ladakhi buses run from Leh to the surrounding villages. They are often overcrowded and generally disorganised and poorly run. Daily buses or mini buses run to Alchi, Basgo, Dha-Hanu, Likir, Nimmu, and Saspul; twice daily to Chemray, Hemis, Matho, Stok, and Tak Tok; hourly or more often to Choglamsar, Phyang, Shey, Spituk, Stakna, Thiksay.
By truck
Trucks often stop for hitchhikers, who are usally expected to pay half the bus fare, bargaining may be necessary. They are slower than the buses and sometimes stop for long periods to unload cargo.
By bicycle
The scenery would be magnificent viewed from the slow pace of a bicycle, however one would need to be well prepared with full camping equipment. There is a bit less than 1000km of paved roads in Ladakh. The Manali-Leh-Srinagar road makes up about half of that, the remainder being spurs off it. As such it's not possible to string together a loop, and the only route that would avoid backtracking would be to follow the Manali-Leh-Srinagar road. You would need to check the current situation and think carefully to decide if traveling in Kashmir is more of a risk than you want to take.
However, in addition to the paved roads there are some trekking routes that would be possible to ride a lightly loaded sturdy mountain bike on, perhaps hiring a horse and handler to take your bagage.
Maps
General traveling maps showing the roads and tourist sites are commonly available in India and abroad.
The best quality trekking maps are nowhere near the quality of maps covering trekking areas of Europe or North America. Note that high quality maps of the border regions of India are technically illegal in India for security reasons, your map may be confiscated if you allow security personel to see it. (despite very high quality maps of Indian J&K and the LoC being available from the Survey of Pakistan in Islamabad!)
- Survey of India produces a very out of date (early 1980's) trekking map of J&K; it's cheap, and could be useful for planning a route with an experanced guide.
- Artouro (1:300000) - based on satellite imagery. Until recently the best avalable, it is satifactory for pre-trek route planning, but not good for navigation. A pirated version is available in Leh.
- Leomann (1:200000) - may have better scale than the Artouro, but it actually contains less information and is less accurate; however the series does cover a lot more of Ladakh and elsewhere in the Himalayas.
- Trekking Map of Ladakh by Sonam Tsetan (approx scale 1:600000) is very acurate for what it shows: the trails, village names, and water courses. It lacks topography, makeing it a very useful planing tool. It's avalable in Leh for about 200 Rp.
- Editions Olizane (1:150000) - recently introduced, and looks like it could be an excellent topographic map, with lots of detail (accuracy to be confirmed).
See
The main tourist sites relate to Tibetan Buddhism, and to the stunning landscape.
Do
Ladakh is an excellent trekking area for experienced trekkers. The infrastructure is nowhere near as developed as in Nepal, necessitating greater preparedness on the part of the trekker. Most trekkers go with a guide and some pack horses, which is easy to organise, and if arranged in Leh quite affordable. While it's possible for an experienced, well prepared, flexible trekker to trek independently, this is not a destination to be taken lightly - foreigners have died here after getting lost and running out of food. That said, many routes are practicable provided you have a good map and sleeping bag, tent, stove (firewood is rare and needed by the locals), enough food for the entire trek plus a few days extra, good acclimation, some knowledge of Ladakhi, and recently updated information from someone who has just completed the same trek.
Eat
Drink
Stay safe
Get out
External links
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