Ladakh, a word which means 'land of high passes', is an area of Northern India sandwiched in between the Karakoram in the north and the Himalaya in the south.    Ladakh, which is made up from 2 districts of the Jammu & Kashmir Province, is the highest region of I Ladakh...

Ladakh, a word which means 'land of high passes', is an area of Northern India sandwiched in between the Karakoram in the north and the Himalaya in the south.    Ladakh, which is made up from 2 districts of the Jammu & Kashmir Province, is the highest region of I Ladakh travel guidendia with elevations rarely reaching below 3,000m. Leh, the capital, lies at an altitude of 3,521m and the nearby airport is the highest in the world!  

Ladakh is also called 'Little Tibet', because culturally it has more in common with Tibet than the rest of India.   82% of the people in Ladakh are Buddhist and Buddhism occupies a central part of life.   Prayer wheels and chortens (the local Buddhist devotional towers) are dotted everywhere.   Many villages have a monastery nearby, usually built high up on a rocky outcrop or hill, and many members of society become Buddhist monks.  

Although Leh was formerly a major bazaar and stopping point on the famed Silk Road, Ladakh is a predominantly agricultural society. Each Ladakhi family typically owns about 2-4 acres of land which is irrigated by snow melt water through a complex network of irrigation ditches. Leh only receives 60 mm of rain per year, and the non-irrigated areas are completely arid. The farming all occurs in the four month-long hot summer, allowing a single barley crop to be grown which is used for bread, tsampa (roasted barley flour used to make dumplings and so on), animal fodder and chang (rough Tibetan beer; tastes rather like a weak scrumpy).  

One can get to Leh by road or air both are equally spectaculour.    

The road from Manali to Leh was built as an access route for the Indian Army to the disputed Indian - Pakastani border area of Kasmir. Due to the severe weather conditions experienced, the road is only kept open for between 3 and 4 months of the year. Before the road was completed, these passes were traversed by traders who plied between Central Asia and India. This 500-kilometre journey is now one of the most amazing Himalayan routes. Crossing the Himalaya from south to north, the route high point is at over 5,300 metres (or 17,400 ft) above sea level.  

The alternative road into Leh is via Srinagar and Kargil. This road also crosses high passes and is open for a similar period to the Manali Leh road. Both Indian Airlines and Jet Airways do the early morning one hour flight from Delhi to Leh. From this unique flight one can see the lofty Himalayan peaks and glaciers.

This content is licenced under a creative commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 licence and has been copied from World66.com.