(Little
Tibet, The Last Shangri La, The Moonland)
Ladakh is a land like no
other. Bounded by two of the world's mightiest mountain ranges, the
Great Himalayas 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 one sees today by wind and water.
A
Virtually Rainless AreaToday, a high -altitude desert,
sheltered from the rain-bearing clouds of the Indian monsoon by the
barrier of the Great Himalayas, 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, and grandest of all, Pangong-tso.
Occasionally,
some stray monsoon clouds 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. Drass (also spelt as
Dras), Zanskar and the Suru Valley on the Himalaya's northern flank
receive heavy snow in winter; this feeds the glaciers whose melt water,
carried down by streams, irrigates the fields in summer.
For
the rest of the region, the snow on the peaks is virtually 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 (2,750m) at Kargil to 25,170 feet (7,672m) at
Saser Kangri in the Karakoram. Thus summer temperatures rarely exceed
about 270 C in the shade, while in winter they may plummet to -200 C
even in Leh. Surprisingly, though, the thin air makes the heat of the
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!
Central
LadakhIts mural, dating from the 11th and 12th centuries,
pre-date the Tibetan style of painting that is present are reminiscent
of the paintings of the far off Ajanta Caves and are presumed to be
almost sole survivors of the Buddhist style current in Kashmir during
the first millennium AD, along with some in Phugtal Gompa in Zanskar,
and Tabo in Spiti.
Northern Ladakh
- KARGIL
Kargil, the second town of Ladakh, is situated
on the Suru River just short of its confluence with the Dras-shingo.
Almost equidistant, at a little over 200-km from Leh, Srinagar,
Padum in Zanskar and Skardu, the capital of Baltistan, it was in the
old days the centre of a network of routes joining these places.
Since Partition, Skardu has been lost to Ladakh, but Kargil remains
the main staging-point between Srinagar and Leh, and the Gateway to
the Suru valley and Zanskar.
- SURU VALLEY
The Suru valley, a greatly underrated
part of Ladakh, runs for about 140-km from Kargil up to the base of
the Penzi-la pass into Zanskar. Although immobilized in winter by
heavy snowfall, its fields, watered by streams fro the surrounding
mountains, produce rich crops of wheat and barely. Traditionally, it
has been an area surplus in foodgrains.
Irrigation water is
plentiful enough to allow the plantation of thick stands of willow
and poplar, giving the area lushness rare in Ladakh. About halfway
along its length, the river loops its way past a huge mound of
alluvium, the last gasp of the Zanskar range, to carry on, past the
glaciers of the Nun-kun massif to Rangdum, a Gompa on a hillock
overlooking a wide marshy plain.
The lower portion of the
valley, its immediate charms apart, offers spectacular views of
Nun-Kun and its attendant peaks. Expeditions to it mostly take off
from Panikhar, the village just short of the valley's right-angled
turn, which is also the base for long treks in the direction of
Kashmir and Kishtwar. Other trekking bases are Sanku, further down
the valley, and Rangdum.
- ZANSKAR
Two rivers, flowing towards each other along
the northern flank of the Great Himalayas, meet in the broad plain
of Padum. They become the Zanskar River, which flows off northwards
through a gorge in the Zanskar range, to meet the Indus at Nimo.
This T-Shaped complex of valleys is Zanskar, opened to motor traffic
only in 1980 when a road was built via the Suru Valley and Rangdum
and over the Penzi-la.
A Trekkers ParadiseVirtually untouched by the winds of
change and modernization till then, Zanskar is now a favourite
destination for trekkers. Padum is the centre for hard but rewarding
treks to Manali via the Shingo-la (16,732 feet/5,100m); Kishtwar via the
Umasi-la (17,828 feet/5,434m); and Lamayuru and Leh via difficult routes
through the Zanskar range. Zanskar is also known as a land of religion
and has the greatest concentration of Gompas in Ladakh, outside the
Indus Valley. The important ones are Sani, Karsha and Stongde in the
central plain, Bardan and Phugtal just off the Padum-Manali trail, and
the small hermitage of Dzonkhul on the way to the Umasi-la.
