Leh Ladakh Tour - General Information for Tourists
- Swan Tours
- Jun 19, 2018
- 3 min read
For almost 900 years, from the middle of the 10th century, Ladakh was an independent kingdom, its judgment dynasties descending from the kings of old Tibet. The kingdom obtained its biggest geographical degree and glory in the early 17th century under the popular king Singge Namgyal, whose domain extended throughout Spiti and western Tibet right as much as the Mayum-la, beyond the spiritual websites of Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar.
Gradually, possibly partly due to that it was politically steady, Ladakh ended up being recognized as the very best trade path between the Punjab and Central Asia. For centuries it was traversed by caravans bring textiles, spices, raw silk, carpets, dyestuffs, narcotics, etc. Heedless of the land's rugged terrain and obvious remoteness, merchants delegated their items to relays of pony transporters who took about 2 months to bring them from Amritsar to the Central Asian towns of Yarkand and Khotan. On this long path, Leh was the midway stop, and established into a bustling entrepot, its bazars thronged with merchants from distant nations.
The well-known pashmina (much better called cashmere) also boiled down from the high-altitude plateaux of eastern Ladakh and western Tibet, through Leh, to Srinagar, where experienced artisans changed it into shawls known the world over for their softness and heat. Ironically, it was this financially rewarding trade that finally spelt the doom of the independent kingdom. It brought in the covetous attention of Gulab Singh, the ruler of Jammu in the early 19th century, who sent his general Zorawar Singh to attack Ladakh in 1834 AD. There followed a decade of war and turmoil, which ended with the development of the British as the vital power in north India. Ladakh, together with the neighbouring province of Baltistan, was included into the recently produced state of Jammu & Kashmir. Simply over a century later, this union was disrupted by the partition of India, as an outcome of which Baltistan became part of Pakistan, while Ladakh remained in India as part of the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
Geographical Introduction - Ladakh is a land abounding in awesome physical features, embeded in a massive and magnificent environment. Bounded by 2 of the world's mightiest mountain varieties, the Karakoram in the north and the Great Himalaya in the south, it is passed through by 2 other parallel chains, the Ladakh Range and the Zanskar Range.
In geological terms, this is a young land, formed a few million years earlier. Its standard contours, boosted by tectonic motions, have been customized over the millennia by the process of disintegration due to wind and water, shaped into the type that we see today.
Today a high-altitude desert, protected from the rain-bearing clouds of the Indian monsoon by the barrier of the Great Himalaya, Ladakh was as soon as covered by an extensive lake system, the vestiges of which still exist on its south-east plateaux of Rupshu and Chushul, in the drainage basins or lakes of Tso-moriri, Tso-kar and Pangong-tso. However the primary source of water is winter snowfall.
Dras, Zanskar and the Suru Valley on the Himalaya's northern flanks get heavy snow in winter season, this feeds the glaciers from which melt water, carried down by streams, waters the fields in summer. For the remainder of the region, the snow on the peaks is practically the only source of water. As the crops grow, the villagers hope not for rain, however for sun to melt the glaciers and free their water.
Ladakh lies at elevations varying from about 9,000 ft (2,750 m) at Kargil to 25,170 ft (7,672 m) at Saser Kangri, in the Karakoram Range. Summertime temperature levels rarely surpass 27C in the shade, while in winter they may at times plunge to minus 20C even in Leh. Remarkably though, the thin air makes the heat of the sun a lot more intense than at lower altitudes. It is said that just in Ladakh can a guy being in the sun with his feet in the shade suffer from sunstroke and frostbite at the exact same time!
For more information on Leh Ladakh tour packages and any other holiday packages contact Swan Tours India or call 011 23415601.
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