Читать книгу Trekking in Ladakh. Eight adventurous trekking routes онлайн

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The north/south trade route between the Indian Punjab, south of the Himalayas, and the town of Yarkand in Sinkiang, Central Asia, passed through Manali to Leh, much as the modern road does. From Leh it crossed the rugged Khardung La, then went north over the treacherous Karakoram Pass. Luxury goods, like fabrics, carpets, precious stones, jewellery, spices and narcotics, were traded.

These ancient trading routes have all remained closed since just after India’s independence in 1947. To this day, Ladakh’s borders are disputed between India and Pakistan, as is the Aksai Chin region, east of the Pangong Lake area, between India and China. With the building of the airport in Leh and roads into the countryside, Ladakh opened for foreign tourists in the mid-1970s, and numbers have grown rapidly since then. Between 50,000 and 78,000 visitors (Indian and foreign) annually travelled to the region by the end of the first decade of this century, and exceeded 100,000 in 2011. This creates big opportunities for the people of Ladakh, but also poses a danger to the last stronghold of the unique, ancient Tibetan Buddhist culture, that has declined in Tibet itself. Its survival is the responsibility of all visitors into whose hands it is entrusted.