gradually, perhaps partly due to the fact that it was
politically stable, in contrast to the lawless tribes further
west, Ladakh became recognized as the best trade route between
the Pubjab and Central Asia. For centuries it was travered by
caravans carrying textiles and spices, raw silk and carpets,
dyestuffs and narcotics.
Religion & Culture
The traveller from India will look in vain for similarities
between the land and people he has left and those he
encounters in Ladakh. The faces and physique of the
Ladakhis, and the clothes they wear, are more akin to those of
Tibet and Central Asia than of India. The original population
may have been Dards, an Indo-Aryan race from down the Indus.
But immigration fromTibet, perhaps a millennium or so ago,
largely overwhelmed the culture of the Dards and obliterated
their racial characteristics. In eastern and central Ladakh,
today's population seems to be mostly of Tibetan origin.
Further west, in and arond Kargil, there ismuch in the
people's appearance that suggests a mixed origin. The
exception to this generalizationis the Arghons, a community of
Muslims in Leh, the descendants of marriages between local
women and Kashmiri or Central Asian merchants.
Ladakh lies at altitudes ranging from about 9,000 feet
(2750m) at Kargil to 25,170 feet (7,672m) at Saser Kangri in
the Karakoram. Thus summer temperatures rarely exceed about 27
degree celcuis in the shade, while in winter they may plummet
to minus 20 degree celcuis even in Leh. Surprisingly, though,
the thin air makes the heat ofthe 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!