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Ladakh: Modern Routes
The
Route From Kashmir:
Today, travellers from Srinagar drive on
this route in the relative comfort of taxis, local buses or their own
vehicles, taking two days and breaking journey at Kargil. It provides the
best possible introduction to the land and its people. At one step as you
cross the Zoji-la, you pass from the lushness of Kashmir into the bare
uncompromising contours of a trans-Himalayan landscape. Drass, the first
major village over the pass, inhabited by a population of mixed Kashmiri and
Dard origins, has the local reputation of being the second coldest
permanent inhabited spot in the world. But in summer when the pass is open
and the tourists are going though, the standing crops and clumps of willow
give it a gently, smiling look.
After Drass, the valley narrows,
becoming almost a gorge. Yet even here it occasionally allows space for
small patches of terraced cultivation, where a tiny village population ekes
out a precarious existence. This is indeed a mountain desert, greened only
by such scattered oases.
On departure from Kargil, the road
plunges into the ridges and valley of the Zanskar range over a huge mound of
alluvium, now made fertile by a huge irrigation scheme. Mulbekh with its
gigantic rock engraving of Maitreya (Buddha-to come) and its gompa perched
high on crag above the village, is the transition from Muslim to Buddhist
Ladakh. It is followed by two more passes, Namika-la (12,200 feet/ 3,719m)
and Fotu-la (13,432 feet / 4,094 m). From Fotu-la, the road descends in
sweeps and shirls, past the ancient and spectacularly sited monastery of
Lamayuru, past amazing wind-eroded towers and pinnacles of lunar-landscape
rock, down to the Indus at Khalatse- a descent of almost 4,000 feet/ 1,219 m
in about 32 km. The Indus valley from Khalatse up to Upshi, where the road
from Manali comes in, is Ladakh's historical heartland. The road follows the
river, passing villages with their terraced fields and neat whitewashed
houses, the roofs piled high with fodder laid in against the coming winter.
Here and there the observant traveller notices the ruins of an ancient fort
or palace or the distant glimpse of a gompa on a hill a little way from the
road. The last of these is Spituk, only eight km. Out of Leh. And at last,
Leh, the capital town of the region is visible, dominated by the bulk of its
imposing 17th century palace.
