Tourist Places

Leh Ladakh Guide

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!.

Dras, Zanskar and the Suru Valley on the Himalaya's northern flank receive heavy snow in winter; this feeds the glaciers whose meltwater, carried down by streams, irrigates the fields in summer. For the rest of the region, the snow on the peaks is virutally 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.

Places of Interest in Leh Ladakh

Fairs & Festivals
Many of the annual festivals of the gompas take place in winter, a relatively idle time for the majority of the people. They take the form of dance-dramas in the gompa courtyards. Lamas, robed in colourful garments and wearing often startlingly frightful masks, performs mimes representing various aspects of the religion such as the progress of the individual soul and its purification or the triumph of good over evil. Local people flock from near and far to these events, and the spiritual benefits they get are no doubt heightened by their enjoyment of the party atmosphere, with crowds of women and men, the opportunity to make new friendships and renew old ones, the general bustle and sense of occasion.

Arts & Crafts
Pattu, the rough, warm, woolen material used for clothing is made from locally produced wool, spun by women on drop-spindles, and woven by semi-professional weavers on portable looms set up in the winter sunshine, or under the shade of a tree in summer. Baskets, for the transport of any kind of burden - manure for the fields, fresh vegetables, even babies -are woven out of willow twigs, or a particular variety of grass. Wood work is confined largely to the production of pillars and carved lintels for the houses, and the low carved tables that are a feature of every Ladakhi living-room.

The Handicrafts Centre also has a department of Thangka painting. These icons on cloth are executed in accordance with strict guidelines handed down from past generations. In the same tradition are the mural paintings in the gompas, where semi-professional , both monks and laymen,, labour tokeep the walls decorated with images symbolizing the various aspects of the Buddhist Way. The skill of building religious statues is also not extinct. The gigantic representation of Maitreya, was installed in Thikse Gompa as recently as the early 1980s.