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"If a valley is reached by a high pass, only the best of friends and the worst of enemies are its visitors"---Tibetan proverb

The 1939 motion picture Lost Horizon has enthralled millions with its depiction of a remote, peaceful, and uncorrupted land. With humanity's countless uncertainties and wars, one can understand the deep psychological yearning for such a Shangri-la. The idealized location shown in the film was always associated with Tibet. Unfortunately, a Chinese policy of military expansion, coupled with religious and cultural suppression, has rendered romantic notions about that unfortunate land-whether valid or not-untenable.

Nonetheless, the yearning for an unspoiled paradise persists, and the remote, enchanting, mountainous enclave of Ladakh, an outlier of Tibetan Buddhist culture in the northern India state of Jammu and Kashmir, has come to be known, at least in tourist brochure hyperbole, as "the last Shangri-la."

Certainly in a geographical sense Ladakh would qualify. The name derives from the Tibetan La Dwags for "the land of many passes". An 8th century traveler, the Chinese pilgrim Hui Ch'ao wrote "The country is narrow and small, and the mountains and valleys are very rugged." To the north of Ladakh lies the forbidding Karakorum range, and to the south are the Western Himalayas. It is bisected by two smaller ranges: the Ladakh and the Zanskar. Within Ladakh, the elevation ranges from about 3000 meters in some of the lower river valleys (the capital, Leh, is at 3500 meters) to 7680 meters at the top of Saser Kangri, the highest peak. The Himalayas effectively shield the region from the South Asian monsoons, creating what is essentially a high-altitude desert. The normal yearly precipitation is only five inches, four of which fall as snow. Greenery is confined to narrow strips which hug the major rivers, and the change from green to brown is abrupt and harsh.

Reaching Ladakh has never been an easy proposition. The Jesuit priest Hippolyte Desideri, traveling in 1715 from Srinagar to Leh, a distance of some 440 kilometers, reported that, " In some places there was really no road at all, only large boulders and rocks covered the ground, over which we had to climb like goats with great trouble and difficulty. As no animal can travel over such bad roads, the whole journey...must be done on foot."

Modern travelers-excepting a few trekkers and cyclists-travel there by motor vehicle or by air, yet difficulties remain. There are two main road connections between Ladakh and other parts of India, though they are only open from June to October due to the severity of the climate. One, from Srinagar to Leh, is less used now because of the political turmoil and insecurity in the Kashmir Valley. The other is from the lush, green, hill-resort town of Manali in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, a two-day 530 km trip to Leh that is in turns exhilarating and terrifying, crossing four major passes (the highest at 5370 meters) on unpaved roads carved out of the steep mountainsides. Warning signs painted on rocks along these roads include such admonitions as "Drive slowly, your family is waiting."

Air travel, which began in 1979, can also be problematic. At 3500 meters, Leh airport is the highest in the world with a scheduled passenger jet service. Situated at such a high altitude, and in a basin surrounded by 6000 meter peaks, it suffers from frequent cancellations due to strong surface winds and unpredictable cloud cover. Inbound flights (such as mine was), are often diverted at the last moment. Additionally, outbound flights are restricted to an 80% passenger load capacity because of the altitude during takeoff combined with the need to carry a full load of return fuel.

Ladakh's appearance of isolation belies a long history of trading contacts, though the region itself was known for only two exports, dried apricots and valuable pashmina wool. This wool, renowned for its smoothness and warmth, came from pashmina goats, raised by nomadic herdspeople on the Chang-Thang Plateau, southeast of Leh. From Leh the wool was (and still is) transported to Srinagar, and made into shawls. Some of the shawls then joined other trading items, passing back through Leh, often on the backs of porters and Bactrian camels, over the uninviting Karakorum Pass and on to the Chinese Central Asian entrepot of Yarkand, one of the major centers on the silk road. Caravans, the last of which crossed the Karakorum Pass in 1949, also carried saffron from Kashmir, spices from Hindustan, and opium from the Himalayan foothills. The return traffic brought tobacco, tea, gems, and hashish.

Its position on a major trading route affected Ladakh's historical development. Though falling within Tibet's cultural, linguistic, and religious sphere, the Ladakhis maintained a precarious political independence for some 900 years, from both the Tibetans and the assorted Muslim principalities to the east. In 1834, this ended when the Hindu Dogras, based in Jammu, attacked and conquered the kingdom. The royal dynasty lost power and was compelled to leave their picturesque palace overlooking Leh, moving to a smaller palace in the village of Stok, 15 km from Leh. A Queen, Deskit Wongwa, resides there today.

When Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India on October 27, 1947 Ladakh was incorporated as well. A series of wars ensued, involving India, Pakistan, and China in a fiercer, more brutal version of the Great Game. Pakistan overran part of the territory in 1948, and China seized a further 38,000 square km (Ladakh is now 55,000 sq. km) in a 1962 border war . Roads into Ladakh were built by Indian paramilitary organizations for strategic purposes, and today the Indian military presence there is heavy and obvious. Until 1974, foreign tourists were prohibited from visiting. Even today some areas are closed and others restricted.

Ladakh's history, to be sure, is not the stuff of which Shangri-las are made. If the notion is to have any truth, then it must lie within the Ladakhi people themselves and elements of their society and lifestyle which strike many as natural and uncomplicated.

The population, though increasing, is still sparse at some 140,000. Four major ethnic groups inhabit the region: nomadic Mons; the mainly Muslim Dards; Shia Muslim Baltis, originally from Central Asia; and the Ladakhis themselves, the largest group, mostly of Tibetan stock with varying degrees of admixture.

The typical Ladakhi is a sturdy, intelligent person with an outgoing personality. Desideri wrote that, "their natural disposition is not proud but docile, polite, cheerful, and kind." Even with the pressures of a tourist-generated money economy, this is still found. "Never to worry sir; these people shall not deceive you. They are totally honest," an Indian official told me. Traditional Ladakhi society stresses tolerance, lacks aggression, and observes an equality between the sexes.

The majority of Ladakhis are self-supporting farmers, living in small settlements whose size is determined by the availability of river water for irrigation. Barley fields predominate, and the grain is roasted to make tsampa, the staple food, or fermented to make the popular intoxicant chang. Domestic animals are used for food, transportation, labor, and clothing. These include sheep, goats, cows, and yaks, but the most important is the dzo, a cross between a yak and a cow. Work is shared and proceeds at a gentle rather than at a punishing pace.

The typical house is a large, whitened with limestone, two or three-storey structure made of stone and dried mud. Straw is laid out on the roofs and dried for use as fodder. The most important room is the kitchen, with its shelves of ornate pots facing a warm stove in the center of the room. Here the family spends much of the cold winters, with outside temperatures as low as -30° C.

The traditional clothing is distinctive. Men and woman wear gonchas, long woolen robes, usually in black, brown, scarlet, or beige. Women (and older men) wear as an everyday hat, the gonda, a type of high hat with protruding elf-like ear flaps. For festivals women will wear as a head-piece the spectacular cobra-shaped perak, adorned with rows of turquoises and carnelians. The perak's sides have woolen earmuffs, because, as legend has it, an early queen suffered from earache and needed protection from the cold.

Only 210 sq. km of Ladakh is arable, so a low population is a necessity. Nature has helped, but so have some Ladakhi customs, one of which is polyandry, whereby a woman has more than one husband. Though now officially discouraged, it still occasionally occurs. A Ladakhi woman related to me, "I know one woman in Leh. She has four husbands, but then there is much work for them to do in the house and with the cattle."

Another Ladakhi practice that served to limit the birthrate was the sending of young, mostly male, children to the monasteries for a life of celibate monkhood as lamas (the few female monks are called chomos). There are today 67 monasteries, or gompas, with approximately 5,000 lamas. These structures are often spectacularly situated on the tops of hills or seemingly carved into mountainsides, suggesting both a sense of security and a reaching for the heavens. The architecture is essentially Tibetan-solid, functional exteriors with ornate, religiously-inspired interiors. Highly stylized thangkas, the devotional paintings on cloth for which Ladakh is famous, are hung in some the rooms. The monasteries are also the scene of popular masked dances, symbolic of the battle between good and evil.

The gompas follow Tibetan Mahayana practice, the philosophy of which is both subtle and complicated, and are divided into five sects of which two general categories, red hats and yellow hats, are distinguished. The head lama of a monastery is a kushok, an incarnation of some previous holy man, and receives the courtesy title of Rinpoche (Precious Jewel).

The countryside is dotted with further reminders of the passion with which Buddhism is held. Most notable are the chortens (stupas) and mani walls (long walls of stone and rubble topped by inscribed flat stones). Chortens are basically white pyramid-like structures whose component parts symbolize the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and sky. Relics are often buried underneath. A devout Buddhist will always keep both the chortens and mani walls to his or her right and sometimes perform a circumnambulation in order to cleanse the soul. A common sight is a believer walking by, with spinning prayer wheel in hand, meditating, or chanting the holy mantra, "Om mani padme hum" (Hail to the jewel in the lotus).

The closure of the Tibetan border has dealt a blow to monastic life, as many monks previously went to Lhasa for higher training. It also hurt the economy, and it was with the last concern in mind that the region was, at Ladakhi request, opened to tourism in 1974. Tourists have come in increasing numbers (some 16,000 in 1993). Ironically, the effect of tourism to the people and to the environment, especially around Leh, may be harming the very culture visitors want to see. Some early visitors stole thangkas or tried to bribe the monks to do it for them. Scores of guest houses, restaurants, and souvenir shops (of the last, 86% are run by Kashmiris who only stay for the summer) have sprung up, creating more of a cash-driven economy. Friction has developed between the Buddhist and Muslim communities, leading to riots in 1989, where hitherto amity existed and even intermarriage occurred .

Leh still preserves some of the medieval atmosphere of Central Asia, but drinking water (and such "necessities" as Pepsi-Cola for the tourists) must now be trucked in (one taxi-diver-"If you drink from the Indus River, your belly is kaput."); garbage, especially plastic, is strewn about, and perhaps one in every ten Leh boys now smokes. The young are attracted by what they perceive as modern values.

According to Helena Nordberg-Hodge, a Swedish born linguist and founder of the Ladakh Ecological Development Group, the increasing influx of comparatively wealthy tourists, "...may lead to the destruction of the Ladakhi people's self-esteem. They see our salaries, but not how we spend our lives."

On the plus side there are signs of a renewed sense pride in their own culture by the Ladakhis, some of whom have been to the West, and can sense its spiritual decay. It is hoped that this, along with a higher level of sensitivity and cross-cultural understanding on the part of foreign visitors, will ensure that the culture remains relatively intact. Ladakh may not be the Shangri-la that popular imagination craves, but it possesses a magic of its own which, it is hoped, will never be lost.

*no republication without the permission of the copyright holder (RH)


	Prayer Wheels and Pepsi-Cola: Ladakh the last Shangri-la? Kansai Time Out: April 1996 by Richard Humphries "If a valley is reached by a high pass, only the best of friends and the worst of enemies are its visitors"---Tibetan proverb The 1939 motion picture Lost Horizon has enthralled millions with its depiction of a remote, peaceful, and uncorrupted land. With humanity's countless uncertainties and wars, one can understand the deep psychological yearning for such a Shangri-la. The idealized location shown in the film was always associated with Tibet. Unfortunately, a Chinese policy of military expansion, coupled with religious and cultural suppression, has rendered romantic notions about that unfortunate land-whether valid or not-untenable. Nonetheless, the yearning for an unspoiled paradise persists, and the remote, enchanting, mountainous enclave of Ladakh, an outlier of Tibetan Buddhist culture in the northern India state of Jammu and Kashmir, has come to be known, at least in tourist brochure hyperbole, as "the last Shangri-la." Certainly in a geographical sense Ladakh would qualify. The name derives from the Tibetan La Dwags for "the land of many passes". An 8th century traveler, the Chinese pilgrim Hui Ch'ao wrote "The country is narrow and small, and the mountains and valleys are very rugged." To the north of Ladakh lies the forbidding Karakorum range, and to the south are the Western Himalayas. It is bisected by two smaller ranges: the Ladakh and the Zanskar. Within Ladakh, the elevation ranges from about 3000 meters in some of the lower river valleys (the capital, Leh, is at 3500 meters) to 7680 meters at the top of Saser Kangri, the highest peak. The Himalayas effectively shield the region from the South Asian monsoons, creating what is essentially a high-altitude desert. The normal yearly precipitation is only five inches, four of which fall as snow. Greenery is confined to narrow strips which hug the major rivers, and the change from green to brown is abrupt and harsh. Reaching Ladakh has never been an easy proposition. The Jesuit priest Hippolyte Desideri, traveling in 1715 from Srinagar to Leh, a distance of some 440 kilometers, reported that, " In some places there was really no road at all, only large boulders and rocks covered the ground, over which we had to climb like goats with great trouble and difficulty. As no animal can travel over such bad roads, the whole journey...must be done on foot." Modern travelers-excepting a few trekkers and cyclists-travel there by motor vehicle or by air, yet difficulties remain. There are two main road connections between Ladakh and other parts of India, though they are only open from June to October due to the severity of the climate. One, from Srinagar to Leh, is less used now because of the political turmoil and insecurity in the Kashmir Valley. The other is from the lush, green, hill-resort town of Manali in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, a two-day 530 km trip to Leh that is in turns exhilarating and terrifying, crossing four major passes (the highest at 5370 meters) on unpaved roads carved out of the steep mountainsides. Warning signs painted on rocks along these roads include such admonitions as "Drive slowly, your family is waiting." Air travel, which began in 1979, can also be problematic. At 3500 meters, Leh airport is the highest in the world with a scheduled passenger jet service. Situated at such a high altitude, and in a basin surrounded by 6000 meter peaks, it suffers from frequent cancellations due to strong surface winds and unpredictable cloud cover. Inbound flights (such as mine was), are often diverted at the last moment. Additionally, outbound flights are restricted to an 80% passenger load capacity because of the altitude during takeoff combined with the need to carry a full load of return fuel. Ladakh's appearance of isolation belies a long history of trading contacts, though the region itself was known for only two exports, dried apricots and valuable pashmina wool. This wool, renowned for its smoothness and warmth, came from pashmina goats, raised by nomadic herdspeople on the Chang-Thang Plateau, southeast of Leh. From Leh the wool was (and still is) transported to Srinagar, and made into shawls. Some of the shawls then joined other trading items, passing back through Leh, often on the backs of porters and Bactrian camels, over the uninviting Karakorum Pass and on to the Chinese Central Asian entrepot of Yarkand, one of the major centers on the silk road. Caravans, the last of which crossed the Karakorum Pass in 1949, also carried saffron from Kashmir, spices from Hindustan, and opium from the Himalayan foothills. The return traffic brought tobacco, tea, gems, and hashish. Its position on a major trading route affected Ladakh's historical development. Though falling within Tibet's cultural, linguistic, and religious sphere, the Ladakhis maintained a precarious political independence for some 900 years, from both the Tibetans and the assorted Muslim principalities to the east. In 1834, this ended when the Hindu Dogras, based in Jammu, attacked and conquered the kingdom. The royal dynasty lost power and was compelled to leave their picturesque palace overlooking Leh, moving to a smaller palace in the village of Stok, 15 km from Leh. A Queen, Deskit Wongwa, resides there today. When Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India on October 27, 1947 Ladakh was incorporated as well. A series of wars ensued, involving India, Pakistan, and China in a fiercer, more brutal version of the Great Game. Pakistan overran part of the territory in 1948, and China seized a further 38,000 square km (Ladakh is now 55,000 sq. km) in a 1962 border war . Roads into Ladakh were built by Indian paramilitary organizations for strategic purposes, and today the Indian military presence there is heavy and obvious. Until 1974, foreign tourists were prohibited from visiting. Even today some areas are closed and others restricted. Ladakh's history, to be sure, is not the stuff of which Shangri-las are made. If the notion is to have any truth, then it must lie within the Ladakhi people themselves and elements of their society and lifestyle which strike many as natural and uncomplicated. The population, though increasing, is still sparse at some 140,000. Four major ethnic groups inhabit the region: nomadic Mons; the mainly Muslim Dards; Shia Muslim Baltis, originally from Central Asia; and the Ladakhis themselves, the largest group, mostly of Tibetan stock with varying degrees of admixture. The typical Ladakhi is a sturdy, intelligent person with an outgoing personality. Desideri wrote that, "their natural disposition is not proud but docile, polite, cheerful, and kind." Even with the pressures of a tourist-generated money economy, this is still found. "Never to worry sir; these people shall not deceive you. They are totally honest," an Indian official told me. Traditional Ladakhi society stresses tolerance, lacks aggression, and observes an equality between the sexes. The majority of Ladakhis are self-supporting farmers, living in small settlements whose size is determined by the availability of river water for irrigation. Barley fields predominate, and the grain is roasted to make tsampa, the staple food, or fermented to make the popular intoxicant chang. Domestic animals are used for food, transportation, labor, and clothing. These include sheep, goats, cows, and yaks, but the most important is the dzo, a cross between a yak and a cow. Work is shared and proceeds at a gentle rather than at a punishing pace. The typical house is a large, whitened with limestone, two or three-storey structure made of stone and dried mud. Straw is laid out on the roofs and dried for use as fodder. The most important room is the kitchen, with its shelves of ornate pots facing a warm stove in the center of the room. Here the family spends much of the cold winters, with outside temperatures as low as -30° C. The traditional clothing is distinctive. Men and woman wear gonchas, long woolen robes, usually in black, brown, scarlet, or beige. Women (and older men) wear as an everyday hat, the gonda, a type of high hat with protruding elf-like ear flaps. For festivals women will wear as a head-piece the spectacular cobra-shaped perak, adorned with rows of turquoises and carnelians. The perak's sides have woolen earmuffs, because, as legend has it, an early queen suffered from earache and needed protection from the cold. Only 210 sq. km of Ladakh is arable, so a low population is a necessity. Nature has helped, but so have some Ladakhi customs, one of which is polyandry, whereby a woman has more than one husband. Though now officially discouraged, it still occasionally occurs. A Ladakhi woman related to me, "I know one woman in Leh. She has four husbands, but then there is much work for them to do in the house and with the cattle." Another Ladakhi practice that served to limit the birthrate was the sending of young, mostly male, children to the monasteries for a life of celibate monkhood as lamas (the few female monks are called chomos). There are today 67 monasteries, or gompas, with approximately 5,000 lamas. These structures are often spectacularly situated on the tops of hills or seemingly carved into mountainsides, suggesting both a sense of security and a reaching for the heavens. The architecture is essentially Tibetan-solid, functional exteriors with ornate, religiously-inspired interiors. Highly stylized thangkas, the devotional paintings on cloth for which Ladakh is famous, are hung in some the rooms. The monasteries are also the scene of popular masked dances, symbolic of the battle between good and evil. The gompas follow Tibetan Mahayana practice, the philosophy of which is both subtle and complicated, and are divided into five sects of which two general categories, red hats and yellow hats, are distinguished. The head lama of a monastery is a kushok, an incarnation of some previous holy man, and receives the courtesy title of Rinpoche (Precious Jewel). The countryside is dotted with further reminders of the passion with which Buddhism is held. Most notable are the chortens (stupas) and mani walls (long walls of stone and rubble topped by inscribed flat stones). Chortens are basically white pyramid-like structures whose component parts symbolize the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and sky. Relics are often buried underneath. A devout Buddhist will always keep both the chortens and mani walls to his or her right and sometimes perform a circumnambulation in order to cleanse the soul. A common sight is a believer walking by, with spinning prayer wheel in hand, meditating, or chanting the holy mantra, "Om mani padme hum" (Hail to the jewel in the lotus). The closure of the Tibetan border has dealt a blow to monastic life, as many monks previously went to Lhasa for higher training. It also hurt the economy, and it was with the last concern in mind that the region was, at Ladakhi request, opened to tourism in 1974. Tourists have come in increasing numbers (some 16,000 in 1993). Ironically, the effect of tourism to the people and to the environment, especially around Leh, may be harming the very culture visitors want to see. Some early visitors stole thangkas or tried to bribe the monks to do it for them. Scores of guest houses, restaurants, and souvenir shops (of the last, 86% are run by Kashmiris who only stay for the summer) have sprung up, creating more of a cash-driven economy. Friction has developed between the Buddhist and Muslim communities, leading to riots in 1989, where hitherto amity existed and even intermarriage occurred . Leh still preserves some of the medieval atmosphere of Central Asia, but drinking water (and such "necessities" as Pepsi-Cola for the tourists) must now be trucked in (one taxi-diver-"If you drink from the Indus River, your belly is kaput."); garbage, especially plastic, is strewn about, and perhaps one in every ten Leh boys now smokes. The young are attracted by what they perceive as modern values. According to Helena Nordberg-Hodge, a Swedish born linguist and founder of the Ladakh Ecological Development Group, the increasing influx of comparatively wealthy tourists, "...may lead to the destruction of the Ladakhi people's self-esteem. They see our salaries, but not how we spend our lives." On the plus side there are signs of a renewed sense pride in their own culture by the Ladakhis, some of whom have been to the West, and can sense its spiritual decay. It is hoped that this, along with a higher level of sensitivity and cross-cultural understanding on the part of foreign visitors, will ensure that the culture remains relatively intact. Ladakh may not be the Shangri-la that popular imagination craves, but it possesses a magic of its own which, it is hoped, will never be lost. *no republication without the permission of the copyright holder (RH)