It’s the first cloudy day here in Leh, so now seems like a good time for my annual blog post! After 3 fantastic months in the UK spending time with my new nephew and selling an awful lot of gin, I came back to India on 8th August. This time I flew straight to Ladakh, the northernmost state in Central India, bordering Pakistan, Tibet and China. It has been a much-longed for and disputed area for many years, due to its proximity to so many borders and ethical diversity. For the last 70 years Ladakh has officially been an Indian state, joined with Jammu and Kashmir. On August 5th 2019, the Indian Government announced it would rescind the long-held Article 370, devolving Ladakh’s association with J&K and allowing it to become a Union Territory in its own right.
While this has created significant tensions in Kashmir, the Ladakh Buddhist population at least, are extremely happy about their independence from the tumultuous, muslim-majority J&K state and have held many celebrations to this extent. I spent one night in the capital, Leh, during which I had a pretty horrendous altitude headache, but with lots of water and some Tibetan medicine my body gently adjusted to the 3500m (11,500ft) average altitude. Happy and I then rode by bike for 60km (1.5hrs) through the mountains to the guesthouse he has been running with friends in a village called Likir in the Sham State, west of Leh. I had a great couple of weeks relaxing, hiking, reading and practising daily yoga with my new housemates! August 15th was Indian Independence Day, which I always find a slightly embarrassing/awkward affair as an English citizen, but we were able to watch the annual parade at the local village school which has about 30 pupils! Unfortunately due to the unrest in Kashmir, the Government turned off the mobile networks for a few days, which meant I missed the first harvest of the season, but I sort of made up for this by helping our amazing landlord’s family with harvesting the alfalfa down in the river valley for their cow to eat during the winter. It was a great introduction to traditional Ladakhi culture and see the effort the families go to to ensure their livestock (and themselves) can be sustained during the harsh winters here. Climate change is most definitely affecting the mountain weather, meaning the summers are certainly warmer and longer, however there can still be 10ft+ of snow which means all crops must be harvested and stored by the end of September. I came to Ladakh 2 years ago for a short couple of days as I travelled through Kashmir, however as I was intending to stay much longer this time, I got involved with an NGO called ‘Local Futures’ based here in Ladakh, that has been running for over 40 years now. (More on the work of Local Futures soon!) I have now lived and travelled around Ladakh for 6 weeks, and have just 5 days left before I start my journey south to find some winter sun! I have fallen in love with this new Union Territory and am certainly planning to return soon. The people are so diverse and very rightly proud of their strong, historical culture. They are extremely friendly and welcoming, not to mention the fantastic desert climate which, although makes my skin very dry, means I have witnessed about 2 hours of rain in my whole trip!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About meI enjoy writing and have had experience from my degree and through working on news posts. I hope to use this blog as a summary of extraordinary things I've discovered or witnessed in everyday life. Archives
March 2020
|