GOLDEN TRIANGLE LADAKH

• Golden Triangle

LADAKH:-Ladakh is in North east of India, neighboring Tibet a beautiful part of Jammu Kashmir. Surrounded by the Karakoram and Great Himalayan Ranges, it is a high altitude desert land and therefore sheltered from the rain bringing clouds of the Indian monsoons. Once a lake covered Ladakh and the leftover today are the 3 lakes of Tso Moriri, Tso Kar and Pangkong Tso. The main source of water in Ladakh are the winter snow falls. Ladakh has only two entries by Road, One is via Srinagar Over Zodgela Pass & another is via Manali over five highest  pass, between 3500 mts to 5500 , mts. The people of Ladakh are Buddhists and Muslims.  The first inhabitants of Ladakh were most probably a mixture of nomads, which wandered the Tibetan high plateau, and some early Buddhist refugees from northern India, called the Mons. In the 7th century the Buddhism from India was brought to Ladakh  by the wondering sage Padmasambhava and gradually displaced the shamanic cult of the Bons. With His Holiness the Dalai Lama as its head, Gelukpa or Yellow Hat is now the most popular school of Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh.

THE NUBRA VALLEY:-The Nubra Valley once on the trading route that connected eastern Tibet with Turkistan via the famous Karakoram Pass has been opened recently to the tourists. The Nubra Valley literally means the valley of flowers. Nubra Valley is situated in the north of Leh. The average altitude of the valley is about 10,000 feet above the sea level. The Khardong village, Khalser and Deskit are the main villages of Nubra valley. At first glance, the valley seems parched and dry, but this is prime farming land by Ladakhi standard. Here the farmers grow apples, apricots and barley and harvest the orange berries of the Tsetalulu. Dotted around the valley are ancient gompas and ruined palaces and villages are close enough together to make this magnificent walking country. The main attraction of the Nubra valley is Bactarian Camels (double hump Camel. PANGONG LAKE:_Pagong Tso means long, narrow, enchanted lake in the Tibetan language. It is situated at the height of about 4,350m, and measures nearly 134 km in length, though, at its widest it is just 5 km. Despite the fact that the lake is full of brackish water, it freezes to a depth of several meters in winter season. The lake changes in color during the day, appearing deepest hues of blue when the sun is high, a turquoise shade near the bank and deeper hues in the middle of the lake. It loses its shades and turns dull as the day progresses with the sun moves towards the horizon.