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For
all its seeming inaccessibility, Ladakh's position at the centre
of a network of trade routes traditionally kept it in constant
touch withthe outside world.
From Chinese Central Asia,the mighty Karakoram range was breached at the Karakoram
pass, a giddy 18,350 feet (5,600m). The trail from Yarkand crossed five other
passes, of which the most feared was the glacier, encumbered Saser-la, north
of Nubra.
Travellers from Tibet could take one of two main routes. From the central part
of the country, the Tsang-po valley, they could pass the holy sites of Kailash-Mansarovar
and reach Fartok, on a tributary of the upper Indus, from where they followed
the river down to Leh.
Trade with the pashm producing areas of western Tibet flowed by a more northerly
route, taking in the village of Rudok, a few miles into Tibet, and from there
across the 18,300 feet (5,578m ) Chang-la to the Indus, and so to Leh.
Baltistan, joined administratively with Ladakh for 100 years, was linked to it
either via the Indus up to its confluence with the Suru-Shingo river, and on
up to Kargil; or by the Chorbat-la pass over the Ladakh range, the trail dropping
down to the Indus 40 km below Khalatse, and following the river up to Leh.
The two main approaches toLadakh from south of the Himalaya are roughly the same
as today's motor roads from Srinagar and Manali. The merchants and pilgrims who
made up the majority of travellers in the premodern era, travelled on foot or
horseback, taking about 16 days to reach Srinagar; though a man in hurry, riding
non-stop and with changes of horse arranged ahead of time all along the route,
could do it in as little as three days.
The mails, carried in relays by runners stationed every four miles or so, took
four or five days.
That was before the wheel as a means of transport was introduced into Ladakh,
which happened only when the Srinagar- Leh motor-road was constructed as recently
as the early 1960s.
