Overview
Ladakh The tour starts with arrival into Delhi, India’s sprawling capital city. We spend a full day visiting old and New Delhi. Old Delhi was the capital of Mughal India and New Delhi was built much later as the imperial capital of India by the British. The next day we fly into Ladakh also known as the last `Shangri la’. Although a part of India there are no similarities between the land and the people of Ladakh from the rest of India. The facial features and physique of the Ladakhis and the clothes they wear are more akin to those of Tibet and Central Asia.
The original population is from an Indo-Aryan race from down the Indus, but immigration from Tibet and marriages between Muslim traders and local Ladakhi women have resulted in inhabitants being of mixed origin. Thereby allowing it to evolve and inherit a rich mix of cultures which survives even today as a living heritage of the Western Himalayas. Ladakh, a high-altitude desert, lying in the rain shadow of the great Himalayas depends on the winter snowfall for its water supply. Although nowadays with changing climatic conditions they do have some rainfall as well.
