If you wish to take some memories from Ladakh, the world's highest hill station, then shopping is the ideal choice. One can find traditional curios and all kinds of trinkets in the colorful markets of Ladakh. Shopping in Ladakh is all about buying traditional Ladakhi artefacts like Buddhist relics, tangkhas and prayer wheels, copper samovars, wooden masks, silver jewellery, turquoise and coral stones, pashmina and cashmere shawls and stoles, hand-woven blankets and rugs, woollens, fossils and other curios fill the shops in Ladakh. The most famous items that tourists can buy are local handicrafts, organic products, tribal jewelry, pearls and semi-precious stone. They all make good buys to carry back home and can be bought for very good prices, after a bit of bargaining and haggling, of course. Some shops sell what are loosely called antiques - their provenance is often doubtful, so the buyer needs to be careful as to what he picks up and what he pays for it. The best place to buy local crafts is at the artisans' workshops - the stuff is usually authentic and less the middleman's commission.
Ladakh is a region of India in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent. It is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Jammu and Kashmir. It is also known as the "Land of High Passes". Ladakh is the highest plateau of state of Kashmir with much of it being over 3,000 m (9,800 ft). It spans the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges and the upper Indus River valley. Ladakh district was a district of the Jammu and Kashmir state of India until 1 July 1979 when it was divided into Leh district and Kargil district. Each of these districts is governed by a Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, which is based on the pattern of the Darjeeling Gorkha Autonomous Hill Council. These councils were created as a compromise solution to the demands of Ladakhi people to make Leh a union territory.
The economy of Ladakh rests on three pillars: the Indian Army, tourism, and civilian government in the form of jobs and extensive subsidies. Agriculture, the mainstay only one generation ago, is no longer a major portion of the economy, although most families still own and work their land.
For centuries, Ladakh enjoyed a stable and self-reliant agricultural economy based on growing barley, wheat and peas and keeping livestock, especially yaks, cows, dzos (a yak-cow cross breed), sheep and goats. At altitudes of 3,000 to 4,300 m (10,000 to 14,000 ft), the growing season is only a few months long every year, similar to the northern countries of the world. Animals are scarce and water is in short supply. The Ladakhis developed a small-scale farming system adapted to this unique environment. The land is irrigated by a system of channels which funnel water from the ice and snow of the mountains. The principal crops are barley and wheat. Rice was previously a luxury in the Ladakhi diet, but, subsidised by the government, has now become a cheap staple.
There are about 1,800 km (1,100 mi) of roads in Ladakh of which 800 km (500 mi) are surfaced. The majority of roads in Ladakh are looked after by the Border Roads Organisation. Another common route in regular use was the Kalimpong route between Leh and Lhasa via Gartok, the administrative centre of western Tibet. In present times, the only two land routes to Ladakh in use are from Srinagar and Manali. There is one airport in Leh, from which there are daily flights to Delhi on Jet Airways, Air Deccan, and Air India and weekly flights to Srinagar and Jammu. There are two airstrips at Daulat Beg Oldie and Fukche for military transport.
Source: Wikipedia
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