Life Away From Life: LADAKH JEEP SAFARI - an experimental photography tour

LADAKH - A Land like No Other ! The landscape of Ladakh cannot but leave the visitors enraptured. It is hard not be be entranced by the austere beauty of the terrain, its immensity and emptiness. Or indeed its medieval monasteries and the charming oasis-like villages.

'Little Tibet', as it has long been called, it is the 'land of high mountain passes' sandwiched between the Great Himalaya and the sub-ranges of the lofty Karakoram chain - Ladakh has two major mountain systems the Zanskar Mountains and the Ladakh Range. It is also the country's highest, coldest and driest zone.

Apart from its amazing landscape, Ladakh's other major attractions are its 'gompas'. Fascinating as the Buddhist monasteries are, they bewilder and intrigue you as most visitors. The paintings on the walls that display fierce dragon-like figures, the statues at the altar and elsewhere depicting the many gods of the Buddhist pantheon, the curious circles called 'mandalas' drawn or made with coloured sand, the many strange artifacts of worship and the scary, demonic masks which the tourists can make little of their significance ot the strange rituals of Lamaist Buddhism

Hemis Dance

The 473km Manali - Leh Journey is one of the world's most spectacular drives and very strenuous too; more than half the road is unmetalled and it crosses four passes, the first of which is the Rohtang Pass (13,050 ft) .

Beyond Rohtang, the terrain changes drastically as the green wooded slopes of the Kulu Valley give way to the Progressively barren mountains. Descending to the narrow valley of the Chandra river the road passes by the town of Keylong, the headquaters of the Lahaul-Spiti. Ascending the Great Himalayan Range now, it negotiates the BaralachLa Pass (16,046 ft) before coming down to the Sarchu Plains (14,110 ft).

Ashok - Our driver from Manali

Two other passes, the LachulungLa Pass (16,730 ft) and the TanglungLa Pass (17,552 ft), both over the Zanskar Range are negotiated the next day, between them is a long flat scenic stretch called the Morey Plains. You pass by a couple of villages before reaching Upshi on the indus. It is then an easy drive up the Indus Valley to Leh.