Ladakh En Route Tibetan Taboos

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Ibn Batuta once said while visiting the Indian subcontinent: "Travelling-it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller".

When I was a child, I used to dream of visiting the most difficult terrains to experience variant cultures, languages, habitats, people and overall the differences in climate and geographical patterns, which are very distinct from that of the plains.

For the last couple of years, travelling around has been entwined with me and has become my lifestyle not only for the quest of knowledge, but also to break the stereotypical lifestyle, the routines of monotonous city life, and to gain more and more knowledge.

I was fortunate enough to share my rendezvous with one of the most thrilling and challenging region, by virtue of my visit to the most famous monasteries in the land of the cold desert - Ladakh.

In my travelogue, I tried to share a vivid picturesque series of my experiences, though what eyes had seen was something more than what my lens had captured - the mysterious and religious world of monasteries and monks; the Rin Chenpos, the land of high passes and the home of the ancient.

Buddhist culture has remained unchanged through a millennium. As far as my journey is concerned, the still photographs and the videography were captured from different parts of the land, its villages and geographical aspect collaborating with the narration of a solo traveler's eyes.

I, hereby humbly, present this 'bouquet' of a travelogue, a journey in the land of monasteries and passes, through the eye of an eyewitness.

As I look at the fabulous photographs that form part of this book, I cannot but be spellbound by them. There is a magic that is conjured in my imagination the moment I hear the name of Ladakh. The very place and its people have a charm even for one who has not visited the state. Located remote, in very high altitudes, in terrain that is bleak, the landscape captivates as it also brings one close to a sense of the marvellous and also makes one feel a sense of the divine in nature and the landscape around.

This book which is a travelogue and is a personal account of the author's travel to Ladakh is remarkable for its captivating photographs that wonderfully reveal the beauty of the place. In the Introduction to the book, the author makes it clear that she visits the place as a traveller and that the book is an account of her personal experiences as a traveller. It is the personal that makes travel and travel writing interesting. It is not just the places in Ladakh that the author talks about but the people she meets, encounters and interacts with as she travels the length and breadth of Ladakh. Many of them find a place in the photographs and make it all the more interesting. The flora and fauna of the place, that is so very different from what we see in the plains, does find a place in the book. The author also details architecture of building, stupas and other structures that she sees on the visit making the book informative and descriptive as well. Visits to small villages in Ladakh, descriptions of their geography and locale add an element of great interest to the book. Details of their history, politics and religion are intertwined deftly with personal accounts of the author's experience of her visit.

**Contents and Sample Pages**