Ladakh: A Photo Travelogue

Two lady travellers arrive in Leh one local summer morning. In the course of their journey through Ladakh, they get to know about the war between ‘Nanak Lama’ and a demon and watch masked lamas offer a comic interlude amid serious rituals at the Phyang Monastery festival. On their way to Nubra Valley via Khardung Pass (altitude: 18,380 ft), the travellers meet animals with an identity crisis, and a donkey who will never lend its owner an ear again. In the valley, a 32-metre tall statue of Maitreya Buddha shares the limelight with double-humped camels. The ladies are bowled over by their names. The journeys to Pangong Lake (13,900 ft) and Tso Moriri (15,075 ft) have quite a few highpoints including an adventurous stay in a tent and a peek into the lives of Changpa nomads who do not let the grass grow under their feet. With its fascinating subject, 414 crisp photos, one map, and the easy, humorous writing style, this book will appeal immensely to casual tourists, serious travellers, even those keen on armchair travelling.

Sohini Sen

Once a successful journalist with The Telegraph, Sohini Sen is now a full-time travel writer and photographer. Sen’s other books are The Talking Table and Other Stories, a book of short stories for children, Yatra Pathe Rabi, a collection of travel photographs taken by her matched with Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s autograph-poems and Ladakh: A Photo Travelogue, a tale told through highresolutioncolour photographs laid out in a comic-strip format.