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Ladakhi Advice

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By David Beck, Rotunda Software

This summer my wife and I had the great fortune of travelling through the Indian Himalayas. Completely cut off six months of the year from the rest of the world, India’s Ladakh province is a high altitude desert that borders Tibet, and shares much of its geography and culture. Jagged peaks shadow arid river valleys. Prayer flags hum in the wind from monasteries on rocky pedestals. The landscapes are immense, serene, and alien.

Due in part to its stunning beauty, and also to its other-worldly quality, the area has become a popular trekking destination. Homestays are available on many treks, which provide a fascinating window into the local culture, frozen in time. Having no cell phones, no electricity grid, no roads, and complete inaccessibility six months of the year, the breadcrumb-villages at the bottom of these impressive valleys are as far as I’ve felt from home.

In a mud-brick house of one of our hosts, we came across an Enlgish-Ladakhi dictionary. The Ladakhi family uses the book to learn basic phrases in English to communicate with the foreign trekkers that pass through the villages like wild salmon each summer. The phrases in the dictionary ranged from “we have four goats” and “would you like more butter tea?” to the “Ladaki advice” section, which you can read in its entirety below.

How surprising, but yet somehow fitting, and inspiring, that a culture with such radically different circumstances, totally different language, life values, and aspirations, would offer such wise and familiar advice!

 

A Ladakhi village. Making butter tea. Ladakhi advice (page 1) Ladakhi advice (page 2) Ladakhi advice (page 3) Ladakhi advice (page 4) Ladakhi advice (page 5) Ladakhi advice (page 6) Ladakhi advice (page 7) Back from the barley fields. Making barley beer. Feeling small.

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