THE FORGOTTEN NOMADS

BETWEEN A DEEP gorge and jagged, snow-dusted mountains, our driver Pawar ji cautiously manoeuvered our jeep on a narrow, broken strip of what was once a road. Thousands of feet below at the base of the gorge, I could see a turquoise river appearing deceptively calm. Suddenly, the jeep jerked to a stop at the edge of the gorge, and with it, my beating heart. A loose rock rolled down the mountain, narrowly missed our wheel, and tumbled soundlessly, in slow motion, into the river below!
That could've been us, I thought silently, as Pawar ji alighted from the car, and looked at the mountain and then the river. We solemnly resumed our journey towards Nelang, a forgotten valley on the south-western edge of the Trans-Himalayan Tibetan Plateau, in the higher reaches of Uttarakhand. I suppose I first unwittingly stumbled upon Nelang many years ago, while reading Seven Years in Tibet. In his memoir, Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian mountaineer, wrote about his escape from a British internment camp in Dehradun in the 1940s. He walked all the way to Lhasa in Tibet, crossing a precarious wooden walkway above the Jadh Ganga, the turquoise river at the base of the deep gorge we drove along.
I felt a chill run down my spine as I spotted remnants of a timber bridge, on a dangerously slender ridge of the mountain, with a free fall, hundreds of feet down into the river below. Built by the Pashtuns of Peshawar, this wooden pathway witnessed centuries of trade between Tibet, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent. It was this bridge that the Jadhs, the semi-nomadic traders of Nelang valley, once traversed to trade with the northern Tibetan traders.
Esta historia es de la edición March 2023 de Travel+Leisure India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición March 2023 de Travel+Leisure India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar

Hearts Aglow
The names Tahiti and Bora-Bora may telegraph romance, but on a cruise around French Polynesia, Naomi Tomky and her daughters discover these islands also make for the ultimate playground.

Let There Be Challenge
Ordinary does not make the cut with travellers anymore. Sports, thrilling activities, and pushing their limits are the new fitness and travelling goals, discovers Garima Verma

Vineyards to Valleys
Far from the beaten path, Kavitakanan Chandra discovers a different Europe in Luxembourg

Heights of Hajar
Strapped to steel cables high above Oman’s Al Hajar range, on a cliff’s edge at 2,000 metres, Garima Verma learns what it means to hold on, and when to let go

In Deep Water
In her third surf season in Kodi Bengre, along Karnataka's Udupi coast, Shivangi Vaswani watches the Indian shoreline come alive with a new generation of wave-chasing travellers

GET YOUR GAME ON
Shalbha Sarda follows how polo is galloping its way into the realm of luxury travel beyond being just the exclusive pastime of royals

COLOMBO'S CROWN JEWEL
A jewel on Sri Lanka's oceanfront, ITC Ratnadipa in Colombo, invites guests to immerse themselves in architecture, art, and culture on this emerald island.

STEEL & SPEED
From the neon dazzle of Vegas to the glamour of Monaco, Anita Rao Kashi explores Formula 1's most iconic city circuits—where speed meets culture, history and unforgettable escapes

Where Warriors Rise
Through the All Blacks Experience in Auckland, Nainaa R Rajpaal uncovers the rituals, reverence, and raw emotion behind New Zealand's most iconic team

Word To The Wise
From long-term investments in restorative tourism to building ecosystems of support, Ranjit Barthakur's work is instrumental in more ways than one. He tells Samreen Tungekar how a complete value chain around sport and tourism can emerge with the right efforts