CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Once again tensions are mounting on the famous Line of Control that separates India and Pakistan. The crisis brings to mind images from an earlier pilgrimage I made to that area when I visited Ladakh, an almost inaccessible region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir that is known as "Indian Tibet."
In July 1987 I undertook an adventurous journey from Srinagar, Kashmir, to Leh, the capital of Ladakh. One had to be conscious, from the very beginning, of two basic challenges. First, the only road linking these two towns passed through extreme altitudes, and was open to a limited number of tourists only in the months of July and August, a time when the snows receded enough to allow passage. Second, as the entire area was -- and remains -- of utmost strategic importance, endless convoys of military vehicles would block the road for hours and hours.
A guide book dubbed this road, which was built in 1962 following the ferocious Sino-Indian war, "one of the most fascinating, terrifying and yet exhilarating roads and bus trips in the world." The 434-km trip provided unending opportunities to contemplate natural beauty and meditate on the meanings of life and death.