Shopping in Ladakh

Shopping in Ladakh is all about buying traditional Ladakhi artefacts like Buddhist relics, tangkhas and prayer wheels, copper samovars, wooden masks, silver jewellery, turquoise and coral stones, pashmina and cashmere shawls and stoles, hand-woven blankets and rugs, woollens, fossils and other curios fill the shops in Ladakh.

They all make good buys to carry back home and can be bought for very good prices, after a bit of bargaining and haggling, of course. Some shops sell what are loosely called antiques - their provenance is often doubtful, so the buyer needs to be careful as to what he picks up and what he pays for it. The best place to buy local crafts is at the artisans’ workshops - the stuff is usually authentic and less the middleman’s commission.