PICTURED: Water chestnuts a blessing in cold Kashmir winter

Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and culture. Contemporary Ladakh borders Tibet to the east, the Lahaul and Spiti regions to the south, the Vale of Kashmir , Jammu and Baltiyul regions to the west, and the southwest corner of Xinjiang across the Karakoram Pass in the far north. Aksai Chin is one of the disputed border areas between China and India. In , China and India fought a brief war over Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh , but in and the two countries signed agreements to respect the Line of Actual Control. In the past Ladakh gained importance from its strategic location at the crossroads of important trade routes, [8] but since the Chinese authorities closed the borders with Tibet and Central Asia in the s, international trade has dwindled except for tourism.