Ladakh and Zanskar provinces are hidden in the mountains of Himalayas, several days‘ bus journey from Delhi, the capital of India. Leaving Ladakh it takes two more days to reach Zanskar, encircled by huge, 6-7000 meter high mountains. Although people living in these two provinces are 90% Buddhist, to get there you need to pass through Kargil and many other Muslim towns. Up here Buddhists and Muslims can easily live together without conflicts.

Most of the time the weather is could around here, all year long. The snow blocks the only way leading here, the road on which it takes two hours to move 30 kilometers ahead even in sunny weather.

Before reaching Zanskar you find the Rangdum Gompa (cloister) and the village of Juldo, some 6 kilometers away. Here you reach the realm of existing Buddhism and can almost already feel the grace and peace ruling this world. Here and in the Zanskar Valley people settled down near the river because of the severe weather conditions. It is not rare to see a town composed only of about 10-20 houses altogether. People living there spend their life on continuous work and prayer murmuring. Poverty is at high level all around here. But they look happy and kind either with each-other or with the travelers from a long distance, the reason for it may be their religion and relative isolation.

Korosi Csoma Sandor arrived here as a pilgrim, to Zanskar, about 200 years ago. He spent long years in Zangla village and the cloister of Phuktal. This is the very place he started to write the first Tibetan-English dictionary.