Just as each journey creates a little story, here is one about The Pashmina. Its journey has spanned the world, having been taken from Kashmir to Iran, where it reached the hands of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte via his campaign in Egypt. He gifted this to his wife, Empress Josephine, who initially disliked it, but then, in a typical French royalty fashion, changed her dislike to a collection of over 400 pashmina shawls at a cost of over 20,000 gold francs. After the shawl made an appearance in a French fashion magazine in the 1790s, it became the de rigueur fashion icon in Paris and the must-have possession of the ladies of bourgeois Europe. Closer to home but preceding its European popularity by over 3 centuries, the Mughal courts already flaunted this status symbol. 

This important commodity on the Silk Route trade caravans was known as the ‘Soft Gold,’ and both wars were fought and treaties signed to claim and control these Pashmina trade routes. It remains the most coveted fibre in the world and has its origin in this land of the High Mountains. The Changthang region in Ladakh is an extension of the Tibetan Plateau and home to pastoral nomads known as the Changpa, or ‘people from the north,’ and their livestock includes the Pashmina goat or the Changra. Pashmina Trail is our award-winning tour. This is a journey to be a part of this story and has been woven together by the stories told by Ladakhis, who are custodians of the culture and heritage of their land. I invite you to join me on this carefully crafted tour that takes you diving beneath the surface and adds another layer in your discovery of Ladakh.