evidence: In the higher reaches of Uttarakhand lies Nelang Valley that was once an essential trade route between India and Tibet. Travel + Leisure India & South Asia’s contributor travels to this obscure land and encounters tales as old as time. [...] That could’ve been us, I thought silently, as Pawar ji alighted from the car, and looked at the mountain and then the river. We solemnly resumed our journey towards Nelang, a forgotten valley on the south-western edge of the Trans-Himalayan Tibetan Plateau, in the higher reaches of Uttarakhand. I suppose I first unwittingly stumbled upon Nelang many years ago, while reading Seven Years in Tibet. In his memoir, Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian mountaineer, wrote about his escape from a British internment camp in Dehradun in the 1940s. He walked all the way to Lhasa in Tibet, crossing a precarious wooden walkway above the Jadh Ganga, the turquoise river at the base of the deep gorge we drove along. [...] Only Indian passport holders are allowed to enter Nelang. An application for a permit at the District Magistrate’s office in Uttarkashi, followed by verification at the Forest Department is required.