The Old Silk Route
It is an ancient trade route passing through the high passes of Nathula and Jelep La on the India Tibet (China) border. The route connected Eastern India with the famous Silk Route of Central Asia. The route also had strategic importance. In 1888 the rugged mountain served as a battleground between the Tibetans and the British. A small graveyard with a war memorial stands in the village of Gnathang (Nathang) in memory of the fallen British soldiers. In 1903–04, this route was used by Francis Younghusband to invade Tibet and move onwards to Lhasa.
This was the route that George Mallory and his fellow mountaineers took during the Mount Everest expeditions of 1921, 1922 and 1924.
Sir Francis Younghusband writes, in his book The Epic of Mount Everest, "But from Rongli they climbed steeply out of the tropical forest into the zone of flowering rhododendrons.... To flower lovers, like Howard Bury, Mallory and Wollaston, these were perpetual delight. They were all the more appreciated because they would be almost the last sign of luxuriance and grace they would behold before they to face the austerities and stern realities of rock and ice and snow, and the frosts of Mount Everest." The Silk Route also has stories from the recent past. The route has two temples dedicated to an Indian soldier Harbhajan Singh who died from drowning in one of the fast-flowing streams of the region.
