Of Salt and Rice

The Bhote Khampa are a small Tibetan-speaking Buddhist ethnic group who for generations lived as migrant traders bartering salt and rice. Using sheep and goats as pack animals, their annual migration route took them from Purang in the Tibet Autonomous Region – a major marketplace for Tibetan salt – over high Himalayan passes, down south to the salt bazaars at the Nepal–Indian border, and back. On the way through the hills, they bartered Indian and Tibetan salt with Nepalese village farmers for their rice harvests. In the 1990s, however, China implemented new border regulations in Far West Nepal which ended the ancient barter trade for the Bhote Khampa.