Roof of the World - Himalayas

           Roof of the World is a metaphoric description of the high region in the world, also known as "High Asia". The term usually refers to the mountainous interior of Asia, i.e. the Himalayas.

 

     The Himalayas are a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. By extension, Himalayas is also the name of the massive mountain system which includes the Himalaya proper, the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and a host of minor ranges extending from the Pamir Knot. 

         The name "Himalaya" means "the abode of snow" in Sanskrit. The Himalaya mountain range is the highest on earth and is often referred to culturally as the "roof of the world." The range is home to the world's highest peaks: the Eight-thousanders (peaks over 8,000 meters above sea level), including Mount Everest. Today mountaineers come from all over the world to scale Mount Everest.

                  The Himalayas stretch across six nations: Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It is the source of three of the world's major river systems: the Indus Basin, the Ganga-Brahmaputra Basin and the Yangtze Basin. An estimated 750 million people live in the watershed area of the Himalayan rivers.

                    The Himalayas, geologically young and structurally old, stretch over the northern borders of India. These mountain ranges run in a west-east direction from the Indus to the Brahmaputra. The Himalayas represent the loftiest and one of the most rugged mountain barriers in the world.

 

A number of Tibetan Buddhist sites are situated in the Himalaya, including the residence of the Dalai Lama.

Amarnath - has a natural Shivalinga of ice which forms for a few weeks each year. Thousands of people visit this cave during these few weeks.

Badrinath - a temple dedicated to Vishnu

Sources: newworldencyclopedia.com and Google