Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum, Kargil

This family-run public museum in Kargil, Ladakh, has been open since 2004 and displays goods carried on the old trade routes linking Ladakh with Yarkand. Its founding story lies with Munshi Aziz Bhat, a petition writer and merchant who in 1920 built Ek Sarai, a rest house for Silk Route traders. It closed in 1948, after his death and the end of the trade. In 1998 his heirs, surveying the site for a shopping centre, came upon artefacts left inside for half a century.

His grandsons Gulzar Hussain Munshi and Ajaz Hussain Munshi now run the museum, which holds over 3,500 pieces, with only about 1,000 on show for lack of space. Galleries cover armoury, carpets, coins, horse accessories, jewellery, manuscripts and silk. Highlights include hookah pipes from Yarkand, rugs from Kashgar, Khotan silk, British saddles and handwritten Qurans and Tibetan manuscripts said to be 600 to 700 years old.