At a sidewalk table on Leh's Zangsti Road tourists sip an organic seabuckthorn juice made from a high-altitude desert berry native to Tibet. Only a few of them hear the familiar sound of Nepali being spoken nearby.

Chhering Sherpa, 26, is from Dolakha and came overland from Kathmandu in June with his friends. They hoped to find work as trekking guides here in India's trans-Himalayan region. The journey took them five days via Delhi and Manali, and they feel at home because Leh is just like Mustang.

"This is my first time in Ladakh," says Chhering who works for Divine Treks, "but my friends come every monsoon." The Nepali guides watch as jeeps full of backpackers roar off on treks to Nubra Valley or Zanskar, waiting to be called by one of the trekking agencies whose storefront offices are across the street.

It seems like Nepalis are around every corner here, all of them migrating for the summer trekking season to a place where their work ethic and skills are highly appreciated.

Dhan Bahadur Magar, 22, is from Bouddha and works as a trekking cook. Just down the street, 18-year-old Santosh Gurung from Balaju was serving Israeli breakfasts at the World Peace Cafe & Pumpernickel German Bakery, which is run by a Sikh. There are several German Bakeries in Leh and not only are they all staffed by Nepalis, they serve the same pastries and yak cheese sandwiches as their Thamel counterparts. But Gurung has a complaint: most of the customers don't leave tips. This season has also been slow because of the World Cup.

Himal Rana works out of Delhi as a trekking guide and has been coming to Ladakh for many years. Sipping tea at a hotel staffed completely by Nepalis, Rana, 47 and from Dharan, says clients prefer Nepali guides "because we are more experienced, look after them better and don't tire so easily".

Rinchen Namgyal, a Ladakhi who runs Yama Adventures, agrees. "Nepalis are more experienced, well-trained and more professional, the locals just aren't as good," he tells us.

Nepali cooks earn up to NRs 8,500 a month plus room and travel costs to and from Nepal for the three-month season. While on the surface there doesn't appear to be local resentment against the migrants, as there is towards the influx of Kashmiri merchants, two Ladakhi Delhi University students who work as guides during their summer holidays said there were "too many Nepalis" in Ladakh.

There are also complaints about "too many Tibetans" coming not from Ladakhis, who share the same culture, but from other Tibetans. Tibetan refugees come to Ladakh to peddle handicrafts and jewellery, like in Pokhara. "A few years ago there were only three Tibetan goods markets, now there are a dozen," rued 21-year-old Tenzin Lakmeon, whose family had been coming to Ladakh from Mysore annually to sell goods for many years.

When the summer season ends in October, the Tibetans, along with the Nepali cooks, kitchen staff, waiters and hotel workers, will follow the sun to Goa for the winter while the guides and porters will return to Nepal or Sikkim.

Only the Nepali migrant farm hands will stay a little longer to help harvest the barley and pluck apricots.