Leh Ladakh

The 134km-long saltwater lake at 4,350m changes colour through 7 shades of blue through the day. Stay overnight at a tented camp on the shore — the stargazing at this altitude is extraordinary.

Drive to 5,359m — one of the world's highest motorable roads. The views of the Karakoram Range and Nubra Valley are incomprehensible. Acclimatise 2 days in Leh first.

12 storeys of red-and-white monk cells on a hilltop — the morning puja (prayer ceremony) at 6am with the monks chanting against a sunrise backdrop is one of India's great experiences.

Double-humped camels on sand dunes between 6,000m glacier peaks — the most surreal landscape in India. The dunes at Hunder exist because the Shyok River once carried Himalayan sand here.

The largest monastery festival in Ladakh (June/July) — masked Cham dances by monks in elaborate costumes. The most dramatic Buddhist festival in India.

The Japanese-funded white dome that crowns the Chanspa hill above Leh was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in 1991 and remains the most dramatically situated viewpoint in the city — the entire Leh Valley, the Indus River thread, and a ring of 5,000–6,000m peaks are all visible from the 521-step summit at 4,267m. Arrive at 6am before the altitude-induced headaches and the tourist coaches.

The 9-storey, 17th-century palace modelled on the Potala in Lhasa towers above the old town on its own spur of rock — it was abandoned in the 19th century and the upper floors retain their original painted timber and clay-plaster chambers. The Archaeological Survey of India is slowly restoring it; for now the crumbling grandeur and the 360-degree view of the Ladakhi high desert from the roof justify the climb entirely.

A section of the Leh-Kargil highway at 14,000 feet where vehicles placed in neutral and released appear to roll uphill — an optical illusion created by the surrounding terrain that tricks the eye into misreading the slope. The mystery has been thoroughly explained and the sign marking the spot is delightfully earnest. Stay for the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers visible from the road a few minutes away.

The remote valley south of Leh is accessible only via a nail-biting road through the Pensi La pass (4,400m) or, in winter, the frozen Zanskar River — the legendary Chadar trek. In summer the journey rewards with the most dramatic landscape in Ladakh: gorges so deep and sheer that the light hits the river at the bottom for only two hours a day, and monasteries clinging to cliffs above the turquoise water.

At 6,153m, Stok Kangri is the most accessible 6,000m peak in India — a non-technical summit requiring strong fitness and full acclimatisation but no prior mountaineering experience. The 4-day standard route from Stok village passes through high-altitude meadows where blue sheep graze and kiang (wild asses) run in herds; the pre-dawn summit push rewards with a sunrise above the cloud layer covering the entire Ladakh plains.

Founded in the 11th century by the scholar-monk Rinchen Zangpo, Alchi holds some of the oldest and finest surviving Buddhist murals in Asia — Kashmiri artisans painted the Sumtsek temple walls with Bodhisattvas whose robes contain hundreds of miniature illustrated scenes, each panel a complete cosmos. The monastery is not a dramatic cliff-top fortress but a walled village compound; its intimacy makes the quality of the art inside all the more astonishing.

At 4,522m and entirely within India's borders, Tso Moriri is Pangong Tso's wilder, less visited sibling — a 28km-long freshwater lake ringed by 6,000m peaks and bordered by wetlands where bar-headed geese, black-necked cranes, and ruddy shelducks breed each summer. The nomadic Changpa herder encampments around the shore offer a glimpse of Ladakhi pastoral life that has barely changed in centuries.