Leh
Leh only became regional capital in the seventeenth century, when
Sengge Namgyal shifted his court here from Shey, 15 km southeast to be
closer to the head of the Khardung La - Karakoram corridor into China.
Kargil
Kargil capital of the area dubbed "Little Baltistan" which rised in
aclutter of corrugated inron rooftops from the confluence of the Suru and
Drass rivers
.
Thak Thok
Thak Thok gompa
shelters a cave in which the apostle Padmasambhava is said to have meditated
during his epic eight-century journey to Tibet.
Dhahanu
Dhahanu is situated to the south west of Leh,
around 163 Kms. passing through the beautiful villages of Kaltsey, Domkhar,
Skurbuchan
Padum
Padum is 240 km to the south of Kargil, comes as a bit of an anticlimax.
Phugthal
The Phugthal complex spills out of the mouth of a huge cave high up in the
sheer mountain face of a lateral gorge through which a major tributary of
the southern Lungnak (Lingti-Tsarap) River flows.
Stongdey
The monastery of Stongdey lies 18 kms. To the north of Padum, on the road leading to
Zangla.
Matho
Matho is 27km south of Leh, straddles a spur at the mouth of an
idyllic side-valley that runs deep into the heart of the Stok-Kangri massif.
Zanskar
Walled in by the Great Himalayan Divide, Zanskar, literally " Land of
White Copper" has for decades exrted the allure of Shangri La on visitours
to Ladakh.
Zangla
Zangla is the nodal point on the popular Padum Strongdey Zangla Karsha
Padum round trip, which covers most of the cultural sites of Zanskar.
Zongkhul
Zongkhul falls on the
Padum-Kishtwar trekking trail, just before the ascent of Omasi-la Pass
begins
Rangdum
Rangdum is an elliptical expanded plateau surrounded by colourful hills on the one side and glacier encrusted rocky mountains on the other.
Tikse
Ladakh’s most photographed and architecturally impressive gompa is at
TIKSE, 19km southeast of Leh.foundedin the fifteenth century, its
whitewashed chortens and cubic monks’ quarters rise in ranks up the
sides of a craggy bluff, crowned by an imposing ochre- and red-painted
temple complex whose gleaming golden finials are visible for miles in every
direction.
Valley
of Ladakh
The Suru Valley
Diving two of the world's most formidable mountain ranges, the Suru
Valley winds south from Kargil to the desolate Pensi La the main entry point
for Zanskar.
North of Leh : Nubra Valley
Until 1994, the lands north of Leh were off limits to tourists and had
been unexplored by outsiders since the nineteenth century.
Drass Valley
Drass (3230 m), 60 km west of Kargil on the road to Srinagar, is a small township lying in the centre of the valley of the same name
.
Shyok Valley
The Shyok River receives the waters of the Nubra and Changchenmo rivers. It rises from the Khumdang glacier, which can be approached from
Shyok.
Salt Valley
The Salt Lake Valley is one of the widest open areas in Rupshu. It can be approached from Leh across the Tanglang La pass.
Lake
of Ladakh
Pangong Tso Lake
Pangong Tso, 15km to the southeast of Leh, is one of the largest
saltwater lakes in Asia, a long narrow strip of water stretching from Ladakh
east into Tibet.
Tso Moriri
Tso Moriri or "Mountain Lake" is
Famous for the large herds of
king, or wild ass, which graze on its shores, the lake of Tso Moriri, 210km
southeast of Leh, lies in the sparsely populated region of
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