Ladakh

Leh City
Flying into Leh, the cold desert land, over the magnificent Himalayas is a beautiful and scary experience at once. Leh Palace illuminated by huge halogen lamps looks like a bewitching castle on a hilltop set ablaze in the dark nights of the Leh. Drive in the city is as exciting as the wonders it has in its lap with the long isolated winding road that opens up into a sheer expanse of arid flatness in burnt sienna.

Leh Palace
The captivating Leh Palace rises from the edge of a hill overlooking the town and at once looks like a reminiscent of Lhasa's Potala Palace. Though deserted, it has some definite mystical quality about it. The Palace was built in the middle of the 16th century by King Singe Namgyal and still belongs to the royal family that now lives in the Stok Palace.

Monasteries in Ladakh
Monasteries in Ladakh may belong to either the Mahayana or the Hinayana sect of Buddhism but they play an important role in lending the region its unique flavor. Commonly known as Gompas in the region, besides being beautiful, these monasteries can often be seen perched dangerously on the edge of craggy mountain faces or lone rocks.

Valley of Ladakh
Ladakh is bounded by two of the world's mightiest mountain ranges, the Great Himalaya and the Karakoram and lies transversely to the Ladakh range and the Zanskar range. In geological terms, it is a young land, formed only a few million years ago by the buckling and folding of the earth's crust as the Indian sub-continent pushed with irresistible force against the immovable mass of Asia.