Ladakh
Monastery-run and good-value, Chamba Hotel has spacious and comfortable rooms with unfussy modern bathrooms, making it a good base for seeing regional sights. For great views, request room 401 or 402. The Dalai Lama stayed just two doors down the corridor.
The spacious garden restaurant, with tables spilling out onto a central courtyard, is a good value place to relax after a monastery visit.
9.02 MILES
Bearing a passing similarity to the Potala Palace in Lhasa (Tibet), this nine-storey dun-coloured edifice is Leh's dominant structure and architectural…
0.24 MILES
Glorious Thiksey Gompa is one of Ladakh’s biggest and most recognisable monasteries, photogenically cascading down a raised rocky promontory. At its heart…
8.97 MILES
Behind Leh’s central Jamia Masjid, winding alleys and stairways burrow between and beneath a series of old mud-brick Ladakhi houses and eroded chortens…
9.42 MILES
Founded in the late 14th century as See-Thub (Exemplary) Monastery, impressive Spituk Gompa surveys the Sengye Tsangpo (Indus) Valley, with surreal views…
9.83 MILES
Dominating Leh from a high, rocky ridge, this gigantic white spired pudding of a stupa was built between 1983 and 1991 by Japanese monks to promote world…
9.6 MILES
Spectacularly viewed across barley fields and buckthorn bushes, Chemrey village is dominated by the beautifully proportioned Thekchhok Gompa covering a…
13.2 MILES
Restored by the army in the late 1990s, this tiny white cube of a temple is said to date back to the time of the 'Great Translator' Ringchen Zangpo (10th…
9.67 MILES
Predating Hemis Monastery by several centuries, Gotsang is a hillside hermitage with two attractive main temple buildings. The main shrine is the mountain…
0.24 MILES
Glorious Thiksey Gompa is one of Ladakh’s biggest and most recognisable monasteries, photogenically cascading down a raised rocky promontory. At its heart…
0.27 MILES
The museum is unmarked and hidden away beneath the monastery restaurant; staff should be able to unlock it. Displays include well-labelled Tantric…
1.96 MILES
Though best known for its cameo role in the popular Bollywood film 3 Idiots, this school of more than 700 students has an interesting campus of prize…
2.2 MILES
Just by the roadside, as you round a sharp corner, a group of five ancient carved Dhyani Buddhas stand carved into the rock, 200m before the palace…
2.27 MILES
Along the top of Shey's ridge, a series of fortress ruins bracket the three-storey, 17th-century Royal Palace, which has enjoyed a wholesale…
2.27 MILES
The greatest attraction in Shey's palace complex is the royal temple, with its splendid 17th-century Buddha statue. The highly revered 7.5m-tall gilded…
3.48 MILES
Small but visually impressive, the 1618 Stakna (Tiger's Nose) Gompa crowns a rocky outcrop that rises abruptly from the Indus Valley floor. The heart of…
4.24 MILES
Perched on a impressive ridge above the village, this little-visited gompa commands stupendous valley views. Ladakh's only major Sakya Buddhist monastery,…