Leh

Leh sits at about 3,500m in the rain shadow of the Himalaya, with no coast anywhere near. The Indus and the high lakes are fed by snowmelt and stay bitterly cold even in midsummer, so swimming is not something a visitor does here. The water belongs to rafting and to the view.

Eating in Leh is simple and warming. Momos, thukpa and thenthuk noodle soups come from the Tibetan kitchen, while Ladakhi dishes such as skyu, a hand-pressed pasta stew, and salty butter tea turn up in family-run places and homestays. The apricots, fresh in late summer and dried all year, are the local pride, along with sea buckthorn juice.

Around the Main Bazaar, Fort Road and Changspa, rooftop cafés and bakeries cater to trekkers with wood-fired pizza, Israeli and Indian menus and good coffee. It is pleasant and filling rather than distinctive, alcohol is low-key, and much of the scene closes down outside the summer season.

Leh's own heritage is compact and striking. The nine-storey Leh Palace, built in the 17th century in the manner of Lhasa's Potala, looms over the town, with the Namgyal Tsemo gompa and its fort ridge above it. Below lies the old town, a tangle of mud-brick houses, chortens and lanes that rewards an unhurried walk.

At the edge of town, Sankar gompa keeps an active monastic life, and the white Shanti Stupa gives the classic view across the valley at sunset. The museums are modest, the Central Asian Museum on trade-route history being the most useful. The famous painted monasteries lie a drive away, so the town itself is seen in a day or two.

There is essentially no nightlife in Leh. Evenings are spent over a late dinner on a rooftop terrace, perhaps with a beer in one of the few places that serve it, and the town falls quiet early. The altitude, the cold nights and the dawn starts for monastery visits and passes all push visitors to bed.

Leh is a base for one of the world's great high-altitude landscapes. The town sits in the broad Indus valley ringed by bare, multicoloured mountains, with the snowy Stok range on the skyline. Treks such as the Markha valley route through Hemis National Park start within an hour or two, the road climbs to Khardung La above 5,000m, and mountain bikers come down it. The Indus and Zanskar rivers carry rafting through deep gorges.

Further out, the Nubra valley's dunes and the long blue Pangong Tso need an overnight stay. Winter brings snow leopard tracking in Hemis and the frozen-river Chadar trek. Visitors need a few days to acclimatise before doing anything strenuous.

The great draw of a stay in Leh is the ring of monasteries along the Indus. Shey's palace and Thiksey, stacked up its hill like a small Potala, are under half an hour away, and Hemis, the largest and wealthiest gompa in Ladakh, is about an hour. Stakna, Matho and the royal palace at Stok fill out the east side of the valley.

West of town, Likir, Basgo's ruined citadel and above all Alchi, whose thousand-year-old painted temples are among the finest early Buddhist art anywhere, make a full day. The variety is narrow, nearly all monasteries and palaces, and there are no other towns of note, but the quality is exceptional.

Leh is hard going with children, above all young ones. The altitude is reached in a single flight, and altitude sickness is a real risk that needs rest and careful acclimatisation. Beyond that, the outings are long drives on mountain roads to monasteries and high passes, and nothing in town is made for children. Older, robust teenagers who enjoy trekking or rafting are a different matter.

The centre of Leh is small enough to walk, from the Main Bazaar up to the old town and out to Changspa, though the slopes feel steep at this altitude. Beyond town, local buses are sparse and slow, so visitors rely on taxis from the fixed-rate taxi union, hired motorbikes or shared jeeps. Outings to monasteries, passes and lakes mean long drives on mountain roads, and in winter some passes close.

Shopping in Leh centres on the Main Bazaar and the lanes around it, where Tibetan and Kashmiri stalls sell pashmina shawls, thangka paintings, turquoise and coral jewellery, singing bowls and prayer flags. Ladakhi women sell dried apricots and vegetables along the street. There is good outdoor gear for treks, but much of the stock repeats from shop to shop, and quality varies widely, so it pays to look carefully.

Leh is cheap to stay in once you are there. Family guesthouses and homestays cost little, and simple meals of momos and noodle soup are inexpensive. The bills that add up are transport: the taxi union keeps fixed fares that are high by Indian standards, hiring a car for days out is the norm, and permits are needed for the outer valleys. Comfortable hotels charge more in the short summer season.

Leh has no theatre, concert hall or regular live-music scene. Its performance tradition is religious: the masked cham dances held in monastery courtyards during annual festivals, the best known being the Hemis festival in summer, along with celebrations around Losar, the Tibetan New Year. A visitor who times a stay to one of these sees something genuinely moving, but outside those days there is little to attend beyond occasional cultural evenings for tourists.

Leh has no bathing or spa culture of its own beyond a few hotel treatment rooms. What it offers instead is quiet: slow mornings on a guesthouse roof, meditation courses at Buddhist centres near town, and consultations with amchi practitioners of traditional Tibetan medicine. The altitude works against true rest, though, with thin air, dry skin and broken sleep for the first days, so it suits a contemplative visitor more than one seeking pampering.