Leh or Udaipur?

Neither city has a beach, and you should not plan any swimming in either. What differs is the water you do get. In Leh the snowmelt rivers are icy and suited to rafting, not bathing. In Udaipur, swimming means a heritage hotel pool, often looking across Lake Pichola.

Udaipur gives you more to eat. Mewari cooking brings dal baati churma, laal maas and refillable vegetarian thalis, and the old bazaars have morning kachori stalls and sweet shops. The palace hotels add polished dining, though the lakefront rooftops trade more on the view than the kitchen.

Leh's food is plainer: Tibetan momos and noodle soups, Ladakhi skyu and butter tea, apricots and sea buckthorn juice. Trekker cafés around Changspa fill the gaps, and much of it closes outside summer.

Udaipur has the richer and longer sightseeing. The City Palace rises from Lake Pichola with its courtyards and mirrored halls, the white island palaces sit on the water, and havelis, ghats, garden palaces and the hilltop Monsoon Palace add a few more days.

Leh's own heritage is striking but small: the nine-storey Leh Palace, Namgyal Tsemo above it, the mud-brick old town and the sunset view from Shanti Stupa. Most of the great Ladakhi art lies outside town.

Neither is a place to go out at night, but Udaipur has a little more. There you can have a sunset drink on a rooftop over the lake and visit the odd lounge bar with music at weekends. In Leh evenings end with dinner and perhaps a beer, because the cold, the altitude and early starts send everyone to bed.

This is where Leh leaves Udaipur far behind. It sits among bare, multicoloured mountains with the snowy Stok range above. Treks into the Markha valley, a road climbing above 5,000m, gorge rafting, the Nubra dunes and Pangong Tso make it one of the great high-altitude landscapes anywhere, and winter adds snow leopard tracking.

Udaipur's outdoors are gentle by comparison: lake boat rides, the Sajjangarh sanctuary, short hikes in the Aravalli villages and jungle drives at Kumbhalgarh, all best in the cooler months.

Both are equally good bases for excursions, but the excursions differ. From Leh almost everything is a monastery or palace: Thiksey and Shey close by, Hemis about an hour off, and Alchi's thousand-year-old temple murals as the highlight.

From Udaipur the range is wider: the temple towns of Eklingji and Nathdwara, the long walls of Kumbhalgarh, the marble Jain temple at Ranakpur and the fortress of Chittorgarh. These are long road days that call for a driver.

Udaipur is the more workable choice with children. Boat rides, palaces, puppet shows and the cable car hold their attention, and pool hotels give a comfortable base, though the narrow lanes and spring heat mean it suits older children in winter.

Leh is hard with young ones: the risk of altitude sickness, long mountain drives and nothing designed for children. Only adventurous teenagers really get the most from it.

In both cities you can walk the centre and need a car for anything further, but Udaipur is a little easier. Autorickshaws and ride-hailing cover the city itself. In Leh you depend on the fixed-fare taxi union, hired motorbikes or shared jeeps beyond the bazaar, every walk uphill feels harder in the thin air, and some passes close in winter.

Udaipur is the better place to shop, as a real crafts town. You can watch miniature painters at work near the City Palace, and the bazaars around Hathi Pol and the clock tower sell block-printed and bandhani textiles, silver and puppets to locals as well as visitors. Expect pushy commission selling near the palace.

Leh's Main Bazaar has pashmina, thangkas, turquoise jewellery and decent trekking gear, but the stock repeats from stall to stall and quality is uneven.

Both are cheap once you arrive, and Udaipur is slightly easier on the wallet. Thalis, autorickshaws and sight entries cost little there, and only the lake palace hotels run to luxury prices. In Leh, guesthouses and momos are cheap, but taxi-union fares, car hire for days out and permits for the outer valleys add up.

Udaipur gives a visitor something to attend most evenings. There is the folk dance show at Bagore ki Haveli, puppetry kept alive by Lok Kala Mandal, and folk musicians at the winter Shilpgram fair. Leh's performance is religious and tied to the calendar: masked cham dances in monastery courtyards, above all at the Hemis festival. They are deeply moving if your dates match, but most of the year there is little.

Udaipur is the more restful of the two. Ayurvedic massage and yoga are offered across the old city, palace hotels run full spas, and sunset over the lake does the rest, provided you avoid the noisy lanes.

Leh offers quiet of a different kind: meditation courses at Buddhist centres and visits to amchi healers of Tibetan medicine. The thin air and broken sleep of the first days make it better for contemplation than for pampering.