Ladakh, the High Desert

The journey.

Ladakh is India at its most improbable — a high-altitude desert of ochre mountains and impossibly blue skies, where Tibetan Buddhism has been kept quietly, beautifully alive for a thousand years.

The valley Acclimatised slowly and properly, then the Indus valley's great monasteries — Thiksey at dawn prayers, Hemis and its hidden thangkas, whitewashed gompas clinging to cliffs.

The heights A drive over one of the world's highest passes to the surreal blue of Pangong, nights under a sky so clear it feels close enough to touch, and villages where little has changed in centuries.

Remote, rarefied, and unforgettable — Ladakh rewards the traveller willing to go high and slow.