Skip to content
Tours Director
leh

Ladakh

Leh

Ladakh’s high-altitude capital and monastery gateway

Photo: Sumit Das (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Overview

About Leh

Leh is Ladakh’s main town and the practical base for almost every trip into the region — a market town beneath Leh Palace, surrounded by some of the area’s most important Buddhist monasteries.

  • Leh Palace, a smaller echo of Lhasa’s Potala Palace
  • Thiksey Monastery’s Potala-like tiered architecture
  • Hemis Monastery, Ladakh’s largest
  • Leh Market’s Tibetan and Kashmiri handicrafts

Things to do

Experiences in Leh

  • Visit Thiksey Monastery

    A 12-story gompa built in a style closely resembling Lhasa’s Potala Palace.

  • Explore Leh Palace

    A 17th-century royal palace overlooking the town.

  • Acclimatise for a full day

    Essential before heading to higher-altitude Pangong or Khardung La.

When to go

Best time to visit

May-September; the region is largely inaccessible the rest of the year.

Practical

Travel tips

Do not skip the acclimatisation day — altitude sickness affects a meaningful share of visitors who rush straight to higher elevations.

Questions

Leh: common questions

By flight to Leh Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport (one of the world’s highest commercial airports), or via the seasonal Leh-Manali or Leh-Srinagar highways for a road adventure.

Plan my trip

Planning a trip to Leh?

Tell us your dates and who is travelling. We reply with an itemized plan you can change.

Plan my trip