Ladakh travel guide

Travel to Ladakh between May – Oct. Those are the months the weather, the crowds and the airfare line up — outside them you trade one of the three.

Currency

Indian Rupee (INR)

Language

Ladakhi — a Tibetan language — with Urdu and Hindi in Leh and in Kargil, and English throughout the tourist trade. Hindi will carry you everywhere you are likely to go.

Time zone

IST (UTC+5:30)

Plug type

Type C / D / M

Flight time from India

3.5 hrs

Flying from

Delhi · Mumbai · Ahmedabad · Srinagar · Chandigarh · Jammu

• 

  Do nothing for forty-eight hours

  It is the single most useful item on this list. Land, go to the hotel, and stay below 3,600 m for two days — Leh market, Shanti Stupa at sunset, Thiksey at half past six for the morning prayers. Everyone who skips this loses a day later to a headache and vomiting, and some lose the trip.

• 

  Nubra, over the Khardung La

  The pass is 5,359 m by the sign at the top, and twenty minutes up there is plenty — do not sit and have tea. Below it, Diskit's 32-metre Maitreya Buddha looks down the valley, and Hunder has cold-desert dunes with Bactrian camels. Sleep at Hunder or Turtuk, never back up near the pass.

• 

  Pangong Tso

  Fourteen thousand feet, 134 km long, two-thirds of it in China, and the colour genuinely changes through the day. Stay a night at Spangmik or Man rather than day-tripping — it is five hours each way. The camps are basic, unheated after the generator goes off, and there is no mobile signal at all.

• Alchi and Lamayuru, on the low road

  Alchi's eleventh-century wall paintings are the oldest surviving Kashmiri-Tibetan art anywhere, and photography inside is banned, which is exactly why they have survived. Lamayuru's "moonland" badlands are an hour further. This whole road runs at about 3,100 m, which makes it a good acclimatisation day rather than a hard one.

• Hemis, and the festival calendar

  Hemis is the largest and richest gompa in Ladakh, and its masked cham dances fall in late June or early July. Losar comes in winter, the Ladakh Festival in September, and Naropa only every twelve years. All of these move with the Tibetan calendar, so confirm the date before you build a trip around one.

• Tso Moriri and the Changthang

  Higher, emptier and harder than Pangong — 4,522 m, with Korzok village on the shore and Changpa nomads grazing the pashmina goats that the whole shawl trade depends on. It needs its own permit and its own two days, and it is not a first-trip destination unless you are properly acclimatised.

• Thukpa and momosVegetarian

  The two dishes every kitchen in Leh makes, and both have a genuine vegetarian version — say "veg thukpa" and "veg momo" and you will get them without any fuss. A bowl of veg thukpa at 3,500 metres on a cold evening is the best thing on the plateau.

• Skyu and chhutagiVegetarian

  The real Ladakhi home food — thumb-pressed or bow-tie wheat pasta simmered with root vegetables into a thick stew. Usually vegetarian, occasionally made with mutton, so ask. Order it at a homestay rather than a restaurant; it is a slow dish and nobody cooks it well in a hurry.

• Butter tea and tsampaVegetarian

  Gur gur cha is churned with yak butter and salt and tastes like hot salted soup, not tea. Tsampa — roasted barley flour — is the staple that Ladakhis have crossed passes on for centuries. Both are vegetarian; the butter tea is an experience rather than a beverage.

• Apricots and seabuckthorn

  Ladakhi chuli apricots, fresh in July and August and dried the rest of the year, along with the apricot-kernel oil. Seabuckthorn juice — leh berry — is sold everywhere and is genuinely local. Both make far better gifts than anything in the souvenir lane.

• Where a vegetarian actually eatsJain friendly

  Leh main bazaar has several pure-vegetarian Punjabi and Marwari kitchens and a Gujarati thali place or two that open for the summer, so Leh itself is easy. Outside it — Nubra, Pangong, Tso Moriri — you eat whatever the camp cooks: dal, rice, roti, a potato sabzi, with onion and garlic in all of it. There is no Jain provision anywhere in Ladakh, and no cooking gas to spare for a special order, so carry thepla, khakhra, dry farsan and ready-to-eat packets. On the Manali highway the dhabas are largely Punjabi- and Marwari-run and do pure veg, but the last stretch before Leh has almost nothing at all.

Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.

• Pashmina from the Changthang — buy through the Leh women's co-operatives; what is sold as "pashmina" in the tourist lane is usually a viscose blend
• Apricot (chuli) products, apricot kernel oil and seabuckthorn juice
• Ladakhi silver with turquoise and coral, and the perak headdress work
• Thangka paintings and prayer flags — buy from a monastery shop so the money goes back to the gompa
• Tibetan carpets and woollens from the refugee market in Leh
• Yak wool shawls and socks, which are warmer than they look and a fraction of the pashmina price

Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport at Leh (IXL) is one of the highest commercial airports in the world, and from Gujarat the only realistic route is via Delhi. Flights are morning-only because of the afternoon winds, and they cancel in weather. By road, Srinagar–Leh is 434 km over the Zoji La and Manali–Leh 428 km over Baralacha and Tanglang La; both open roughly late May and shut around mid-October. One thing to plan for: non-Ladakh-registered vehicles are not allowed to run local sightseeing, so the car that brought you from Manali or Srinagar cannot take you to Pangong — you hire a Leh taxi-union vehicle at published fixed rates.

• Acute Mountain Sickness is the real risk here, not the roads. Two nights in Leh before any pass, no alcohol for the first two days, three litres of water a day, and no exertion on day one. If a headache comes with vomiting or breathlessness at rest, descend — do not push through, and do not take Diamox without a doctor's prescription.
• Indian citizens need an Inner Line Permit for Nubra, Pangong, Tso Moriri, Hanle, Dah-Hanu and Turtuk. Apply through the LAHDC Leh online portal or via your operator — roughly ₹400–600 per person including the Red Cross and environment fees — and carry several photocopies, because each checkpost keeps one.
• Prepaid SIM cards from other circles do not work in Ladakh; only postpaid does, and there is no signal at all at Pangong, at Tso Moriri or beyond Khardung La. Tell your family you will be out of contact for two days rather than letting them find out.
• Zoji La and the Manali highway close for snow and can shut mid-season for a landslide with no notice. Keep two buffer days before an international connection, and treat the road out as a plan rather than the plan.
• Drones are banned near the airport and all military installations, which covers most of the Leh valley, and photographing convoys or installations is an offence. Rules near the LoC and LAC are enforced literally.

Per person, per day, on the ground — meals, local transport and entry tickets. Flights and hotels sit in the package price, not here.