Khardung La, Nubra & Pangong, 6 Nights

Fly Ahmedabad–Delhi–Leh, landing at 3,500 m before nine in the morning. The whole of today is complete rest at the hotel: no sightseeing, no walking uphill, no alcohol, three to four litres of water. This is not padding — acute mountain sickness is what ruins Ladakh trips, and a full first-day rest is the single most effective thing you can do about it. If you feel well by evening, a slow walk to Shanti Stupa for sunset is allowed.

A gentle second day at low effort. The Hall of Fame museum sets out the Siachen and Kargil record, Gurudwara Pathar Sahib is run by the army on the Srinagar road, and Magnetic Hill is a genuine optical illusion of the slope, not a magnet. The Sangam is where the grey Indus and the green Zanskar meet without mixing for several hundred metres. Leh Palace and the old town bazaar in the late afternoon.

Khardung La at 5,359 m is the gateway to the Nubra valley, and the army permits a stop of only about fifteen to twenty minutes at the top — that is a medical rule, not officiousness. Down the far side the valley opens into Diskit, where a 32-metre Maitreya Buddha faces the Pakistan-facing Shyok. At Hunder there are cold-desert sand dunes at 3,000 m and the double-humped Bactrian camels left behind by the Silk Road caravans.

Six to seven hours on the Shyok river road via Agham and Durbuk — rough, spectacular and prone to water crossings when the glacier melt is high in July and August. Pangong Tso appears suddenly at 4,350 m: 134 km long, two-thirds of it in Tibet, and salt water that still freezes solid in winter. The colour shifts through the afternoon from steel to turquoise to deep indigo. You stay in a fixed camp at Spangmik on the near shore.

Sunrise on Pangong is the best light of the trip — the far Tibetan range turns pink about twenty minutes before the sun clears it. Then back over Chang La at 5,360 m, the third-highest motorable pass in the world, and down into the Indus valley. Thiksey Monastery, a twelve-storey Gelugpa complex modelled on the Potala, holds a 15-metre seated Maitreya; Shey Palace and the Druk White Lotus school follow. Leh by evening.

Hemis, the largest and richest monastery in Ladakh, hides in a side gorge and holds the copper-gilt Padmasambhava and a two-storey thangka unrolled once every twelve years. Alchi, further down the Indus, has 11th-century Kashmiri-style wall paintings that survived because the monastery was abandoned early and never repainted. Afternoon free in Leh’s old town for pashmina, apricots and the Jama Masjid end of the bazaar.

Leh flights all leave in the morning because the valley winds pick up later, so the airport drop is around 5.30 am. Kushok Bakula Rimpochee airport is a defence airfield: no drone, no photography of the apron, and two physical security checks with all batteries and power banks in your hand baggage. Connect through Delhi to Ahmedabad.