Top tips for Leh, in the Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir

Leh, in the Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir, is hugely popular with backpackers and hardcore trekkers. Aside from the gompas, palaces and Tibetan refugee markets found in this Tibetan Buddhist stronghold in India, Leh’s main draw is adventure sports. Trekking, mountaineering, kayaking, camel riding and white-water rafting are all on offer in the nearby Nubra, Zanskar and Indus valleys and Leh is the best place from which to organise your excursions.

With so many more important (and fun) decisions to make, I’ve put together a basic list of traveller essentials so you can spend more time choosing how and where to get your adrenaline fix. Here are Leh’s best options for accommodation, restaurants, attractions, activities, shopping and communications:

Stay

Hand in hand with all those tourists comes an abundance of guest houses and hotels, meaning deciding where to stay can be difficult. You want somewhere clean, pleasant and friendly at a reasonable price. Seven Seas Guest House, Upper Tuklha Road, Malbek (tel: +91 1982 252 830; mob: +91 9419 178 716) is a new guest house with a colourful vegetable and flower garden and mountain views set down a green, quiet alleyway well away from any traffic noise. The family who run it are delightful and there’s a good Korean restaurant, Amigo’s, close to hand.

Eat

Amid Leh’s vast sea of restaurants offering the usual identikit tourist menus, Chopsticks is a refreshingly original concept. It serves up Leh’s best momos and skew (a vegetable soup with thumbnail shaped bits of pasta) among agreeable surrounds and, always the mark of a good restaurant, the Western toilet is clean and a pleasure to use, particularly after experiencing the sorry bogs some of the town’s most popular restaurants somehow deem fit for customers’ use.

See

Leh’s charms are many, but to gain a deeper understanding of the issues it currently faces go the Women’s Alliance Centre to watch its screenings of The Economics of Happiness and Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (Monday to Saturday at 1pm and 3pm respectively). The Centre is part of The Ladakh Project, co-run by Helena Norberg-Hodge, author of the Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, on which the film was based. She often conducts Q&A sessions after the screenings.

Do

Like the glut of guest houses, Leh has a gamut of tour operators all offering the same trips and tours. I used Dreamland Trek & Tour, Fort Road (tel: +91 1982 250 784; www.dreamladakh.com) to book a white-water rafting trip to the Zanskar Valley and Glacier Travels, Old Fort Road, opposite Galden Continental Hotel (tel: +91 1982 253 638; www.ladakhglaciers.com) to arrange a private jeep to Srinagar. Both were excellent.

Buy

Leh has more than its fair share of gift shops, most of them selling traditional Buddhist crafts. Turquoise jewellery, Tibetan singing bowls and clothes are popular but for a really special souvenir, opt for a Tibetan thangka painting. Thangka paintings are painstaking detailed depictions of Buddhist deities or mandalas. You can get them plain or framed in silk. Cheap, poor quality versions are rife so for the real deal find artist Surya Lama (tel: +977 9805 344 882; e-mail: suryalama123@hotmail.com; http://tibetanthangkas.googlepages.com) in the Tibetan Refugee Market at the junction of Fort Road and Old Fort Road.

Communicate

Internet in Leh is sporadic at best. Power cuts are common and the connection is slow and inconsistent. I found the fastest, most reliable internet access in Communication Centre, Shamshu Complex, Fort Road, next to Gemsho Restaurant, opposite Yaktail Hotel. Small and unassuming, Communication Centre’s prices are reasonable (for Leh) and the manager is friendly. They also provide booths for international phone calls.