Everything at Basecamp That Isn’t a Motorcycle: Royal Enfield Himalayan Base Camp Ladakh 2026
Three days in Leh in early September, and only about half of it involves a motorcycle. There is whitewater on the Zanskar, bouldering at Shey, and a workshop on what to do when your air filter floods a hundred kilometres from anyone who could help.
One and a Half Crore for the Oracle Path
A pond that will hold nearly twice what it holds now. Tiled roads. New signs. And one and a half crore rupees for a path named after the two men who, once a year, dance across a monastery roof in a trance.
Ladakh Marathon 2026: What to Know Before You Land in Leh
The hard part is not the race. It is the ten days before it, at 11,500 feet, doing almost nothing while your body catches up. Bib collection dates, road closures, and what to expect from Leh in the first week of September.
Ladakh Started Making Its Own Films in 2002: Delwa
The leading man sold jackets from a roadside stall. The villain was a local favourite. The premieres filled a hall off the Leh polo field, then went out to the villages on a projector. Ladakh has been making its own films for twenty-three years now.
He Went to Bombay to Become a Star. Ladakh Had Other Plans.
Before Ladakh had its own film industry, Phonsok Tsering Dimbir left for Bombay with a dream of becoming an actor. He found struggle instead—and eventually built something larger: a life spanning cinema, television, music, filmmaking, yoga, teaching and Ladakhi culture.
The Ice Man of Ladakh: Chewang Norphel
Ladakh was never short of water. It was short of water in April, which is when barley needs it and when the real glaciers are still frozen solid. A retired engineer noticed a dripping tap freezing on the ground and worked out what to do about it.
One Thousand Songs, and Then the Fire: Padma Shree Morup Namgyal
He learned the songs from his grandfather, then spent thirty years walking Ladakh to record everyone else’s. The tapes filled a room at the radio station in Leh. In 2002 the building burned down. What he did next is the reason you can still hear them.
Five Hundred Years, and Still Solving Problems: Phyang Monastery
A monk pitched his tent below a hill outside Leh, saw a protectress ride past on a blue horse, and built here. Five centuries later, his lineage’s current holder looked at the desert below the same hill and asked for a glacier to be built on it.
The Monastery That Raised Ladakh’s Most Famous Son: Samstanling Monastery Nubra Valley
You land at an airport named after a man who spent his childhood winters here. Most Nubra itineraries give Samstanling ten minutes between the dunes and the hot springs. It is worth considerably more than that, and the reason is not the murals.
Where the First Tibetan Dictionary Was Written: Phugtal Monastery
Seventy monks live inside a cliff in south-eastern Zanskar, in a cave that has drawn scholars for longer than anyone can properly date. Until recently it took days to reach. A road has changed that — and it is worth understanding what the road changed before you go.
