Flying into Leh, the cold desert land, over the
magnificent Himalayas is a beautiful and scary experience at once.
Leh Palace illuminated by huge halogen lamps looks like a bewitching
castle on a hilltop set ablaze in the dark nights of the Leh. Drive
in the city is as exciting as the wonders it has in its lap with the
long isolated winding road that opens up into a sheer expanse of
arid flatness in burnt sienna.
The captivating Leh Palace rises from the edge of
a hill overlooking the town and at once looks like a reminiscent of
Lhasa's Potala Palace. Though deserted, it has some definite
mystical quality about it. The Palace was built in the middle of the
16th century by King Singe Namgyal and still belongs to the royal
family that now lives in the Stok Palace.
Monasteries in Ladakh may belong to either the
Mahayana or the Hinayana sect of Buddhism but they play an important
role in lending the region its unique flavor. Commonly known as
Gompas in the region, besides being beautiful, these monasteries can
often be seen perched dangerously on the edge of craggy mountain
faces or lone rocks.
Ladakh is bounded by two of the world's mightiest
mountain ranges, the Great Himalaya and the Karakoram and lies
transversely to the Ladakh range and the Zanskar range. In
geological terms, it is a young land, formed only a few million
years ago by the buckling and folding of the earth's crust as the
Indian sub-continent pushed with irresistible force against the
immovable mass of Asia.
