LEH CITY GUIDE
The main town of the region, is dominated by
Sengge Namgyal's nine-storey Palace, a building in the grand tradition of Tibetan
architecture, said to have inspired the famous Potala in Lhasa, which was built
half a century later. Above it, on Namgyal Tsemo, the peak overlooking the town,
are the ruins of the earliest royal residence at Leh, a fort built by King Tashi
Namgyal in the 16th century. The associated temples remain intact, but they
are kept locked except during the morning and evening hours when a monk toils
up the hills from Sankar Gompa to attend to the butter-lamps in front of the
images.
Down in the bazaar, the main sites to visit are the Jo-khang, a modern ecumenical
Buddhist temple, and the imposing mosque dating from the late 17th century almost
opposite. But the pleasures of Leh are not confined to the purposeful visiting
of sites. For locals and visitors alike, a stroll along the main bazaar, observing
the varied crowd and peering into the curio shops is an entrancing experience.
A particularly charming sight is the line of women from nearby villages sitting
along the edge of the footpath with baskets of fresh vegetables brought for
sale to town's people. Chang Gali, behind the main bazaar, is less bustling
but has intriguing little shops selling curious and jewelry; and further on
is the labyrinthine alleyways and piled-up houses of the old city, cluttering
around the foot of the palace hill. In the other direction, down from the bazaar,
are the stalls of the Tibetan traders where you can bargain for pearls, turquoise,
coral, malachite, lapis lazuli and many other kinds of semi-precious stones
and jewelry, as well as curiously carved yak-horn boxes, quaint brass locks,
china or metal bowls, or any of a whole array of curious. When you're tired
of strolling, you can step into any of several restaurants, some of them in
the open air- in gardens, or on the sidewalk - which serve local, Tibetan, Indian
and Continental cuisine.
Or you can strike off away from the bazaar, past Zangsti, the old coppersmith's
quarte, past the Moravian Church to the Ladakh Ecological Centre. From here
there is a footpath across the fields to Sankar Gompa- a half an hour walk.
Or you can leave the main road from the bazaar near the Moravian Church and
turn off to Changspa, an attractive village, and practically a suburb of Leh,
lying below the hill on which stands the modern Ladakh Shanti Stupa, accessible
by a winding road. Down past the Tourist Information Centre in the Dak-Bungalow
Complex, you can follow the Fort road to Skara, another pretty and prosperous
suburb of Leh town, and admire the earthen ramparts of Zorawar Singh's Fort,
now housing army barracks. This road continues onward, swinging around the periphery
of the village to meet the main highway near a crossroads where the roads from
Srinagar and Manali meet. A side road taking off from here traverses the interior
of Skara to meet the main highway near the airport, an excellent drive through
the heart of the sprawling village.
Too far for a stroll, not far enough to be called a trek, there are several
attractive destinations within a 10-kms radius of Leh. Sabu, a charming village
with a small gompa, nestles between two southward-stretching spurs of the Ladakh
range about 9km away. In the same direction, but nearer town, is Choglamsar,
with the Tibetan refugee settlement including a child's village, a handicrafts
centre devoted largely to carpet-weaving, and the Dalai Lama's prayer-gournd,
Jiva-tsal. Some 8km on the Srinagar road is the turning for Spituk Gompa, and
village. On of the gompa's main features is the chapel dedicated to the Goddess
Tara, with twenty-three images of her various manifestations.