Ladakh

Ladakh is a high-altitude desert of wind-carved mountains, prayer flags and monasteries clinging to cliffs. Leh, its old trading capital, sits at 3,500 metres beneath a nine-storey palace.

From here the roads climb over some of the highest motorable passes on earth: Khardung La to the sand dunes and double-humped camels of Nubra Valley, and Chang La to Pangong Tso, a lake that shifts from turquoise to deep blue through the day. We build in time to acclimatise and arrange every permit.