LIVING THEEDGE ON

INDIA’S COLD DESERT LADAKH IS PERCHED BETWEEN LOFTY MOUNTAIN RANGES AND OFFERS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, FROM BACKPACKING TRAILS TO LUXURY HOTELS

My journey into Ladakh took two days on a decrepit green-andchrome bus that honked and gasped its way over death-defying passes. I arrived in this land of scorched desert and brilliant-white monasteries — locked high in the Himalayas between Tibet, Pakistan and Kashmir — too knackered to know where I was.

That was more than two decades ago, in the days when the only travellers in Ladakh were backpackers.

This time it was an hour-long hop from monsoon-soaked Delhi, flying over freshly minted peaks and glaciers before the clouds petered out and the mountains turned brown and dusty.

Everything about this far-north region of India is extreme. The heart-pounding altitude; the startlingly intense light; the world’s highest roads; the zeal for Tibetan-style Buddhism. And the fact that there is now a smattering of heritage hotels and ultra-luxury camps that can set you back a crazy £250 a night.

Is there a middle way between backpacker basic and bonkers? To find out, I forged a 12-day itinerary with travel company Exodus. I would glory in the cultural and scenic highlights, staying mostly at mid-range hotels and guesthouses. These, I was to find, are now largely the preserve of Ladakh’s new tourists: Indians from all over the subcontinent.

From Ladakh’s largest town, Leh, my erudite and fun-loving Ladakhi guide Norbu took me first up the wide Indus valley to Thikse Gompa. The multi-storey monastery stands commandingly on a crag like a smaller version of Lhasa’s Potala palace. From a rooftop fluttering with prayer flags, I gazed over the valley to swaying fields of barley irrigated from the milkyblue river.