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Shanti Stupa

Shanti Stupa

pilgrimage site · Leh & Ladakh

The white dome above Chanspa is newer than it looks.

State
Leh & Ladakh
Type
Pilgrimage Site

The white dome above Chanspa is newer than it looks. A Japanese monk, Gyomyo Nakamura, built it in 1991, and the 14th Dalai Lama enshrined relics of the Buddha in its base. The hilltop puts the surrounding landscape below you, which is why people climb it whatever their feelings about stupas. Go at either end of the day, when the light is doing something. And give yourself a day or two in Leh first: the climb is short, but you are doing it at Ladakhi altitude.

Shanti Stupa is known for

Built in 1991 by Gyomyo NakamuraRelics of the Buddha at its basePanoramic hilltop views

Shanti Stupa guide & itineraries

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Leh

Leh sits at 3,500 metres and the single most important thing about it is that you cannot skip the first two days. Fly in and you arrive from sea level in ninety minutes. Spend the first forty-eight hours doing almost nothing — walk slowly, drink far more water than feels reasonable, no alcohol, no trekking. People who ignore this lose a week to altitude sickness or end up on a flight out. Coming overland from Manali or Srinagar acclimatises you properly, and if you have the days it is the better arrival. Once you are adjusted: Thiksey monastery at dawn for the morning prayers, which visitors are welcome at and which almost nobody attends. Hemis is grander but further. The Indus valley villages between Leh and Nimmu are where you see how people actually live at this altitude. Pangong and Nubra both need inner-line permits, arranged in Leh in a morning, and both are long hard drives. Pangong as a day trip is a mistake — twelve hours in a car for an hour at a lake. The road season is roughly June to September. Outside it the passes close and Leh is reachable only by air.

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Hemis belongs to the Drukpa (Dragon) lineage of the Kagyu sect, and it is set back in a mountain canyon on the western bank of the Indus, roughly 45 kilometres south of Leh. It is the largest and wealthiest monastery in Ladakh, and the most influential. The buildings are traditional Tibetan monastic architecture on a large scale: whitewashed stone walls, timber windows painted in fine detail, and wide flagstone courtyards. Below is a museum holding centuries of gold-plated statues, sacred thangkas and old weapons.

Diskit Monastery

Diskit Monastery

Diskit is the oldest and largest monastery of the Nubra valley, founded in the 14th century and stacked on a rocky spur above the Shyok river. Its prayer halls hold fierce guardian deities and centuries-old murals, but the landmark is newer: the 32-metre Jampa (Maitreya) Buddha on the hill facing Pakistan, consecrated by the Dalai Lama in 2010, gazing out over the cold-desert dunes of Hunder.

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Leh Palace is a nine-storey former royal palace overlooking Leh, modelled on the Potala Palace in Lhasa, with upper floors that housed the royal family and lower floors used as stables and storerooms.

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