Nubra Valley

The Nubra Valley lies north of Leh beyond the Khardung La pass — at 5,359 metres, one of the world's highest motorable roads — and contains within its double valley a landscape of sand dunes, Bactrian camels, apricot orchards, and monasteries on cliffs so improbably assembled it seems designed by someone trying to see how many contradictions could inhabit the same space.

The Khardung La descent into the Nubra is the most dramatic road transition available in Ladakh: from the barren high pass, the road switchbacks through 40 kilometres of progressively lower terrain until the valley floor opens at 3,100 metres to reveal poplar trees, the turquoise Shyok river, and the first Bactrian camels grazing on the sand flats beside it. The camels are the remnants of the Central Asian trading economy that once used this valley as the route between Ladakh and the Karakoram.

The Diskit monastery, on a cliff above the meeting of the Shyok and Nubra rivers, contains a 32-metre Maitreya statue built in 2010 that has become the valley's most photographed object — which is saying something in a landscape of considerable visual drama. The sand dunes at Hunder, an hour down the valley, are a geological curiosity: high-altitude dunes at 3,100 metres, created by wind erosion of river sediment, maintained by the same wind pattern that makes the Nubra one of the driest places in an already very dry region.

Places to Visit in Nubra Valley

• Hunder sand dunes
• Diskit Monastery
• Khardung La pass

Things to Do in Nubra Valley

• Bactrian camel safari
• Khardung La high-pass crossing
• Diskit Monastery visit