6-kms to the north of the main Leh-Srinagar highway, shortly before the village of Saspol, the large and wealthy Gompa of Likkir, home to around one hundred monks, is renowned for its huge yellow statue of the Buddha to come which towers above the terraced fields and village below.

Matho, 27-km south of Leh, straddles a spur at the mouth of an idyllic side valley. Though no less interesting or scenically situated than its neighbours, the Gompa sees comparatively few visitors.

Pangong Tso, 154-km to the southeast of Leh, is one of the largest salt-water lakes in Asia , a long narrow strip of water stretching from Ladakh east into Tibet . Only a quarter of the 130-km-long lake is in Ladakh, and the Indian army, who experienced bitter losses along its shores in the war against China in 1962, guard their side of the frontier.

The Siachen glacier lies in the extreme north-central part of Jammu and Kashmir near the border of India and Tibet . With a length of about 72-km, Siachen is known as the largest glacier in the world outside the Polar Regions .