View of Leh from the City Palace

Dotted with stupas and crumbling mud-brick houses, the Old Town of Leh is dominated by a dagger of steep rocky ridge topped by an imposing Tibetan-style palace and fort. To acclimatise, we thought a gentle walk to the Palace would suit. After a labyrinth of alleyways littered with faeces, we reached the nine storey palace quite traumatised, only to spot the official path weaving down the other side of the hill! The Palace has been unoccupied since the Ladakhi royals were stripped of power and today the walls are mostly unadorned. When a man commented to Henry 'how pretty it was' he commented back, 'yes the palace is lovely but a bit old', he returned with 'no your wife, can we take pictures' and that's pretty much how india's been, the both of us being snapped at, at all and only at tourist attractions! The palace was a maze of dark corridors, hidden stairways and makeshift ladders, but when we reached the rooftop our reward was the great views across the city.