About Leh
Leh is in the Indus river valley, at a crossroads of the old trading routes from Xinjiang, Tibet and Kashmir. There is a pass that links it directly to Khotan. The city's importance as a trading town slowed down with the partition of British India, and ended with the closure of the border in 1962 during the Sino-Indian war. Since opening to tourists in 1974, it has become a bustling tourist town, with large numbers of Kashmiri traders. Since 2000, Indian tourists have been visiting Ladakh, with a dramatic increase in 2010 after the film Three Idiots.
It's a small town, so it's easy to get most places by foot. The old town is a compact area of mud brick houses and narrow lanes directly to the east of Main Bazaar. Changspa is the agricultural "suburb" northwest of the center, with many guesthouses.
Source :WikiVoyage