Once Ladakh’s summer capital, Shey is an attractively green, pond-dappled oasis from which rises a central dry rocky ridge, inscribed with roadside Buddha carvings . The ridge is topped by the small if photogenic Naropa Royal Palace . This mini-potala structure is undergoing considerable reconstruction, but its central shrine remains a very holy place, containing an inscrutably smirking two-storey gilded copper Buddha , originally installed in 1645.
