“Welcome to Naropa 2016” reads the giant illuminated green sign, projected onto a mountainside in the Zanskar range of Ladakh, India’s most northerly region. Circular tents housing families and festival-goers dot the stony landscape as a line of headlights snakes upwards towards the improvised car park.

Behind a huge sound stage, a newly built Buddhist temple glows in the cool inky night. Hemis is a confection of golden staircases, illuminated lotus flowers and decorative panels, shining for miles around in this dark mountainous region.

In front of the temple, singers and a theatrical troupe entertain the red-hatted and robed crowds, made up mostly of monks and nuns. Each time the masses catch sight of themselves on the television screens, they wave at their own images. The Naropa himself, an 11th-century Buddhist monk who has been reincarnated ever since, sits in the front row, blessing the performers as they enter the stage. It’s like an elevated Glastonbury for the enlightened.

"For centuries, Ladakh orientated itself eastwards towards Tibet" Credit: ALAMY

I’d come to Ladakh to see the sky by night. The high altitude, low levels of water vapour in the air and the lack of light pollution (other than illuminated temples) make it one of the best dark sky environments on Earth. Seen from space by night, Ladakh, the least-populated region of India, must be just a black splodge.

Imagining our planet from space and what it is like to travel across the universe is the mainstay of my professional life. I am an author of children’s adventure stories that take my two young heroes and readers on a series of cosmic challenges, frequently involving journeys to another planet. It is said that the terrain of Ladakh, in places, bears a close resemblance to Mars – so this is as close as I will ever get to a walk on the red planet itself.

A sign in the local village points straight at the mountain range. “Lhasa 700 miles” it reads. It’s a direct line, albeit over terrifyingly high mountains, to the spiritual home of these festive monks. For centuries, Ladakh orientated itself eastwards towards Tibet rather than India to the south or Kashmir to the west, forging a close cultural and religious identity with the Buddhism of Tibet, known as Mahayana.

After Tibet was incorporated into China in 1959 many Tibetans fled across the now-closed border to Ladakh. The most famous refugee of all, the Dalai Lama, comes to Ladakh annually to take up a summer residence where he brings together the different traditions of Mahayana Buddhism.

The central idea of Mahayana is simple enough – the soul can gain enlightenment in one lifetime with the help of a teacher. But the execution is infinitely complex. The walls of the many monasteries in Ladakh are gorgeously painted in a series of frescoes, depicting scenes from the life of Buddha, the bodhisattvas (compassionate beings who remain on Earth rather than attaining Nirvana), the protector deities, the arhats (Buddha’s disciples) and some terrifying apparitions who may be protectors or warnings of the eternal torment that awaits the unmindful. These are not museum pieces – monks and nuns of all ages meditate, pray and work in the monasteries.

The cosmos, I learn, is frequently symbolised throughout Mahayana Buddhism, appearing in different forms as Vairocana, the father of the abstractions of personality, as the colour white in prayer flags, or wrought in silver or bronze as the moon and sun. Stretching overhead like a semi-circular Alice band is the Milky Way itself, broken by the Cygnus Rift, a cloud of dark gas and dust in the local spiral arm of our galaxy – which adds to the drama of the night sky.

“Our Milky Way is dancing,” says a line in one of the best-known Ladakhi poems, celebrating the birth of the great king of Ladakh, Sengge Namgyal. It’s so black by night that the mountains are only visible by the absence of stars.

Chemrey village and monastery near Leh, Ladakh

The glory of Ladakh’s night sky has not been lost on professional astronomers. At Hanle, 20km from the Tibetan border, sits the Indian Astronomical Observatory, one of the largest and highest telescopes in the world. Another telescope is planned for the same region. These are not visitor attractions, however. Operated remotely and located in a restricted area of Ladakh, Hanle is no place for the casual night-sky observer.

But that doesn’t matter. “The whole of Ladakh is an observatory,” says Raja Jigmed Namgyal, the erstwhile king of Ladakh, whose family have one of the longest unbroken dynasties on Earth. Dating back to AD 950, the Namgyal family held sway over the region of Ladakh until they were disempowered in the mid-19th century by the Dogra invasion from Baltistan.

It is said that the terrain of Ladakh bears a close resemblance to Mars

Now based at Stok Palace, the summer residence of the royal family, Namgyal has restored the family home to become a heritage hotel which offers the chance to sleep in royal apartments. The palace also allows stargazing from the sweeping ramparts – where in the mornings, breakfast of home-made apricot jam, khambir (the exceptionally filling local bread) and tea is served.

“Astronomers are the next group of tourists to Ladakh,” says Raja Namgyal. “Right now, tourists come for the adventure – trekking, mountain climbing, rafting. Or they come for the cultural life of Ladakh. But they’re just starting to arrive with telescopes. It’s going to be the next wave.”

Until 1974, the strategic sensitivity of Ladakh – between China on one side and Pakistan on the other – meant the region was closed entirely to visitors. The disastrous flash floods of 2010, the damage still visible in some areas, drove away the intrepid who had started to filter into Ladakh, drawn by the astonishing scenery, the possibility of adventure, the rich and enticing Buddhist culture and the friendliness of these mountain people.

More than six years on, the tourist industry is getting back on its feet, and Ladakh is starting to corner the market for overseas tourists in search of an adventurous Himalayan holiday.

The name Ladakh means Land of High Passes. It could equally be called Land of High Mountains, with the Grand Himalaya to the south, the Karakoram range to the northwest and the Ladakh range to the northeast. Andrew Harvey, the scholar, poet and writer who toured Ladakh in the early Eighties, writes in A Journey in Ladakh: “This wilderness of rock and light has not been tamed. It remains exalted and sometimes frightening.”

About 35 years after Harvey wrote those lines, his observation remains exact, as I realise on the morning when I set out with my guide, Rudy, to cross the 14km Khaspang Pass. At the Khaspang meditation centre, a smiling monk informs us we have a choice between the easy route and the hard. I choose the hard route, something I tell myself on the ensuing trek never to do again.

Trucks deliver supplies to the remote villages of Ladakh Credit: ALAMY

The sky, as we set off up the bald, ochre-coloured mountain, is the “wide burning blue” of Harvey’s memoir. Rudy clambers upwards, as nimble as a bharal (the blue sheep indigenous to these mountains), while I plod along behind. For the next five hours, I repeat “one foot, one foot” to myself as I inch my way up and then down to the flat land below.

At the bottom, I discover a tent has been erected in a meadow full of flowers; here relief and fatigue combine with hunger to make this the most delicious packed lunch of my life. I am caked in sweat, sunblock and dust, burnt by the ferocious sun and whipped by the rising wind.

This wilderness of rock and light has not been tamed Andrew Harvey, poet

Later in my stay, on one rose-gold evening, I cycle down from the 16th-century monastery and fort at Basgo, reaching the banks of the Indus river. Having been told the water was exceptionally cold for the time of year, I fake disappointment. I’m happy to admire the river without travelling on it – or in it.

As I twist and turn down the mountain on my hired bike, the only other traffic on the roads through the villages and fields is a single placid-looking dzo, a cross between a yak and a cow. However, once I reach the route through the army encampment, the number of vehicles steps up a notch, mostly army vans hooting with amusement at the sight of a middle-aged woman teetering along on a bike. Ladakh’s strategic importance means over 30 per cent of the Indian army is stationed here, in dusty, unlovable camps spread across the plains.

While much has not changed since Andrew Harvey visited, I am happy to find that his dire words about the state of hotels for tourists are thoroughly outdated.

London-based Black Tomato provided invaluable assistance with its local partner, Shakti. Two years ago, the owners of Shakti had the clever idea of renovating village houses in partnership with family owners to create a network of homestays for tourists. With delicious meals cooked in each house by an experienced chef, your laundry done, cold drinks and hot towels at the ready, and rooms warmed by wood-burning stoves, it’s the perfect way to experience the region.

On our increasingly crowded and noisy planet, it is a source of particular delight that a place as peculiar, empty and wonderful as Ladakh exists. And those dark skies also lend themselves to philosophical matters. The Gyalwang Drukpa claims that “each of us is connected through the heart to the entire universe – and so if you get into the mind, you will see the universe”.

My journey offered me the chance to see the universe through star gazing while connecting – through the Buddhist culture – to the universe within. I’m still not quite sure how to frame that as an adventure novel for children – but I’m going to try.

The essentials

Black Tomato (020 7426 9888; blacktomato.com) can arrange an eight-night luxury adventure to Ladakh, India, from £5,900 per person based on two sharing. This price includes full-board accommodation on private basis at the Shakti Ladakh village houses and a night at the Lodhi, Delhi on b&b basis, internal and international flights from London, private guides and activities, and private transfers.