Royal family of Leh has a museum known as Museum of stok palace. This museum is situated inside the same palace at an extent of 13.5km as of Leh. The museum has plenty of precious artifacts and belongings of Royal family such as Copper coins, royal crowns, Jewelers, equipments and instruments for prayers, valued heirlooms, and expensive stones along with incredibly old Thangkas of 16th century depicting the wisdom and life of Buddha. This palace is a storehouse of Buddhist ethnicity and life style and is a fine museum for Buddhist remnants present in India. Stok palace can easily be reached by shared taxis or local jeeps.

Museum of Royal Family

In the month of summer, the previous royal family member and ex- parliamentarian lives here. One room of this palace has been transformed into family museum. The mesmerizing articles includes traditional ritual items, prized heirlooms, formal tea kits, royal crowns  and beautiful Thangkas of 16th century having illuminated paint made out of trodden precious stones like sapphires, emeralds and rubies.

The antique head-dresses coated with prefect turquoise, lapis lazuli, elegant coral and lumps of gold, supposed to be originally of Tibet, are even now worn on special occasions by the head of Royal family. There are also some striking pairs of swords with supposedly coupled in knots by the king Tashi Phugtal Gompa as the display of his power.

Attractions

Stok Palace

The Stok palace was built by the last king of free Ladakh in the beginning of 19th century and has been the authorized habitat of Royal family of Ladakh after their ousting from Shey and Leh in the earliest phase of 17th century. This stylish four-storied palace is located on the apex of a big moraine of stones on the slope of the mountains over flat area of barley decorated with circles of hard level floors and colorless washed farmhouses.

On Display

The stok palace has about 77 rooms and the present queen or Gyalmo, an ex parliament member, still comes here to live in summer. She has transformed one part of the palace into a little antique museum. This antique museum has interesting collections of Royal house like valued heirlooms with traditional ritual items, wonderful Thangkas of 16th century with illuminated paint made out from precious stones including rubies and official tea equipments.

The antique head-dresses coated with prefect turquoise, lapis lazuli, elegant coral and lumps of gold, supposed to be originally of Tibet, are even now worn on special occasions by the head of Royal family. There are also some striking pairs of swords with supposedly coupled in knots by the king Tashi Phugtal Gompa as the display of his muscle power. There are also some scared “pure happiness pearls”- Dzi Stones, fallen from paradise and are capable to keep away the bad spirits

Stok Gompa

Stok Gompa, the collections of masks dance drama and few bright paintings executed on the walls by Lamas, is at a walking distance from the valley. These Lamas of Lingshet Gompa situated in Zanskar area are also made and painted the statue of Maitreya in Tiske.

Oracles of Stok

The lay oracles of Stok exhibit their presentation in the festival of Lchagrang which is celebrated according to Tibetan calendar on third month’s ninth and tenth days. Stok also has one more attraction in Archery competition of July month every year. Here the small water mills ground the roasted grains into meal and known as Matho.

How to Reach

By Road/Bus

The distance from Srinagar to Leh is about 700km and the buses of JKSRTC ply on this route to reach Leh in two days. HRTC also operates buses from Manali to cover the distance of 474km to reach Leh in about 20 Hrs. If these buses stop on route then take around two days. Services of jeep can also be availed.

By Plane/Air

The different domestic airlines fly from Delhi to Leh regularly. Srinagar and Jammu are also connected to Leh by Air traffic. Leh is connected to other Indian and foreign cities via Delhi. The cost of taxi travelling from town to Leh airport is around 1000INR.

By Train/Rail

The nearest railway head for Leh is Jammu. The visitors can travel to Leh via Srinagar for a ticket of around 1000INR by buses to cover 740km distance.

Visitor Information

The visiting times of the Stok palace are from 8 am to 1pm and from 2pm to 6pm. Thus the visitors can only explore the stok palace to its maximum for four to five hours. The spare time can also be utilized by the visitors to visit and explore the nearby Spituk monastery.