My Ladakh Expedition - Jun'16

Well it took me few weeks to pen down my Ladakh expedition, but I am glad that finally I am going to post this. So Julley Julley everyone!! “Julley” means “Hello” in Ladakhi language. Whenever you meet any Ladakhi people, they greet you with a warm smile and julley.

It was an organized tour by Mr. U C Patel, a gem of a person and an excellent trip organizer. If you are a looking for a no-frills budget trips, then I would surely recommend you his tours. Organized tour has its own pros and cons, like the self-planned ones, but more about that on some other time:). Ours was a group of around 30 people. The trip started from Nadiad, Gujarat and people joined the group from their convenient locations. I and my wife, Mona, joined the group at New Delhi railway station.

Trip at a glance – First two weeks of Jun 2016

Day 1 – Reach to Srinagar
Day 2 – Srinagar local sightseen
Day 3 – Journey to Kargil
Day 4 – Journey to Leh
Day 5 – Leh local sightseen
Day 6 – Journey to Hundar, Nubra Valley
Day 7 – Journey to Turtuk and back to Hundar
Day 8 – Journey to Sumoor, Nubra Valley
Day 9 – Journey to Sasoma, Warshi and back to Sumoor
Day 10 - Journey to Pangong Lake
Day 11 – Enjoying Pangong Lake
Day 12 – Journey to TsoMoriri
Day 13 – Journey to Keylong via Sarchu
Day 14 – Journey to Manali and onward journey to Ambala
Day 15 – Relaxing at Ambala Cant and return to home

Day 1 – Reach to Srinagar

While others had started their journey from Nadiad on Day 0, we flew from Pune to Delhi and joined the group at New Delhi railway station. The train passed by Haryana and Panjab before entering into J&K. After taking a quick power nap, I preferred to sit by the window to enjoy the view. The view of beautiful farms and passing by towns and villages was really soothing my soul. I think that why people take vacations, to forget about their daily routines and do something different. We continued in train till Udhampur. Katra being the last stop of the train, most of the other passengers in the train were going to Vaishno Devi temple. Unlike us who didn’t have Mata Darshan in our itinerary.

The train was late by a couple hours to reach Udhampur. Our driver was waiting was waiting for us, along with his bus, at Udhampur station. He said the journey to Srinagar could take around 10 hours, depending on traffic conditions. It was a difficult road to drive at night, so without wasting anytime we got into the J&KSRTC bus, as soon as we got down from the train.

Soon I realized that the beautiful road trip has started. J&K being a hilly region, I got pleasant view of mountains and running water throughout the journey. The zigzag roads with sharp turns and steep ups-n-down had started from Udhampur itself. Charming Tawi River was accompanying us, much before we reached to Udhampur, which continued in our bus journey as well.

We took a break somewhere around Patni Top, a famous tourist destination, to have our dinner. It was a roadside dhaba and it was one of the best meal I had in the trip.

It was a full night travel. While most of us were sleeping, and some of us were snoring, I was finding it very difficult to sleep. I wasn’t sure of the reason, whether it was the excitement of the trip or the uncomfortable slippery seats. So I decided to look outside the window and sleep only when I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Picture outside the windows was dark, but the lightening was creating a nice silhouette of the hills. The small amount of lights coming from distant houses was creating nice puzzle-like images. As if it was asking me to find a pattern in the way they were built. They were very scattered and appearing intermittently throughout the journey.

After crossing Banihal, somewhere around Anantnag, out driver took a break for a couple of hours. It was around 2:30-3:00 am in the morning. Taking a break and stretching legs and arms, after such a tiresome ride is totally understandable. But the worst part was, he didn’t inform us before taking such a long break, otherwise I could have tried to catch on my sleep. All the time I was anticipating him to start bus.

Day 2 – Srinagar local sightseen

The day started in the bus journey itself, which we started the previous day.

Soon after we resumed from Anantnag, the sun had starting rising and we started getting glimpse of beautiful Kashmir. Before entering the city of Srinagar, we crossed the Pampore region. This town is famous for its saffron and the world famous Kashmiri willow cricket bats. While passing by Pamopre, we could see a number of shops and houses selling saffron and cricket bats.

After reaching to the Srinagar city center, we directly went to the Dal Lake and called up our hotel guy. He sent a couple of Shikaraa (boat) to carry our luggage and us. We checked into a hotel situated in the Dal Lake. I took a power nap before getting ready to explore Srinagar. After having breakfast, we started our Shikara ride at Dal Lake. By the time we started our ride, a lot of tourists had already come there. That patch of a Dal Lake was bursting with boat houses, Shikaras and tourists. You could witness all sort of merchant activities on your Shikara ride. A lot of vendors were approaching the visitors with their Shikaras; selling Ice Cream, Saffron, Fast Food, Flowers, Instant Photos etc… In fact there were few boat shops for Pashmina Shawl and other garments. Even the Srinagar Post Office is also in the Dal Lake, it was like a floating city. This lake frizzes in the winter and people walk on the lake instead of boating. The frozen lake must be looking incredible!

After enjoying the Shikara ride, we started exploring the city of Srinagar, along with our guide. Straight away we went to the Pari Mahal. It gave a nice view of the Dal Lake, which is much bigger than my initial impression. It was much cleaner and better than the portion we visited in the morning. At Pari Mahal, one of the girls, Meghal, from our group fell down. So she had to go to a doctor and unfortunately she got 3-4 stitching. We were anticipating that she would come with a sad face and would not enjoy the rest of the trip. But to our pleasant surprise, she came with a smile on her face and didn’t mention about it for the next 12 days. Not only that, she also enjoyed the trip thoroughly. Hats off to her spirit.

From there, we went to Chashme Shahi Garden. We saw the miraculous stream of water there, which was so clean and pure. It was said that the Mughal kings Akbar and Shahjahan, political leader Jawaharlal Nehru and other royalty people used to come here for this sacred water. Before we could spend much time in the garden, the clouds had started showering, so we had to go back to our bus. After that we went to Shalimar Garden and waited for the rain to stop. As soon as we got some dry window, we went inside this magnificent garden. In this garden we got the first glimpse of snow-capped Himalayan hill. We went totally crazy and took a lot of pictures with that hill.

While returning from gardens, we had some political discussions with our guide and local driver. They seemed to be unhappy with the government and wanted some more development for the region. On the way back, we saw the famous mosque and Hari Parbat Fort from distance. The rain had ruined a part of our plan for the day. However it was fortunate enough to give us sometime in the evening to explore the city market. Srinagar is indeed a city of marvelous gardens and a beautiful lake. 

Day 3 – Journey to Kargil

The Dal Lake was looking like a sleeping beauty in the morning. I felt the tourists, like us, are spoiling her beauty every day. We spent some time in taking pictures with the lake, while a new J&KSRTC bus was waiting for us to take us ahead. Our main focus of the trip was on Ladakh, so we didn’t spend much time in Kashmir.

We started our journey along with the lovely Indus River (Sindh/Sind River). Beautiful snow-capped mountain range had started appearing, just after we started off from Srinagar. When we saw the first glacier, many of us didn’t even believe it was ice. Soon we approached the famous Sonmarg, another tourist destination in Kashmir. Kashmir is considered as the heaven on the earth, and I realized it why! To reduce the congestion on the pass, the traffic was stopped for the coming vehicles there. That gave us some time to spend at the beautiful place. I did some photography and enjoyed the beautiful views of Sonmarg.
  

As soon as we got the clearance, we resumed our journey to Kargil. We were climbing up and the road was becoming narrow and dangerous. It was a rocky mountain at one side and sheer fall on other. The valley was looking beautiful and dangerous at the same time. On the way we saw the base camp for the religious Amarnath yatra. This is the other route for the Amarnath yatra, which is not much preferred by the pilgrims, because of its difficulty level. The more preferred route for Amarnath yatra is from Pahalgam.

Around 100 km before Kargil, we stopped near Zojila pass. At this place the hills were almost white, covered with ice. We were continuously taking pictures of those hills and were trying to capture the beauty of nature in our camera. Our caption was smiling at us and asking not to take many pics, as the journey had just started and we were going to witness much more snow and amazing landscape ahead. But I ignored him and continued to click more pics, after all you don’t get to see such beauty every day. Isn’t it? We continued our journey through those zigzag roads. We were not yet acclimated with the height and many of us had problem of motion sickness, so many of us threw up while going downhill.
  

Beautiful Drass River was flowing on our right side. It was a perfect picturesque background. Greenish blue water, black and brown mountains with white cap, occasional sight of horses and herd of sheep and very few people. We were actually in fairyland!

On our left, we saw a white hill top, standing tall among the rest of them. That was the “Tiger Hill”, where the critical part of Kargil War was fought. We were in Drass sector! Drass is the second coldest inhabited place in the world. I didn’t know that, before I saw the signboard on the road of Drass.
   

As soon as we got down from the bus to enter the Kargil War Memorial, a sudden rush of pride and patriotism started running through our veins, along with the blood. The sun was very bright there and the Indian flag was flying high in the azure blue sky. One of the army officer escorted us and gave us a briefing about the war. It was a high pitch speech, both verbal and emotional, of around 10 minutes. We visited the war museum and gathered some more information about the war. After paying homage to the brave soldiers, with heavy hearts, we started for our destination for the day, the Kargil town.

Our hotel was at the entrance of the town, on the banks of Suru River. I didn’t realize when I lost the track of river Drass and started following Suru. I was having a headache due to the harsh sun glares from the day, I guess. So I decided to go to bed instantly and use sunglasses from next day onwards.

Day 4 – Journey to Leh
We checked out of the hotel and started for Leh city in the morning. As our bus climbed the hills around Kargil, we got a nice view of the entire Kargil town. It was much bigger than what I had imagined!

On our way to Leh, we saw some exquisite rock carvings of Buddha and beautiful Gonpas (Gompas, temples). I felt the transition between Kashmir and Ladakh, somewhere around Kargil. The hills had turned barren and sandy brown in color from earlier lush green, The running river was also drying up. I could see some herd of sheep trying to eat remaining small grass on the hills. They were looking like small dots from distance. I wonder how they could stand there and how they could climb such mighty hills so easily! I think that is the advantage of four legs.

 

Around noon time, we reached at the Fotula Top - the highest point on Srinagar-Leh road. We took a small break there and clicked more pics.

From there, we continued our journey for another 35 odd minutes. Just out of nowhere, the town of Lamayuru greeted us. The glimpse of the Lamayuru Monastery was enough to mesmerize me. It has a fairytale associated with it. It is said that Lamayuru was once a lake. A lama blessed the place and the lake receded to give space for the construction of the monastery. The monastery was built with his magical powers. We visited the beautiful monastery and spent some appreciating the spiritual word and the rich artwork there. As soon as we started from Lamayuru, we saw colorful rocks – purple, greenish, grayish, black and brown. 
    

It was around 100 km from Leh, that’s where I saw the Indus flowing on my right again. But this time the water was more greenish blue in color, from earlier bluish color. After continuing for another 50 odd km, came the town of Nimmu. Just before that we saw beautiful purple and green rocks. Who says the mountains are the same everywhere and they are boring!! Visit Ladakh and you will realize the beauty of mountains. Just after Nimmu, we saw a sangam (union) of two rivers – Indus and Zanskar. Both of them had visibly different colors – blue and milky white. The view was just breathtaking.

Around 30 km before the city of Leh, we saw a board of the Magnetic Hill. Personally I couldn’t feel any magic there, but I saw some people trying to feel it by taking their cars and bikes on the hill. Not sure of the hill, but the air was magical there. It was chilled and blowing heavily there.

As soon as we entered into the Leh city, we saw the Hall of Fame, a war memorial. Due to some renovation activity, it was closed for visitors. So we spent some time in its souvenir shop and did some shopping before going deep into the Leh city. My first impression of Leh was - a city of prayer wheels, Gonpas, art and peace loving people. I felt like entering into a dreamland.

It was still sunny there, so instead of going to hotel first, we decided to go to the Shanti Stupa. Shanti Stupa, a white dome structure, is a well-maintained monument. It looked as if it was recently created and opened for visit yesterday. One can really get some Shanti (Peace) at this Stupa. It has nice Buddha paintings, explaining the Chakra (Turning wheel of Dharma) - Birth, defeating devils and Mahapari Nirvana. Shanti Stupa being on the hill top gives a panoramic view of the Leh valley and the Leh city. By the time we visited the Stupa, it had turned dark and it was getting really cold, so we went to the hotel and ended our day’s journey.

Day 5 – Leh local sightseen

It was a relaxed day, as we had planned to visit only the Leh palace and Leh city market. Our hotel was located on the fort road, very near to the city market. So after having breakfast, we started walking towards the Leh palace. This was also to acclimatize our body for the next day.

Leh palace is a very simple, yet very elegant building. The sandy brown color and the structure of the palace is really complimenting the Leh valley. Ladakhi people are very down to earth and simple in nature. I think their kings were also simple like them and didn’t believe in any kind of showoff. Leh Palace is a legacy of Ladakhi's wars with Kashmir rulers in the 19th century. It is a miniature version of Potala Palace in Lhasa (Tibet). This nine storied building was the highest building in the world of its own time. The palace gave a panoramic view Leh velly, Leh city, the Zanskar mountain ranges and the Leh mountain ranges. Leh is the largest town of the region. Leh became the capital of Ladakh during the reign of King Graspa Bum-Lde, who ruled Ladakh from 1400 to 1430 AD. In the later period, Leh became an important center for trade in Central Asia, along the Indus Valley between Tibet to the east, Kashmir to the west and ultimately between India and China.


There was an old palace and a monastery nearby the Leh Palace. It was catching my attention from the previous day, from the very first I saw it. In fact in the morning, while walking through the market and trying to locate the palace, I thought it was the actual palace. Technically I was right. It was the old palace – Castle Tsemo, Namgyal Tsemo (victory peak). It was around 20-25 mins climb from the Leh palace. So I, along with Harsh, decided to go there. The first patch of climb was really stiff and I could feel my lungs in just 3-4 minutes. My heart was pumping so heavily as if it was going to come out. It again reminded me that we are in Leh, more than 3500 mt above sea level and our body is not acclimatized for height. So we took break for a minute or so, to let it calm down and then continued climbing slowly. The gonpa has a huge Buddha statute inside, it was just mind blowing. I think it was a loss for those who didn’t climb with us. The monastery also gave a very good view of Shanti Stupa.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the city market. There was an outstanding collection of Ladakhi art and culture, beautiful colors and exquisite range of things for décor. We bought T-shirts written Khardungla on it just for the show off and making our friends jealous. We were told that after we leave Leh, it would be difficult to find an ATM. So we all went searching for our bank. They city market had ATM of all major banks – SBI, PNB, ICICI, HDFC and IDBI. There was a huge queue outside SBI. The market flooring was being renovated and being made exclusive for pedestrian users. Though the sky was a total clutter with wires running everywhere. But the Leh palace and the old place were still catching my eyes.

Day 6 – Journey to Hundar, Nubra Valley

The day spent in Leh was memorable for me. The hangover of it wasn’t over yet and we were leaving Leh. We got our next bus from the Leh city depot and that is how we met our new driver, Mr. Tashi. He is an extremely skillful driver. Over the period of next 10 days, I saw him driving in the most difficult roads in the word and I can say for sure that he is one of the finest drivers. Driving without power steering sharp hairpin band turns with such precision requires extraordinary driving skills. The driving speed there could be measured in RPM of the steering wheel, instead of KMPH of wheels. He was constantly rotating the steering wheel in one direction and then rapidly in other direction.

The journey to Hunder was extremely exiting. On one side we had the mighty Himalaya with those white peaks and on the other side we had very difficult roads, sharp turns and deep valleys. We were gaining the altitude rapidly. 
  

As we had to cross the Khardungla pass, the world highest motorable road, we preferred not to fill our stomach with heavy breakfast. Instead, we had a lot of water and some fruits. All of us were eagerly waiting for Khardung la pass. It was one of the places, we had heard about before coming here. Names of other places were relatively new to us. In no time, we crossed 15,500 ft. We took a short break to give our body some time to acclimatize, before we move to Khardungla. Soon after that we reached the famous Khardungla top at 18,380 ft. It was just about 40 km from Leh. It is advised not to spend more than 15-20 minutes there, due to low oxygen. So we quickly took some pics and started going from down. I couldn’t even imagine, how the road was constructed there. How could anybody work in such conditions!! Did they deploy any robots for the labor!!

The view on the other side of Khardungla was simply mind blowing. It was like the entire mountain was covered in a big white sheet. After we crossed the patch of those white mountains, I saw some very interesting range of hills. They had so many marks of water stream. I just wondered how many years, or rather decades, it would have taken to come to the shape it is in today.

Around 100 km from Leh, we started a new chapter of our Journey – the magnificent Nubra valley. It is a magical valley which has desert like sand dunes, river, green trees, barren hills, and ice covered hilltops, all together at one place. It has a sangam of two rivers – Shayok River and Nubra River. From history’s view point, it was a major trade route, known as the famous “Silk Route”. It connected Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir kingdom, Ladakh kingdom and China in old times. Today it is a base of three militaries – India, Pakistan and China.

We were going to spend next 3-4 days in this amazing valley. After reaching to our hotel at Hundar, we spent some time in chitchat. Electricity in Nubra valley is a luxury. Our hotel guy informed us that electricity is supplied just for around 1.5-2 hrs in the evening. So if we had to charge our cameras, mobiles and whatnot, it could be done only in that time. He had generator power backup, but that could last only for another hour or so.

Day 7 – Journey to Turtuk and back to Hundar

I could feel the sense of relaxedness in everybody that morning. In the morning, we spent some time in the hotel garden. Manishbhai, a professional photographer, made everybody pose like models and took some shots – single, couple, group photos, jumping shots, flowers, you name it!

Around 10 o’clock, we started our trip To Turtuk, a village near Indo-Pak LOC. A lady tourist from Israel also wanted to go there from Hunder, so we offered her lift in our bus. It was nice having a conversation with her and knowing how fascinated she was about India. After Ladakh she had planned to visit Varanasi to see Ganga Aarti. At that time I felt bit ashamed of myself, as I hadn’t visited Varanasi so far!

On the way to Turtuk, we met an army man from Ahmedabad. He, along with his team, was assigned to guard a bridge there. After talking to us for some time he became so emotional as if he was about to cry. It reminded me of the famous Bollywood song “Snadeshe aate hai” from the movie “Border”. Indeed a soldier’s life is a difficult one, only brave men could opt for it.

We travelled along the Shayok River, till Turtuk village. The landscape there was truly amazing. Throughout the journey we had seen water, hills and valleys. But undoubtedly all the region had their own distinct identity. The hills were different in terms of color, shape, structure and texture. The rivers were different too - milky white to blue to green, and from running streams to calm-looking rivers. Apart from the stunning beauty, this route had a couple dangerous places from driving perspective.

After the lady from Israel got down at the Turtuk village, we were allowed to go a few km further towards LOC. There we met the Gorkha Rifles soldiers. It was round 10 km from LOC, so we could see few military posts on the steep hills. I could just imagine how difficult their life would be. Only Gorkha, with naturally acclimatized body for such terrain, could withstand that hardship. Salute to them!! Sometime I think, what if no country had to protect their boundaries? What if the human learns to control his greed? We could invest much more into the development, in making everybody’s life better. I wish someday we all realize that and we all live in a border free world, in peace and serenity. Amen!!

Then we took a short visit to the Turtuk village and talked to the locals. We heard few stories from one of the old man there, stories of war, two nations, old kings and trade. On the way back to Hunder, we got a chance to interact with the local kids. They were super cute, initially they were bit shy and reluctant. But after showing their pics on camera, couple of them got friendly and gave some more poses.

The nice view of hills and river continued. At some places, the mud and small stones, dragged down from the hills, had created another mini hills. It must have been devastating when that happened. But I wonder if any human was around at that time to witness it happening.

We came back to hotel in the evening and relaxed for some time. Just like the previous day, we didn’t have electricity, so we decided to go out in the garden and do some chitchat. It was a dark night, but to our surprise the sky was looking amazing with twinkling stars. Being a villager by birth, I was fortunate enough to see clear sky and lots of stars in my childhood. But this view, at Nubra valley, was extra ordinary. I had never seen so many stars in one go in my entire life. Soon we called rest of the folks and started discussing about the stars. We had a professor, Dr. Alpesh Patel, in our group. He was helping everybody in identifying the starts and zodiacs (nakshatra). It was a perfect way to end the eventful day!

Day 8 – Journey to Sumoor, Nubra Valley

On this day, we started another eventful journey Hunder to Sumoor.

Nubra valley is also famous for its Double Humped Bactrian Camels. After a brief drive, we started our day with a camel safari there. Looking at the people on camel I again went to the flashback, imaging the busy silk route. I felt like the hills were smiling at me, knowing what I was thinking and also telling me that yes I have seen that all. Then I started thinking about life before that. I think only the time has seen it all - rivers changing their route, mountains changing their structure and life coming to this place.

After camel safari, we went to the Diskit market, I guess it is the biggest town in this valley. We replenished the stock of our grocery and started for Diskit monastery from there. The grand statue of Buddha, clearly visible from distance, is looking at the nubra valley. It felt like he is looking after the people in the valley and showering his blessings upon them. Not only the statue was magnificent, it was rich in art as well. The color, design and minute details caught everybody’s attention.
  

After spending some time with the statue and appreciating the view of Nubra valley, we visited the nearby Gonpa. Going there required a small hill climb. It was a beautiful structure made in 14^th century. To my surprise, I saw a Maha Kali temple along with a Budhha temple there. It is believed that she is the protector of Nubra valley and she did kill all the attackers of the valley. Just like any other monastery, this monastery also had beautiful paintings on the wall. They really depicts the craftsmanship and test of art of the Buddhist people.

After the spiritual journey, we quickly went back to the material world. On the way, we saw a camp for the ATVs. They were offering a ride on sand dunes on the ATV bike. Our driver tried his hands at the ATV, but I think he liked his bus more than it.

From there, we continued till Sumoor village. It was a lovely village with a small market and a big prayer wheel at the entrance. We had booked a beautiful hotel in the foothill of Karakoram. After check in, we tried to take some rest, but I felt like the prayer wheel at the market was calling me. It was already 7:30 pm, but it wasn’t that dark yet. So we went for a quick walk till the market and spent some time in appreciating the art and the view. The prayer wheel, along with the prayer flags and White Mountains in the background, was looking absolutely graceful. I wish there wasn’t any vehicles around it, but after all it was at the entrance of a village.

Day 9 – Journey to Sasoma, Warshi and back to Sumoor

We began our journey towards Siachen glacier base camp and Indo-China border after a lazy start in the morning. It was a journey towards village Sasoma and further village Warshi.

The Nubra Valley again offered some spectacular views and glimpse of Siachen glacier. After driving for a couple of hours, we had to stop around ~15 km before Indo-China border. Tourists weren’t allowed beyond that point. That place had was a running water stream, a bridge, a temple, amazing hills and valley around, what else do we need! We spent around an hour there and did some photography.

On the way back to Sumoor, we stopped at the Panamik hot spring. The sulfur makes the water hot and gives different colors to the rock – yellow, white and red. The water was boiling hot, at the origin of spring, but it was gradually losing the heat while flowing. It is believed that, the water has medical properties against skin diseases and joint pains. The local administration had constructed a bathing facility, so some of us took bath there.

From there, we came back to the hotel and another scenic daytrip. We had planned to call the local folk artists at night for some dance performance, but due to cold weather they couldn’t make it.

Day 10 - Journey to Pangong Lake

On this day, we were going to begin another chapter of our tour. In the morning we started over journey to leave the beautiful Sumoor behind. Once again going through the Nubra valley took me back to my imaginary world. I couldn’t get rid of the thoughts of silk route and the traders.

For the initial few hours we were travelling in the valley. It was different from our previous journey, where we travelled on the edges of hills. The magnificent hills gave us company throughout the road. On the way we faced some of the extreme roads, sharp U turns and daunting valleys. Sitting along with the driver, and getting that 180 degree driver’s view, was not a cup of tea for the faint hearted people.

We were going towards Tso (Lake) Pangong. We stopped near the Chang La pass for some permit clearance and continued towards Pangong Lake. All of a sudden we started seeing lot of vehicles, which we didn’t see in last week or so. Just about an hour before the Pangong Lake, our bus broke down. It wasn’t a major problem, so our driver was able to fix it quickly. That gave us additional time to take some pics.

Apart from the natural scenery, Ladakh is also famous for its wild life. We saw a beautiful creature called “Marmot” on the way to Pangong. It looks like a hybrid version of a rabbit and a rat. In fact, it is a large squirrel in the genus Marmota. Some of their species live in the Alps in Europe, Rocky Mountains in North America and in Deosai Plateau in India (Ladakh) and Pakistan.

As soon as we saw the glorious Pangong Lake, we immediately asked the driver to take a break. We were so obsessed with the lake view that we didn’t want to miss out on it, even though we had planned to spend the entire next day at the lake.

At the lake, the temperature was below zero degree at night. So to avoid any risks, we didn’t opt for the tents and choose the option of homestay.

Day 11 – Enjoying Pangong Lake

That morning was bit different from the rest of them from the trip. Being a home stay, we didn’t have a luxury of any hotel. In fact, we had only one bathroom to be shared among 30 odd people. We had no other plans for the day, apart from enjoying the beauty of the glorious Tso Pangong, so all of us took time in finishing the morning rituals. Some of us had faced breathing problems in the previous night, so we discussed about it and did some chitchat.

In terms of beauty and the landscape, the Lake Pangong is no less than the Lake Louise of Alberta, Rocky Mountains. They both have beautiful blue water surrounded by splendid white hills. It was a day at leisure, we spent the entire day at the lake.

We went to the 3-idiot fame point. Frankly speaking, the lake is much more than shown in the movie. Pangong Lake is 134 km long and spread across India and China. This little patch is hardly 200 mt long. After the movie this tiny patch has become famous, so people come to this lake just to see it. After the movie, this point has developed some commercial activities like archery, horse riding, etc… But the best thing to do there was to spend some time in the tranquility, feel the calmness of the pure water and witness the magnificence of the hills around, rising in the azure blue sky. It was a real treat to the eyes. On the one side there was water in different shades of blue and on the other side there was beach like sand & sandy brown snow-capped hills. Truly amazing! Incredible India!
   

I spent some more time at the lake taking pictures of the Seagulls and also of our group members. Soon I saw something extraordinary, which I hadn’t seen before. A rainbow around the sun. It was a complete circle of a rainbow around the sun! Looking at it for a longer duration was difficult and you can guess why. But taking a good picture was even more difficult. I guess camera can’t capture what human eyes can, or maybe I have a lot to learn in photography yet!!
  

It a day well spent with nature.

Day 12 – Journey to TsoMoriri

From the Tso Pangong, we started our journey to the Tso Moriri. We started driving side by side the Tso Pangong. We took the first break around Man village to saw an ancient fish fossil. Locals there consider it holy and worship it. The lake was looking even more beautiful in the morning with multiple shades of blue color.

We continued driving by the lake for around couple of hours before saying goodbye to the lake and started going towards Chuchil. The Indo-China border was around 5-6 km away from there. Needless to say, the view was just splendid. On the way we saw some wild donkey, horses and yaks.

On the way we stopped at a couple of war memorials to pay homage to the martyrs of “Chuchil” & “Kumaon”. How can somebody think of a war in such a lovely place on the earth! God bless humans.
  
  

From there we continued our journey towards Karzok. We met a couple of lady officers, around 1.5 km away from the Indo-Tibet border. They were guarding a critical bridge there. We had a little chat with them. One of the lady officers was from Bhiloda Gujarat, a place very near to my village, and the other was from Nanded Maharashtra, a place very near to my current work location Pune. I felt the connection with both of them immediately and it was really a proud moment for me.

Somewhere around village Nyoma, we saw people playing cricket and few villages watching the live match. Immediately we stopped there and watched a few overs. Soon after that we took another break to have some food. And guess what I got a chance to click the bird I was chasing throughout the entire tour – the black billed magpie. I first saw it around Srinagar and from that day I used to get its glimpse every day, but was not getting a chance to take a good pic of it.
  

We were around 55 km from Karzok, when we took a left turn from the Nyoma-Leh road. On the way, we saw a beautiful small lake. We were all tired from the long ride and Karzok was still ~40 km away, so we didn’t stop there. Soon after that, we started getting the glimpse of Tso Moriri. After completing the permit formalities we entered the Karzok village.

At Karzok, we took a quick walk to the lake, which was around 2 kms from the hotel. The mercury on the thermometer was going down rapidly and it was already getting dark. While some girls were brave enough to take off the jackets for taking pictures, some of us didn’t take any chances.
  

Day 13 – Journey to Keylong

It was an early morning and we were ready to embark on another hectic journey. We were about to leave Karzok, but nature had some surprise for us. The brown hills we saw ~8 hrs back had turned white. Yes, there was a snowfall that night.
   

We started from Karzok to Keylong, via Sarchu. Everybody in the group had a wish to see the snowfall. And guess what, soon after we started from Tso Moriri it started snowing! I felt like Ladakh was giving us a return gift. We stopped there and enjoyed the snow.

We resumed our journey after enjoying the snow. Soon we saw few green rocks, getting its color from the heavy sulfur content. The local government once tried to run a matchbox making factory there, to take advantage of the available sulfur. But it didn’t work out, not sure why!!

From there we continued towards Manali-Leh highway. On the way we saw beautiful Tso Kar, a lake with salty water. It was the only source of salt for the entire Ladakh region once. After developing better connectivity with the other parts of country, the government had started importing salt from other parts of the nation. It is always good to know the stories behind the place and I am sure each place in India has a number of stories to tell.

Soon after TsoKar, we merged into the Manali-Leh highway. The view was absolutely stunning. Beautiful mountains covered in snow and yaks running by the road. We saw few cycling enthusiasts on the way. They must have done a hell lot of practice before coming here!

Within no time, we reached the Pang pass. The mountains had started turning into golden brown from previously sandy brown. It appeared that we were moving away from Ladakh. We stopped at Pang, the world’s highest transit camp at 15640 ft. The landscape around Pang was absolutely breathtaking, small temple like hill tops catches everybody’s attention. The journey through amazing hills continued. After Pang La pass, we crossed couple of more passes – Lachung La and Neela La. On the way we saw few pilgrims from Thailand. They were on their religious journey, crossing these hills on their feet!
  

A while after that, we were again back in the icy mountains. The road had thick walls of ice on the both the sides. We were passing through it, amazing it was. On the way, I saw a couple of broken trucks in the valley on my left. As if they weren’t removed after the accident, just to remind other drivers to stay alert! We took a break somewhere in those icy mountains and played with ice. That’s our driver making a snow tower.
  

Soon after that we reached Sarchu, entered into HP and leaving the dreamland of J&K behind. On the way to Keylong, we crossed the village named Zispa. It looked like a camping town to me, as I saw a lot of camping sites near Zispa. After crossing Sarchu, I thought the hills and passes were over. But I was wrong, in fact till the time we reached Keylong, we were going up all the time. The view from the bus window was scary – dip valley and fast running river at the bottom. It really took my breath away.

After around 14 hrs of amazing journey, we reached at our hotel in Keylong.

Day 14 – Journey to Manali and onward journey to Ambala

Another day had started and we had to cover around 125 km to reach Manali. After taking a good view of the Bhaga River, which becomes Chenab later on in her journey, we started towards Manali around 8 am. I thought 125 km would be a piece of cake and we will reach Manali in 3-4 hours, giving us some time to explore Manali. I was wrong again, huge traffic jam at Rohtang La pass and near Manali took us aournd 8.5 hrs to reach there. Piece of advice to all the travelers, try to cross Rohtang la pass as early as you can in the morning. Also if you are just crossing the Rohtang pass for Ladakh then don’t stay there to play with snow. You will get, or you would have got - depending on the direction of your travel, places more beautiful and less crowed than it to enjoy the snow. Tons of local taxi drives, carrying tourists from Manali, creates a huge traffic jam on the Rohtang pass.

Apart from being a tourist hub of the visitors coming from Manali, Rohtang has its own beauty and importance. What I liked the most about it was the glittering stones. I carried a couple of them with me as a souvenir. Hills around Rohtang were white due to the snow, but as soon as we reached near Manali, they turned green due to lush green beautiful pine trees.

Rohtang pass, a fully commercialized tourist destination, had few points for sliding (snowboarding) and paragliding. Our bus got stuck at a couple of places, as some taxi drivers tried to jump the line creating a traffic jam. Some of us had to get down and manage the traffic by our own. It was a different experience. I felt like we were coming back to reality from the dream world. After spending around two weeks with nature, without seeing many humans and vehicles, that chaos and angry taxi drivers reminded me that we had already started the return trip. As soon as we entered the  city of Manali, we faced another traffic jam. We had 3-4 hours to spend at Manali, so we decided to take a walk in the market. Manali market was busting with the tourists and I realized the harsh reality that my Ladakh trip was over and I was going back to the routine now.

In the evening we said goodbye to our Ladakhi driver Tashi and took another bus to Ambala. We started from Manali to Mandi via Kulu. The running mighty Beas River was accompanying us. The water was looking bit muddy and brownish white in color. I saw a lot of warning boards by the local authorities, advising people not to enter the dangerous water. But I saw a lot many people going into water and taking selfies! I think, that is when the mishaps happen. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of running water. The signboards reminded me a famous travel slogan – “Yatri apne saman ki khud suraksha kare”. Indeed!!

In the Manali-Mandi region the fruit plantation looked very common. I could see a number of fruit trees from the bus itself – Apple, Plum, Pomegranate, Fig and Walnut. Those exotic fruits for the rest of the India looked pretty common there. The rout to Ambala was equally interesting and picturesque, but the only difference was there were lot many vehicles on the road. Also being a night journey, I couldn’t capture it in my camera.

On day 1, we were a group of unknown people, formally smiling and occasionally talking to each other. But on the day 14, we were talking like childhood friends. We started exchanging the phone numbers and inviting each other to our houses.

Day 15 – Relaxing at Ambala Cant and return to home

After spending the entire previous night in the bus, we reached at Ambala early in the morning.

After having a heavy brunch, we headed back to our hotel. Some of us had energy to explore the city and go for a movie, but I stayed back in the hotel room and caught up on my sleep. After all I had to spend another long night at the airport.

For the last lag of our journey, we took the evening train from Ambala Cant. After meeting everyone in the group, I and Mona got down at New Delhi railway station to catch the early morning flight. Others continue their train journey till their destination.

This was the end of my unplanned and a long awaited Ladakh trip. Just like everybody, after coming from a long trip, we also decided to go for at least 1 long trip every year. Only time will tell whether we will succeed in our plan or not!! But as of now I am feeling really good after taking one item off from my bucket list. This journey has also inspired me to start writing again, which I stopped few years ago. To start with I am planning to write small travel posts, just to refresh my memories and to help other fellow travelers in planning their trips.

Here is our epic group pic.
 

For more pics of Ladakh, please visit my FB album -->­ Here

Tips for Ladakh visitors

• Carry and use good quality of lip guard, sunscreen/UV sun block and sunglass
• Drink lots n lots of water
• Keep some time for acclamation. Remember to gain altitude gradually.
• Drive safe. If you are going to drive by yourself then carry extra fuel. Know the basics of your vehicle, like how to replace a flat wheel, deal with the radiator problem, basic starting problems, etc.
• Most part of Ladakh doesn’t have mobile phone coverage. Only BSNL postpaid connection works in the villages and towns, where they have towers.
• For photo enthusiast – Double check your pics and make sure that you are satisfied with it, before leaving the place. Don’t forget to carry lenses hood. The sun glare really kills the photo contrasts and makes the image dull. This was one of the mistakes I did, I really regret it.

Humble request to all the visitors - of Ladakh and anywhere in the world

Protect environment. Please don’t throw food packets, chips and chocolate wrappers, water bottles etc anywhere. They really stays there for eternity making the place dirty. Please don’t take pictures wherever it is prohibited. In Ladakh, you will get a chance to see many military camps, posts, bunkers and chance to meet many army personal. Please don’t share the sensitive photos/information on social media.