Trip to Ladakh

Leh – a small town surrounded by sandy and rocky mountains. It's one of the destinations where everyone should go, atleast once. Just googling this place on internet will leave you will lots of pictures and even more imaginations. Finally I took a break from the so-called busy life and planned for a trip to Leh.

My journey started from Ahmedabad. Catching an evening flight to Delhi, staying overnight at the national capital, and continuing the journey to Leh early next morning. Boarding a plane was never so much fun and thrilling. As the plane entered the Kashmir valley, and as we moved further towards Leh, the sight became simply awesome. Snow covered mountains all over, and the plane flying between those white tips. Sun just started peeping on these mountain tops and the radiance got spread everywhere. The moment we landed at the Leh airport and disembarked the plane, the first glimpse of the place took our breath.

They say, at 12000 feet height, you are bound to grasp for oxygen – so better be prepared and take necessary precautions. Proper medications, warm clothes, sun-screen lotions, moisturizers, sun glasses, and the list continues.

It was around 7 am. We came out of the airport and there was a cab waiting for us. We reached Hotel LehChen, one of the nicest and comfortable hotels in the town.

I would like to give a special mention about the local people in Leh. I have never seen so warm and welcoming people anywhere in the country. You may go to Goa or down south or even far east, but Ladakhi people will stand out for their humility and good conduct. We worked our way out, and got the rooms at the top floor, with probably the best view of the scenic beauty surrounding the place.

First day at Leh was dedicated to complete rest. We need to acclimatize to the weather condition and hence it is advised to control the adrenaline rush within and the urge to explore nearby places. Stay at the room, roam around in the hotel, have nice food, chit chat, gossip, play cards and sleep.

Second day was dedicated to local site seeing in Leh. We visited Shanti Stupa, a local Monastery and the famous Leh Palace. Shanti Stupa is a temple-like structure with idols of Buddha and his life story depicted on the walls surrounding the stupa. Local people say that the precious works of Buddhist literature have been preserved inside the stupa, and is not accessible by anyone. The Shanti Stupa was located just behind our hotel. We can very well climb up the mountain and reach the stupa (something we did few days later).

Monasteries are something that you will find at every nook and corner in Leh. But these monasteries produce some of the finest art works, what they call Tanka paintings. We visited a similar monastery in Leh, where there were Buddhist monks doing their rituals.

Leh is also famous for its mud palace. This palace is made of stones, mud-bricks, mud-mortar, wooden rafters and mud-plaster. It's a pretty huge monument looking at the size of the surrounding buildings. The palace is having 9 floors, constructed along the slope of the mountain, and the city view from every floor is simply majestic.

After all this site seeing, we decided to have the special ladakhi food for lunch. That's Momos (typical veggie dumplings) and Thumpa (noodle soup). It was a real good experience. Post lunch, we returned to our hotel and spent the rest of the day resting. Morning breakfast, evening snacks, dinner…we were lucky to have very good meals at Lehchen. The only problem – a minor one, that we occasionally faced was getting hot water. Needless to say, there were days when I didn't get hot water, and that kept me away from bathing. Though we were lucky enough to have a television set in our rooms, that actually helped me in spending most of the time in the most effective manner inside the room.

Third day of our trip was dedicated to Pangong lake (the one we see in the ending scenes of the movie 3-idiots). The journey to Pangong was one of its kind. We passed through the sandy and rocky mountains. And in the middle of no where, there were small small green patches, ensuring the existence of humans in those regions. We were told by the hotel staff that the weather that day was not that good, especially on the way to Pangong.

We reached certain height, and we were into the clouds. Suddenly it started snowing. First time in my life, I saw real snow fall. We entered the territory of snow clad mountains. And in no time, we reach the world's third highest pass - Chang-la (17586 feet).

The temperature was around -6 degrees and it was indeed very chilling. I was struggling to click more pics and rushed into the car. Soon we left chang-la and continued with our journey to Pangong. On the way we came across rivers, streams, cattles grazing, lush green fields and so on. We took a break on the way, near some village. They had arranged for a hot lunch for us. I can still feel the softness of the rotis and taste of the daal they cooked.

We moved on and were waiting eagerly for that one glimpse of the pangong lake. After a long drive, finally we reached the lake. Though the weather was not so good that day, still we can visualize how beautiful the lake would look had the skies been clear.

It was raining at Pangong lake, and the wind was also blowing with all its strength. How would it be like, if we can get a cup of hot tea, and say, a bowl full of hot noodles. We discovered a small tent near the lake, where the person was running a small dhaba kind of business. We immediately ordered for tea and maggi noodles and enjoyed it in the cool breeze outside.

Considering the weather conditions, and since all other cars had already left, we decided to start our return journey. It is advisable to travel with a group of vehicles, acting as convoy to each other. The return trip was also via chang-la pass, where we again stopped for a while and clicked few more snaps.

We came back to the hotel, took some rest, had a nice hot dinner, played cards, watched tv, and went to sleep. Good rest was a must, since we had travelled nearly 300 k.m. that day, and were all set for an adventurous outing for the next day.

Day four was scheduled for visits to few nearby places outside Leh town. But we had our own different plans. We got a very good combined deal for river rafting and mountain climbing. Early morning, as soon as we finished our breakfast, the cab had arrived to pick us up. We had to go to Chilling, a place from where river Zanskar has a good down-stream, ideal situation and the starting point for exciting river rafting. Also I would mention that the road to Chilling is one the most eye-catching roads. The mountains, valleys, zanksar river flowing. You can actually witness rocks with some unimaginable colors like green, purple, black, blue, cholocate, silver.

We reached Chilling at around 11 am. The support teams were ready with all the gears and rafts. We put on the clothes provided by them, along with the life jackets and helmets. After receiving few initial tips and commands, we were all set for river rafting.

28 kms long river rafting, indeed a tiring task. After 3 hours of slogging, finally we reached the sangam point – where two major rivers (Zanskar and Indus) meet. The organizers had arranged for a quick lunch. We quickly changed our dresses, relaxed for a while, had lunch and got ready to visit near by places.

On our way back, we halted at a place named Magnetic hill. This particular place is said to have a strong magnetic power, that can actually pull a vehicle up-hill when put on neutral gear. It does sound weird, but believe me its true. We parked our vehicle on the down-hill, put it on neutral gear and as soon as we released the clutch and brake, the car started moving towards the top (unlike usual downward motion). It was surprising to watch the magnetic power being stronger than gravity on that particular patch.

Then we visited a gurudwara on the way to Leh. Probably the highest gurudwara in the world. I wonder how many things in Leh (almost all) are listed as the highest in the world.. :)

We returned to our hotel and fell on the bed as if we were all exhausted with the energy sapping day. But my friends had something else in mind. We hardly rested for an hour and they we all set to climb up the hill next to our hotel and go to the shanty stupa again. Tired me, decided to take the responsibility of clicking their pics while trekking (and other surroundings as well).

An exciting day ended. We were all so thrilled with the river rafting experience, and more than the thrill, we were so awed by the scenic beauty of the place. It was simply out of the world.

Fifth day was unexpectedly the most tiring day of our trip. We had to check out from our hotel in the morning. We were going stay over-night at the Nubra valley. Excursion to nubra valley – via Khardung-la (world's highest pass) was one heck of a ride. Going up and down the hills, eyes witnessing the sparkling beauty of the snow clad mountain ranges. The pick of the journey was Khardung-la pass. Never ever in my life did I even imagine myself standing at 18000+ feet (18380 to be precise). I actually and literally felt on the top of the world while we were climbing up the khardung-la pass.

Soon after we left Khardung-la pass, we had a small water stream following us throughout the way. It was as if the river was playing in the lap of Mother Nature. We stopped for a while, clicked some more pics of the mountains and river. Every sight was soothing our eyes, and we just felt like staying longer and spending as much time as possible. But we had to reach the Nubra valley by evening and so we continued with our journey.

The road to Nubra was yet another eye-catcher. Crossing the rivers and small bridges, occasionally we found ourselves surrounded by huge rocks and mountains. At times our necks started paining, since we had to look absolutely straight up in the air to find the mountain tops. There is one straight road (nearly 3-4 kms) where you will find yourself standing at the lowest part of the valley, surrounded by those gigantic mountains. We stopped there, got off the car and enjoyed the endless mountain ranges of Himalayas.

Just moments away from this deserted road, there was a waterfall. Finding water in the middle of a desert surely gives you a sense of achievement. We also visited a temple near the nubra valley.

In an hour's time, we reached Hundar – place famous for its desert and camel rides. You will find typical double humped camels in this part. On one side you will see sand dunes and on the other side you will see cool water stream with lush green surroundings. One of the rarest sight I have ever witnessed – combination of snow clad mountains, forests, rivers, streams, waterfalls, dry desert and sand at one single location. That was moment when I bowed down the nature and firmly believed that after all it's the nature, the sole super power that can possibly make or break anything in the world.

After spending some time in the desert, we started our journey to nubra camp, place where we stayed overnight. The camp was full of white tents, spacious from inside, very comfortable and the entire arrangement was good enough to improve our stay. We have our evening snacks, roamed around the tents and surroundings. Dinner at nubra camp was very special – we were served khichadi. Post dinner we found sat around the camp fire and spent some time chatting. It was relatively cold outside, so we settled inside the tents.

Next day morning, we all got up early. Clicked few snaps of the nearby surroundings, had our breakfast and started with the return journey to Leh. Again, we reached Khardung-la pass. We again climbed up the hill, this time for enjoying a long slide on the snow. Soon we reached Leh and had hot water shower and took some rest.

Evening time – we decided to go to the nearby market. There we hired three bikes on rent for a day and started roaming around in the city. We took the bikes and went outside Leh city, riding on the Leh-Srinagar highway. Suddenly we went off the road and reached to a mountain base. One of our friends suggested leaving the bikes there and starting climbing the mountain. We all followed obediently. The best part of this place is that there is always room for adventure.

After an hour or so, and with limited fuel in the tanks, we decided to move back to the city. On the way back, we stopped at Leh – Hall of Fame. This is a small museum kind of set up, where you will find all the historical information about the region. Also they have put the weapons captured from Pakistani army during the Kargil war. The feeling of lifting a snipper and a pistol was simply great. They indeed weigh a lot..Hats off to our Indian army.

We then went to a café and had a nice heavy dinner. We needed to save our energies for the next day, as we planned to go for rock climbing. So we slept on time and woke up on time. Got ready quickly, filled the bike tanks and went for yet another amazing experience. There a team of 3 trainers was placed. We reached the mountains at around 9 am. They gave some brief about the equipments, ropes, knots, necessary precautions, etc. and soon we were ready to rock on the rocks.

It was a similar feeling to what we saw in the movie Lakshya. In fact the title track of the movie was always going on in my mind.. :) "Lakshya to har haal mein paana hai!!" .We climbed a couple of rocks, and were all exhausted. The sun had reached the top, and it was indeed very hot. Our final task was rappelling down from nearly 60 feet high rocks. It was a thrilling experience, standing high on the rocks, without any support, trusting the shoes and ropes.

We finished with all the exertions, and then had a healthy lunch provided by the organizers. While returning back to the city, we stopped at the main market for some shopping. I bought a nice little statue of Lord Buddha, carved in yak bone, a small souvenir in form of a praying wheel with prayers written inside.

Finally we returned the bike to the owner, and came back to the hotel for final packing. It was our last evening in Leh. We never realized how the time flew away and a week long vacation came to an end. But the final few moments in this place, were full of memories, images of mountains, snow, waterfalls, desert, sand, rocks. All I did, is closed my eyes, captured all the sweet memories of the place, and made a promise to myself - for re-visiting the town whenever I get time in future.

Next day, early morning at 6, we took our flight to Delhi, and thereafter another flight to Ahmedabad. And that brought us to the end of one of the most exciting, fun-filled, exhausting, beautiful and mind boggling trip. The time spent in Ladakh was indeed unforgettable.