Reclaimed my Life !!! Notes from my Journey to Leh and beyond....

Yes, we finally managed to make our trip to Ladakh a reality all thanks to one lonely planet
and friends who made it happen even while I was a bit despondent on getting the necessary
clearances from both work & home to make this trip. Thank you folks !Glad it worked out, coz it certainly has been a trip like no other.And here is a day by day account of my trip...

Day 0, Saturday July 15th : The first leg from Delhi to Manali

Here we are assembled in front of the HPTDC office on Janpath at 6:00 pm sharp for the 6:30
Volvo to Manali. No signs of the bus yet, giving us enough time for us to go and grab a
snack while we are waiting. The Imperial across the road looked inviting but we just didn't
know how they would react to three dressed down twenty somethings in tshirts and tracks. So
it was Mini tiffins at Sarvana Bhavan for us. Back at the HPTDC office, the non AC bus
leaves while we still wait for the Volvo.We finally leave at dusk around 8:00 ; stop at 9:30 for dinner. Chewy rotis and dirty loos this was just the beginning of out troubles that night. After a largely sleepless cold night, a weaving bus and a seat on top of the rear wheel - I disgraced myself by being the first one to go down and succumbing to using the sickness bag. Thankfully after which i was able to sleep and was spared the sight of the rest of the passengers, who were in worse state then me.

Day 1, Sunday July 16th : A pleasant day in Manali

Finally , we reached Manali at 11:00 am. The Kunzam hotel - A HPTDC property was right next to the bus stand. It was a great relief as we were in no state to walk. A hot bath, even
hotter tea and sandwhiches later we headed off in search of food at the famous highly
recommended Johnson's Cafe. And guess what thats one place which deserves a five star both
for the ambience as well as the excellent food. I started with what I thought would be my
first trout in Manali, as it turned out it was also my last. The Manali chicken & Veg thalis
are killers too esp the pickle that they serve with it.

Then off to a walk along the pines towards Old Manali.A good hour later as we reached the
bridge leading to Old Manali we decided that it was gonna be tea time soon. So embarked on a
search for another topper on the reco list Rainbow Cafe. The Cafe along the stream where the
trout is as fresh as can be- armed with the Lonely Planet we could do no wrong and so we
thought. Only we reached the wrong Rainbow Cafe in Vashista - famous for its hot springs and
the Shiva temple. Frankly, it seemed much like the Paharganj version of Manali to me.We set off again after I treated myself to a mint lemon at the wrong rainbow !


It was a pleasant walk down to Manali from vashista - majority of which was along the
river. Nice cool water but the only distraction being the black smoke coming from the
vehicles on the road running right next to the river. Back at the hotel, it was pakora time!We stepped out in the late evening to have a look in at the Manali market - which is a mish
mash of souvenier shops, clothing shops and a huge mass of eateries serving anything from
chaat to chinese. Here, we also came to know that jeeps/sumos do the distance from Manali to
Leh in 14 hrs straight leaving Manali at an unearthly 2 am and reaching Leh at 8:30 pm.
Break neck speeds and aching backs on the bad suspensions _ i was ever so glad that we had
decided to take the bus to Leh.We left the bazaar behind to head towards circular road again to Pizzeria beyond Johnsons - two pizzas later we were convinced that Manali is indeed a foodie's paradise.




Day 2, Monday July 17th: And the 2nd leg begins from Manali to Leh

The ardous journey of 475 km from Manali to Leh was to began today. We started at around 11:30 in the morning and reached the picturesque town of Keylong by 5:30 in the evening. this was to be out halt for the night.
We were appropriatley cautioned by the HPTDC officials not to have any local water and only have bottled water, and how today was to be our easy day and tommorrow was gng to be the ardous day starting at 4:30 and ending at 8:30 in the night passsing 2 of the highest passes in the world. He laid particular stress on the fact that sleeping and eating were incidental to the exercise - and getting to Leh on time and safely was to be our sole focus.Easier said then done ! Anyways, the busload of passengers took it rather cheerfully. our fellow travellers were a motley bunch consisting primarily of two groups which are more prone to be struck by wanderlust - predominantly french speaking Europeans and Bengalis.


We crossed Rohtang pass on the way - which was largely a disapointment simply due to the huge mass of cars and people there. It looked more like the main market in Manali rather than a peaceful pass. The site of paragliders going by was exhilarating - thats one thing that is topping my to do list after finishing this trip. Keylong was a welcome change - we managed to get a room in the clean HPTDC property Chandrabhaga at Keylong... while the majority of our busmates decided to stay in the tents provided by HPTDC in the hotel lawns. A simple dinner later we were ready to crash - it was going to be an early morning tommorrow.

Day 3, Tuesday July 18th: Early day as we continue the climb

Yes, we managed to leave at 4:45 not bad for us Indians right. It was going to be a long day and we did not want to miss a single minute of this wonderful climb. But could not help dropping of once in a while due to the wonderful Abomin effect.
The journey till Sarchu which we reached at around afternoon was good & picteresque as the terrain grew more hostile and the vegetation scarce. After mountains, mountains and more mountains we decided to categorise them but since we had largely forgotten our geography lessons - we ended up naming them after the things we know the best food more specifically pastries. Before the end of the trip , we had identified Kiwi pastries, black forests, Pineapple pastries, rocky mountains as well as strawberry pastry. (Yes, we found pink colored mountains as well)
The traffic on these narrow roads where even one bus seemed to be hardly fitting in was pretty dense. A huge amount of oil tankers crossed us - as this route has become more popular after the Kargil route to Ladakh as truckers have not forgotten the shelling that route got during the war. The site of quite a few of these tankers down the ravine was hardly comforting. At Sarchu, we stopped at the sparsely furnished tents for a lunch of maggi, and dal - chawal. Sarchu is regarded as the midpoint of this journey and if we had reached the checkpoint later than 2 pm we would have had to spend the night there.
The journey onwards from Sarchu was beautiful even though ardous - you see the beautiful river accompanying you as you leave Sarchu. The river and the valley are so beautiful that it looks like a perfect painting.There are places you wish you could get off the road and drive on the shallow river bed.Then we begin climbing the mountain I would like to call "Snaky Mountain High"- 20 kms and 45 minutes up one winding road on one mountain is not a joke believe me.We all heaved a collective sigh of relief when we passed that one...

After that, we crossed the high passes of Taglangla and Lachangla. And it was a bit dizzying as we descended from Taglangla our first encounter with a height of more than 17k feet. Even at these heights and treachourous conditions, one could see isolated labourers working on the roads for the BRO. One must salute these men, who come from the plains of Bihar and UP work alone and unaided to maintain the roads for you. These men are dropped at specific points in the morning, a truck comes with food & water in the afternoon and picks them up in the evening. It was a serious reality check for me, when one of these guys flagged our bus down in the afternoon for some water as the truck had not come with food and water for them.Here we were travelling at leisure while there are so many who are struggling to get even the basic amenities in life.
It was also to be our first encounter with Border Roads Organization - Project Himank. Project Himank builds and maintains the roads in and around Ladakh. Apart fromn the usual "Nation builder" kind of slogans - they had quite a few gems on driving in the hills that had us in splits during the entire journey. Sample these "Don't be a gamma, in the land of the lama." " Better Mr Late, than late Mr"" Darling, I love you but not so fast "
We reached Leh in the late evening at around 7:30; dusk was setting in as we trudged to the Padma Guest House and Hotel. A rude shock awaited us as we found out that we had no rooms in the hotel as due to some goof up by the hotelstaff they had booked us in the guesthouse. We were too tired to protest and ended up spending the night in the guesthouse rooms that he arranged for us.

Day 4, Wednesday July 19th: Trip to Alchi

A walk in the farms outside the hotel at dawn, one hot bath and a steaming breakfast later - we were ready to explore the town of Leh. We decided to head off to Alchi - the one gompha (monastery) where one need not climb a hill to get there. There were quite a few bikes on hire - but the maintenance on the same was pitiable and navigating on the hill roads for us was not going to be that easy. We finally decided to hire a taxi to take us to Alchi - the taxi operators in Ladakh have standard rates for tourist routes and also offer discounts based on the type of car one was taking. Today we had an omni,and a helpful chatty driver who spoke excellent Hindi. Our first stop after getting out of Leh, was at Magnetic Hill - a natural phenomena beyond belief. You leave the car in neutral at a point marked on the road and turn off the engine and see the car go uphill ! We were amazed... there is no explanation given except the strong magnetic fields created by the mountains.
We sped on to Alchi - the Monastery was built in the 11th century. The serenity inside the place is amazing ...where the only sounds that you hear are the creaking floor boards under your feet. I saw a lot of Hindu symbolism inside the Gompha - amazing how vergetable paints and wood carries on for a 1000 years without restoration. Alchi is also a good campsite and you will see a lot of trekkers stationed there as well as the regular handicraft and jewellary shops.
From Alchi we went on to Likir, another Gompha which was closed when we reached there. But a huge Golden Buddha statue is the pride of Likir and we managed to get some good shots of that as a consolation. Missed out on the famous Basgo Gompha on our way back as we had got too late by then.The highlight of this ride, we gave a ristide to a flock of schoolgirls to Likir who informed us that they have a 2.5 month long winter break -WOW !
After which we reached the famed Shanti Stupa - the stupa is financed by the Japanese and gives a bird's eye view of Leh. We reached at just the right time at dusk which gave us a view of the Stupa in day as well as in the artificial lighting at night.


Came back home to a meal of steaming thukpa, momos and spring rolls at Padma. Which actually turned out to be a good hotel after all inspite of the initial hiccups.


Day 5, Thursday July 20th: Off to Nubra Valley

Today, we set off to the famous Nubra Valley in a Tata Safari that we hired from the hotel along with our friendly driver Anchuk. Our first stop was to be Khardungla - the highest motorable road in the world at more then 18000 feet. The drive in the Safari was comfort personified and the terrain beautiful.
Khardungla lives up to its billing, snow capped mountains and icy winds greeted us at Khardungla top. The view is breathtaking, the air is thin and its advised that one should not stay more than half an hour here as it causes acclimatization problems later.We clambered upto the top of the small hill and were breathless in no time - the only blot on the view from there was the dirty soot coated army camp at Khardungla.
From there on our next major stop was Shyok view point offering a view of the Shyok valley. A wide valley of a narriw river flowing across a wide bed of sand, one could view long straight lines drawn along the banks of the river. After labouring through our theories of how the lines might have been created, Anchuk volunteered to tell us that it was actually land demarcated for a village to be settled there - so much for alien landings and military camps.
After crossing Shyok we drove along the river on a lovely road where the only eyesore were the huge army dumps of abandoned vehicles and empty drums of oil and tar. Then we landed into an arid desert amidst the mountains and a raging sandstorm as well - I could very well imagine how the Gobi desert would be like.We finally stopped at Diskit - the biggest town in Nubra Valley for lunch - cheese sandwiches made from yak cheese (imported from Nepal !!!). Very unhygenic place - I was glad that we were staying at Hunder not Diskit.Diskit is a charming valley situated amongst sand dunes and lush green river beds. We checked into a small hotel called Snow Leopard. We were welcomed by the owner manager/general handyman.We ventured out to explore Hunder on foot - trying to find the river which was supposedly running just close by. After a longish walk we finally managed to reach the river bank which was solely populated by wild donkeys. The river was shallow and most of it was ankle deep water - which we duly crossed. We reached the sand dunes and had a lot of fun playing in the sand. It was getting to be dark and we were just about starting for the Snow Leopard. Like a Godsend an Endeavour appeared out of nowhere and we managed to hitch a ride in the same.After a while we realised that the road we were going on was certainly not the one that we had come on, and after we crossed an army checkpost our worst fears were confirmed -we were lost ! We got off the car and walked back to the checkpost to see an armed soldeir walking towards us with a menacing look in his eyes. As we pondered whether we should hit the ground right now or not - he asked us what we were doing there- it was a restricted area. We were walked back across the checkpoint into the unrestricted area after our pleas of us poor lost tourists was heard.As we did a post mortem of the incident we realised that our friendly benefactors were staying at the army camp in Hunder and hence had army clearance to go into the restricted area. They had thought that it was the same place where we had wanted to go as we had failed to specify Snow Leopard resort in Hunder.Meanhwile we still had a more urgent problem to solve we were still lost in village hunder and away from our resort. We managed to run into a kirana shop where a man offered us to show us the way . As he led us into the narrow desolate bylanes, making conversation about Delhi I noticed a huge knife - the blade of which was as long as my palm sticking out of his trouser pocket. My heart skipped a beat for a second and I was scared most of all of parting with my dear Canon camera ... after a walk of an unending 2 minutes he showed us the intersection from where we were supposed to go on. I finished a silent prayer as Snowleopard welcomed us. We crashed under the stars after a great homecooked meal of daal,vegetables and rice.

Day 6, Friday July 21st: Back to Leh

We said our goodbyes at Snow Leopard and headed for panamic - the end of the road as they call it. Not before we had a sighting of the two-humped camels that populate near Diskit. A a shorter and sturdier version of the ones from the rajasthan that we are used to seeing.
Panamic is the farthest that one can go in the Nubra Valley. The hot springs there were a disappointment, the drive was good like most of the Nubra Valley and I did not feel any psychological satisfaction of reaching the end of the road. That was maybe because we hardly stopped there.

But greater sights were awaiting us as sped back to Leh from Panamic - we stopped at the wishing lake. A beautiful lake resting like a teardrop in the mountains- and of course we had to go through our share of hardship of getting up and down a hill to reach there. See wishes don't come cheap and ours was indeed going to prove very expensive. When tired and weary we stepped back into our car we noticed that the dirt road that we had come on was destroyed as a truck had got stuck there. We literally had to make our own road in the sandy land - the only problem sometime you do get it wrong ! And we did massively as our Safari got stuck in the sand. All of us managed to push the Safari out in the midst of the acrid smell of carbon burning and sand flowing all around. We managed to laugh about it when we were washing up at a nearby stream (which originated from Siachen glacier I was told btw) but getting stuck in the sand in the burning heat is not my idea of a fun afternoon.
Rest of the trip passed largely without incident, of course we insisted on stopping whenever we saw a horde of yaks or ibex pass by.

We checked into a new hotel Hotel Tsomori in the evening - this is right on the main road, and much more conveniently located then Padma but lacks the peace as every word said in the street can be heard in your room. And they have televisions !Much to my consternation, inspite of reaching back well in time we managed to get out to shop only after 8 pm when most of the shops had shut down. Bought shawls for our respective moms from the only shop which was open at that point of time...and headed back for dinner.

Day 7, Saturday July 22nd: Heaven on Earth Pangong

Ladakh has a few high altitude lakes which are world famous - tsomoriri and pangong being the prominent ones. Since Tsomoriri was an overnight trip we had to settle for Pangong which was about 5 hours drive from Leh. Although getting up bleary eyed at 6:00 in the morning, I was beginning to question the wisdom of driving 10- 11 hours to spend a coupla hours at a lake.
But all such answers were put to rest once we reached Pangong - I have never seen water looking more beautiful then this.The lake is about 134 km long and most of it lies under Chinese control , while most of the Indian area is restricted for civilians. There is no arrangement for an overnight stay and if you get stuck there due to the vagaries of the mountain streams that run over the roads - you are pretty much on your own.We could see a panorama of colors on the lake as the sun played hide and seek with the mountains and clouds- throwing long shadows across the lake. The water is brackish but looks as clear as can be - you really have to be there to enjoy the total peace and isolation in that place with only the sound of water gently touching the banks accompanying you.As we enjoyed our packed lunches sitting at the bank, I realised this is the real Ladakh that we had come in search of from so far - calm,serene and beautiful.

We headed back after collecting a few beautiful stones from the lake - as Anchuk our driver warned us that the water would be rising in the streams and we could end up getting stuck here. We reached Leh at around 6 and wandered around in the market til it was time for dinner at the Tibetean kitchen.A word of caution for the traveller - an incense stick packet that I bought from a general store for 20 bucks was quoted by a stall catering to tourists at 70 bucks . You can imagine the kind of margins these guys operate. There is nothing uniquely Ladakhi about there wares so you are better off not shopping there.
Tibetean Kitchen was featured as the "Something Special" section in Lonely Planet. So how could we miss that. The decor of the place is dark and a reservation is a must- which we duly made. The USP of the place seems to be the fact that a lot of Bollywood celebrities from Amitabh to Aamir to Saif had visited the place. (As it was amply displayed at the counter)
It was disappointing to see just one page in the menu dedicated to Tibetean food , which was largely dominated by Indian and Chinese food items. But what was encouraging was that the two things that we ordered from that menu were excellent - chicken momos and a veg. soup with momos in it. The Indian fare was passable and the service very slow.All in all, we still managed to enjoy our last meal in Ladakh.

Day 8: Sunday July 23rd: Back Home

Yes, it was time to go back home. I was not exactly looking forward to the flight back but there it was staring at the face. And it went off not without its hiccups. The hotel folks warned us tht it is not uncommon for airlines to offload people. And for the sake of my friends who had connecting flights scheduled for Mumbai - I had no choice but to tag along to the plan of reaching the airport at 5:30am for the 7:30am flight. Anchuk arrived promptly at 5:00 , and we reached at 5:40 am the third in line , in front of a closed airport gate. We witnessed the airport waking up as we checked in. No surprise, but majority of the passengers obviously alerted by their respective hotels were in before 6:30. No body was offloaded and people checked in as late as 6:45 am. And a stupid security regulation of carrying only valuables on your person was flouted openly - even though it managed to get a lot of people to check in their large pieces of baggage.
Landed in muggy Delhi at 9:00, coming back from heaven was a short trip after all.