Our Ladakh holiday has been a perfect cocktail till now: all the ingredients mixed in perfect proportion and laced together to create a heady experience. Lovely, relaxed people, a landscape that continuously stuns and weather that is perfect complements the cocktail. We have been wondering what we can do to give something back to this beautiful land and its beautiful people.So I thought of penning down my experience so that more and more people can explore this pride of India called LADAKH obvioulsly keeping in mind that its hue, culture and ambience is not disturbed.
We started for Delhi on 14th May'2012 and the very next day we were into the Capital city and we were greeted by getting theft in the Delhi Metro station.And we resulted in screaming in the staion on the security Guards and stopping the mtreo for 3 mintues but all in vain. My husband's wallet was gone and along with it flew off ATM Cards of four banks and a credit card to.. The metro authority of the great city sat doing nothing rather shouting on us for holding the metro for 3 min. Anyway the next moments were too tiring and scary for us ..30 mintues went on deciding what to do next and whom to call to helo us. Anyway God was in our side and we got enable locking the cards.
The next day we were in Delhi International Airport with our heart divided into two folds- one fearing what next is waiting for us in terms of insecurities and the other waiting to explore the least known place called LEH.
well the journey on board was great at we experienced the white washed himalayan range miles after miles and the sight itslef was enough to visit leh by AIR. One cannot experience it at any cost if traveled on road.After we got down in KUshok Bakula Airport we saw Mussa Bhai waiting outside with my name plate and a sweet ladakhi smile. JULLEY , I said and went forward with him along with my family and rolled on the smooth-polished roads of LEH in a Black coloured Scorpio.For the next few days in leh "HE" will be our companion. Hassan Bhai whom i did contact from Kolkata itself advised me to get into hotel KHyaul which he arranged for us for our stay in leh. Khayul was a beautiful , little guest house runned by MIR family and nestled in between apple and apricot trees. THe hotel was not to great in terms of luxury but the people associated with this hotel like Mr. and Mrs. Mir, Bilal, Wasim, the cooks and the little chutki were all marvellous people and they all made our stay in Leh filled with happiness and Joy.
MIshtu could not take the jump, i mean from delhi to Leh a direct jump of 11,500 fett and fell sick. Mrs. Mir, the owner of the hotel Khayul took great care of mishtu and she herself drove us to the best Child specialist of Leh . Me and Subhas were extremely touched by their concern . By and By two days passed on and we are yet to explore ladak's beauty ....mishtu got acclimitized and thereby we started our journey of LEH.
In Ladakh, we never seem to have the time to recover from one excited state before the next one begins! Now too, before we can get over the excitement of our home stay experience, the next day dawns on us and brings its own share of excitement. Today, we are to drive to the beautiful Nubra valley and spend the night there in a fairy tale Guest House. We crossed across the famous KHARDUGLA PASS (18 330 FT , world's highest motorable pass) on the way to Nubra valley Like most other mountain passes in India, Khardong La is jam-packed with revelers and their vehicles. And then there is the slope of snow that everyone clambers on to; and then too, are the chai shops that every one heads to. The difference here is that, at 18380 feet, Khardong La lays a claim (disputed, though) to being the highest motorable road in the world! Now isn’t that something? And, and… the café (this truly must be a genuine claim) advertises itself as the highest café in the world! It is not the idea of it being the highest in the world that draws us to the café though, but the thought of having hot, steaming tea. We go in and have cups and cups of hot black tea, and bowls of Maggi noodles; it is as if we have never ever had Maggi before. The outer wall of the café advertises the good effects of black tea and has a story of the origins of Maggi noodles. After the customary pics next to the board that lays the claim to being the highest motorable road, we cross the pass and head towards Nubra..Nubra hosts the only cold sand desert of India where one could enjoy the two humped camel safar and so we did. I , my husband and child and my sister had a hilarious, exciting experience in the two-humped camel safari. I was really, really scared when the strange creature stood on its long legs with a three fold break..GOD saved me . One could not read my face as I was wearing a fake-artifical smile on my face probably for the sake of camera but my heart was leaping inside and my mind was constantly asking help from LOKNATH BABA . Even i thought what will happen if i fell down on the sand , may be my thivk jacket would save me from breaking my bones. Anyway no such thing occured and when the camel sat down folding his legs i just tried to jump off his hump and in the process got disbalanced , one tourist and the camel mentor soon checked me from falling down.
Habib's guest house is another place which I will never forget because of its great rooms, exotic locatioon and above all the behaviour of the owner. He treated us as his own MEHMAN and casted a deep imapact on our heart.
Constant three days of journey though made us ltittle tedious but no-- we will not waste a minute so the next day we were on roads for Tsomori ri . The black , gracious scorpio scissored the polished roads of leh and after covering 20km. it stopped while we were informed by the driver, that due is some problem in the brake and it would not be advisable to cover a journey of 440k. with this faulty brake. So we had to press brake to our journey for the day and inspite of going to tsomoriri we just walked down on the roads and markets of leh city. Every thing was unimaginably expensive but the locals were good to interact .
That day we gave ourself a treat to rest which was no common factor in a trip to leh.
Hassan bhai came in the f=afternoon and he informed that our Scorpio is now OK and we can avail for the next half of our journey the other day. We had a long adda with Hassan bhai.
Journey to Tsomoriri was very exclusive as we got to see many rare species of himalay wild inhabitants.
Among them were Ibex, Golden Duck, Himalayan Wild Horse and Marmot.Eack glance of each of them make us excited like a child.
Tsomoriri is again BEAUTIFUL, i feel its is more a beauty than Pangogng. Now just imagine ! Its lusterous water has undefined colors hidden in ti. Somewhere it peacock blue, somewhere emerald blue, somewhere turquoise green . JUSt gorgeous.we had our lunch that Omlette and MAGGI in a camp in Karzok village.
