part 8

Part 8. Pangong Tso generally called as pangong lake is situated at a height of 4350 mts in the Himalayas,Ladakh This azure structure of water lies to an extent of 134 km between China and India.the striking colors of the water is a constant tourist attraction here.The breadth is about 5 km and is a favourite location too for many Bollywood movies.One of the largest brackish water lake, its vistas are breath-takingly beautiful. The temperature varies from minus 10 to 10 degrees. Roughly 150 km from leh, this is a must-see for all ladakh visitors.

Though our driver was constantly reminding us about the cold that is yet to experience at pangong we did nt pay much attention since we were busy absorbing the first sights of this beautiful water body. We reached near the lake and when we got out of the car we were just shocked to see the beauty of the lake. Then it struck that we were feeling very very cold. Putting on all the exxtra layering of clothes we were welcomed by a local girl padma for hot cups of coffee and snacks. Into our rooms. There were good wash rooms and beds with many blankets but the power supply was very low. They did not have much electricity and was running on a small generator. We, urbanites could not really digest that. No phones, no wifi and finally no electricity?/ Where on earth we have landed? Unpacking and taking out more woolen stuff we got ready to brave the cold and walk outside to view the lake. It was a wrong decision. We were shivering in those sub zero temperature after a time spa of 10 minutes. We had o us layers of warm clothing but it didnt help. By sunset we were iside our rooms playing cards and other games. We had to chaarge our phones and cameras in 2 hours since electricity would be cut off soon. The whole ight was so cold and we could hear the sounds of some wild animls howling in the night. The next day we came to know that the temperature was minus 7degrees!! We survived without a room heater or an electric light ..for tht matter…

part 7 ladakh

Part 7. The entire building of eco lodge was solar powered. No wifi. No phone signals. The girls went crazy in the beginning but when the dusk brought in all colours in the horizon like a painted canvas which bordered all the towering ranges, everyone forgot about the wifi signals. It was such a splendid sight. The next morning we found ourselves wandering in the front garden happily clicking pictures. Two local ladies were busy doing something at the nearby storage building. We went to meet them d ask around. They were Dolma and Diskit ( which is also a place there) and they were roasting wheat. They spoke Ladakhi language and some Hindi. They said they were getting ready for the severe winter that is about to settle in for another 6 months. By october 20th, all tourist activities will be suspended only to re start in the end of March because the entire place would be under snow. They informed us that they would cut up all remaining vegetables and fruits and sun-dry then to store in big hessian sacks. They would not dream of stepping out in the winter months and would use all these stored veggies and powdered whet etc for food. Also dried meat which will keep them warm in those months. I wondered at the variety of climate in different parts of India. Being from the southern side we had never come across such weather and I thought what would it be like to live in a snow-covered home for months. !! (Photos attached, of the two ladies)

After an elaborate breakfast we were to start for our last destination which was Pangong lake.

There were a few other families too in this place. A Very loud lady who was constantly screaming at her driver and her companions irritated us because of her behavior. She was just not bothered about her surroundings and other people. Continuously shouting at her poor ocal driver she thought she grabbed some attention. We were about to stop her reminding of other peoples’ presence but somehow stopped ourselves a confrontation.!!

Off to pangong lake with bags packed and it was a long drive but the sights and scenes were great. Tea breaks and maggie breaks in between and by afternoon..lo..we could see the blue color of the lake from a distance.

part 6

ere the locals stayed to help in cooking and caring for the tourists. It was a beautiful place surrounded by mountains ans with a huge vegetable garden in front. They grew all things for themselves. A perfect place for the wandering nomads like us. There were zuchini, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots,onions, turnips nd what not. The slightly bigger trees were full of green and red applePart 6. From the top of Khardung la pass to the drive to Nubra valley...We climbed down to our next stop which was the Eco lodge t Nubra valley. The roads were winding, rough and not very wide. We saw many military convoys carrying supplies to their different bases. When such a motorcade approaches the drivers on the opposite side had to wait in certain res where the road was more wider.Through out we could see groups of men at work on the roads clearing anything that was on the road. Many areas has snow fall, some areas were prone to stone shooting and sometimes huge boulders. !! Stone shooting can be caused by just one single boulder falling and carrying along many rocks along with it in its downward course. Or even mountain goats who rush and run sometimes on such altitude. Many places long the rod had soft and powdery snow on one side and the other side….deep valleys.

The moment we saw the fine snow we told our driver to stop for clicks again. He turned out to be more interested than us to roll down in the snow. The girls sreedevi, sunena and chinnus took pictures in all possible angles in that gleaming white background

Further down...and here were some sights which I forgot to mention. The wild life of ladakh mountains. We came across many species of birds, mules, mustangs yaks, donkeys and marmuts. This was my first encounter with this animal called marmut. They were five or six in numbers and we took out our cameras in haste. Group of other tourists too joined us on the roadside to see these beautiful animals. (Pictures attached) surprisingly they were ot at all shy of people and were actually posing for photos. Tea break stop and this time Sonaldi had herbal tea bags for us from her black bag. Mountain terrains continued. Roads were beautiful and we saw a camp for buggy riding at hunder valley which were ATV. All terrain vehicles. The girls had fun riding them and we moved on to reach the Eco lodge by in the evening.

The Eco lodge was nestled in the middle of three huge ranges, the karakoram, the ladakh and the Seltro range. It was a two storied building with an outhouse whs hanging down. Settled in for the day in such a picturesque surrounding and went to bed dreaming about the next day.

part 4 ladakh

re the river indus and The Zanskar river met. It was already evening and the sun was on the process of setting down. It was a great view to see the two separately colored rivers meeting to form one new and natural glow. The evening light set the perfect background in that valley and we will never forget that wonderful scene in our life time.(I will add the picture here) Angchuk stopped the car in such an elevated place so that we were able to take a lot of photos.The Zaskar is a north eastern river with tributaries like Doda and eventually joins Indus in Leh. Sangam valley was an unflappable and ostentatious sight in its own way.

Next stop...to our favourite area.. The leh. Ttibetan market..we looked for small give away things and local products happily wandering and of course clicking pics. There were many Tibetans and kashmiris with so many locally made products to sell. Everyone were busy getting things of interest for their dear ones back home. Back to the hotel for a hot bath and dinner. Tomorrow we will be going to the highest point in India. The anticipation was high and went to bed thinking about it.

Part 3 Ladakh

Part 3 Before talking about the black bag, a few words about our team. Sreedevika, the beautiful and young actress and director of random wekaram the popular malayalam web series is a very loving and lively girl. She has a special camera and lens which makes her images(of people) very thin and beautiful. The two young girls sunena and the youngest, chinnuz are very much in love with that lens and made full use of that aspect by clicking countless pictures of those beautiful scenes Both were beautiful models and looked even more beautiful in those picturesque atmosphere. .Me and su (suvarna nandakumar, the actress in the seriesRandom wekaram) were the curious ones bothering our driver with all kinds of questions on previous history of Ladakh and other interesting things. Any bit of information was properly assimilated.As we passed a river that was flowing silently we just casually asked the name. Angchuk said. ‘ That is Indus river”. !! Really? The Indus? From where it all began?. The Indus valley? Sidhu ? The Indus valley civilisation is known world wide! “ Oh..then I must touch those waters!! Insisted Su. to reaffirm our doubting minds, the board appeared on the way called ’Sindhu Ghat”. That is it.. We are stopping here to get down to the river..Su is high on history. The driver plus guide somehow pacified her informing that she will have her’ share of Indus exploration’ before leaving Ladakh. All of us pulled her leg through out and said we will dip her in some other river.just to annoy her..

Sonal di on the first day, we noticed that , was carrying a black shoulder bag other than her usual handbag. We thought that it must be some accessories to the biting cold temperature.. It was about two to three degrees in Leh. We never knew that her black bag (bb) would turn into a life saver for us in the following days.

So after the Thiksay monastery tour we were all hungry. When it is very cold, you naturally feel more hungry because the body needs more energy and burns the food faster. We walked into a near by restaurant called Chumba restaurant. Since it was the end of tourist season there were no much people except a few like us. We placed our orders for some familiar and some local dish called Thupka which was a combination of soup and noodles. The waiter said it would take some time to prepare and we had no choice but to wait. All the selfies and clicks stopped because of hunger pangs. Out comes the stuff from sonal di’s bag. We were astonished to see the big packets of Thepla( a spicy gujrati bread seasoned with herbs) and the accompanying garlic chutney which was spicy. She had taken the trouble of preparing so much of these things from Dubai, her home. Not only that..she had packed it in 5 different packets for each day separately. How thoughtful is that! We devoured the first batch before our orders came and everyone was back in action so to speak. From then on we would always remind her not to forget her bb whenever we went out.!!

Our next stop was the kargil museum in leh. Most of the parts of this place photography is not allowed because of its sensitive nature. It was a reminder of how brave our soldiers are and how they worked in those icy cold temperature to the extent of minus 50 degrees. Pictures of those who served the nation and died for us were elegantly displayed with all necessary informations. The machinery and ammo used by the defense were on display too.

Driving along the rugged mountains we continued our journey absorbing all the sights to a more deeper valley.

Day 2 Ladakh...

Day 2.

Rinchen Angchuk, our young and enthusiastic driver reached the hotel at sharp 9 AM . We were informed earlier and hence we were very much ready and excited to see the place. We had a full breakfast at the hotel before leaving. That day we would see the local tourists’ spots in Leh and around. Angchuk was our tour guide too. We saw him offering a small prayer looking towards the photograph of Lord Budha in his car. Off we started towards our first stop which was the Stok Palace. Ladakh, which is at the northern part of India has two districts. Leh and Kargil. These two are the two major cities as well.the population is roughly about 2.75 lakhs and is a very mountainous terrain. Wheat barley and vegetables are grown here.The crops vary according to the altitude and weather conditions. As we drove through the streets of ladakh towards the Stok place we saw many budhist prayer bells, schools, hospitals, shops and other structures and most of them backdropped by the mighty mountains.

This was built in the 14th century by Lama Lhawang Lotus and it was the home of the royals earlier. Photography was not allowed inside the building. It was kept like a museum displaying all the artifacts and items used by the then royal people of ladakh. The traditional dresses,jewellery and other articles were all laden and studded with coral and turquoise and pearls. Very beautiful they were. There were some very old paintings on display which were 1500 years old. They were still intact and when asked the person in charge told us that those colors survived because they were prepared by crushing those semi precious stones like corals, jade, turquoise and pearls and using some organic mixture to hold them together.!! We were amazed at their ancient techniques of art.! We were allowed to take pictures only from the out side of the Stok palace.

Our next stop was the Thiksay Monastery. It was a Gompa or a Tibetan styled monastery. A very huge , white and ancient building. It was situated on a hill and our car was parked at the gates. We had to walk for some time to reach the 100 steps that we were to climb to reach the main area of the monastery. The walking itself was task since we were on high altitude and then climbing those steps were hard and strenuous for us. Even if you are physically very fit, in these mountainous terrains and super high altitude you need to have your breath under control and take it slowly. Most of the people get very excited and run up to reach the top only to get very tired and out of breath. The tip is to do it slow and steady. We saw a very huge prayer wheel at the very beginning of the premises. And as we climbed up towards the long winding steps we reached into a beautifully decorated prayer hall. It was very silent and perfect for meditation. Flash lights were not allowed. There was an enormous statue of Lord Budha. It was huge and multi coloured with gleaming finish entirely. The colors enhanced his meditational posture with folded hands. You will be so humbled by the energy and vibrations prevailed over there that you will find yourself simply sitting there and closing your eye to absorb all that divine energy. All of us sat there silently for sometime only to get super energized to see the rest of the monastery. There were more stairways to climb to enter the worshiping place of other Gods like Tara. the entire monastery had wooden floors. Other major monasteries were hemis, Shey. lamayuru etc.In each such places the statues of Gods and Goddesses were exquisitely made with rich colours and other decorations. Looking at them one will definitely wonder about the craftsmanship of those ancient artisans and artists and will surely bow in their memory.!

Tea break...and here I must write about the black bag before continuing.

Ladakh Diaried....Part 1

Part 1. So here it is...our story of a great trip.. To the remotest part of india. We had this belief that Ladakh was a place for bikers and hence for youngsters or the adventurous people oly.. Well..most of us. But then again we had an advantage. We had Sonal didi who was an exceptionally well informed fellow traveler since she was a seasoned mountaineer and had conquered many big ones like mount Kilimanjaro etc. Our group consisted of six ladies( of ages from 23 to 60) We were very doubtful that the youngest one probably will feel left out because of the fact that she was too young. .. Some members flew down to Delhi from Dubai and two of us from india. All of us met at Delhi airport and our flight was on 28th early morning to Leh.

The excitement of meeting friends at the airport was too noisy that people started glaring at us..looking daggers..hmm..a task well begun i guess. A short flight from Delhi to Leh by Vistara airlines. It was a lovely flight, new aircraft, leather seats etc and very friendly crew. The flight was full of tourists like us.We were told by our agent in Ladakh that the tourist season was nearly ending and we were just on time before the frozen scenes set in.

Lo...we are already in Kushok bakula Rimpoche airport terminal. Our agent was waiting with a smile. The first impression which is normally the best, was one of a very endearing one. People seemed friendly and very polite. They had all our luggage safely mounted on the carrier of the car and off we went to our hotel which was about 2 km from the airport.

The Sangto Villa was a very beautiful place with all the necessary comforts including wifi.!! We were told earlier not to expect much network connection in leh. But the wifi surprised us and our wifi-craving team mates had a lot of action as soon as we checked in. posing and clicking and sending to dear ones back home ofcourse!!! Especailly when the place is so laden with multi colored flowers and gardens. There were apple trees fully laden with green and red apples which were a sight to us. Soon those apples were inside our alimentary canal and we devoured them happily. Then we saw the apricot tree showering us with their ripe fruits which were another thing to pursue further. We wanted to behave like a proper tourist paying a casual glance to everything but those fruit trees wont allow us to be so..So off we went running around plucking those ripe ones and finishing them in a span of seconds.!! Such super abundance we had never seen earlier..!!

Our agent Siddarth took us to the dining area for a very sumptous breakfast of Poha, Aloo paratha, Omlette coffee tea and fresh fruits. He gave us a small briefing about ladakh Leh, cargil, Drass etc and also about the tourist season and what kind of things and climate to expect in each region. That day there was no sight seeing and we had to get acclimatised for the entire day. So we spent the day clicking photos and enjoying the various dishes that were provided. The rest of the day we spent merrily walking around the resort and enjoying the sights of ostentatious folds of mountains that bordered the villa and the poplar trees that stood over the villa as if protecting them. We went to bed after a great dinner that was served in the hotel and also in anticipation of the next day. We were already in awe of the silently eloquent ladakh mountain ranges…..(To be continued)