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 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.

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)