We were 8 in all and our original plan was to land in Manali and then drive to Leh. Driving on this road is considered an experience/adventure in itself especially in October since the road is officially closed in mid Sep. We had planned our trip for 2nd week of Oct and we were hoping against hope that the weather God would be kind to us. However, there was a heavy snowfall in Sep last week and also some tourists got trapped/killed and that made us seriously re-think. Finally just 2 days before departure we cancelled our tickets to Manali and booked direct tickets to Leh. Actually in hindsight, we had much more fun with this changed itinerary.
Day Zero: We landed in Delhi at around midnight and had a flight to catch for Leh early in the morning. Hired a couple of cabs and rushed to a nearby Dhaba on the Haryana border. Spent a couple of hours doing you know what till the cops drove us out :-)
Day One: The flight was on-time and we landed at Leh in the morning. Leh is supposed to be the best place in the world to land at. The view from the plane was awesome. We checked into a very nice hotel - Noble House. This hotel had a very nice view from its rooms & terrace and the food they served was awesome. Since Leh is at an altitude of 10,000+ ft. it is advisable to take rest on the first day to let your body adjust to the oxygen levels. We did the same till lunch time and then ventured out in the afternoon to the nearby Leh Palace, Leh Bazaar & a temple. It was really cold and we also had a mild snowfall for sometime.
Day Two: The plan was to go to Pangong Lake which is bisected by the Indo-Chinese border and is the highest brackish lake in the world at around 14000 ft. It is around 150 kms from Leh and one has to cross ChangLa pass which is at around 17,500 ft. We started early in the morning as it takes around 5 hours one way to the lake from Leh. It is preferable to stay overnight by the lake but we wanted to come back the same day. The weather was cloudy and hence we knew it would be tough to reach our destination. The way to lake was very pictureseque with snow-clad mountains on all sides. Our fears came true when our scorpio starting skidding big time as we approached ChangLa pass. We had to return back from Zingral which was at 15,500 ft as only vehicles with chained tyres were allowed beyond that point. It was sad but then we had no other choice. We started driving back towards Leh and decided to head towards Alchi which on the Srinagar highway. This road was equally fantastic with multi-colored barren hillocks on both sides. On the way was a point called Sangam where the river Indus meets the river Zanskar. The view throughout was awesome. We finally reached Alchi monastery which is probably the oldest one in Leh in afternoon and later spent some time on sandy river beach before heading back for Leh. It was a hectic day where we covered close to 250 kms.
Day Three: The plan for Day 3 was to go to Nubra Valley via Khardungla pass. We really did not want a repeat of Day 2 and luckily, the skies were clear in the morning. This was undoubtedly the best day of our trip. The road to Khardungla pass is the highest motorable road in the world at 18,380 ft above sea level. As we approached the pass, the road became very slippery and it got really scary. We were determined to go to the other side of the mountain and we did make it. Some of us had to walk 2 kms at that altitude to get there but it was an amazing experience overall. After a short break at the pass, we headed towards Hunder village in the Nubra Valley. The road to the destination was very scenic with views of snow clad mountains, canyons, valley and even sand dunes. We arrived at the guest house in the evening and enjoyed nice drinks by the bone-fire before crashing off.
Day Four: After a nice breakfast, we started our trek towards Diskit monastery. We even helped ourselves with a ride on Mongolian camels for covering the most sandy portion of the trek. We stopped at the monastery for sometime and then headed back to Leh via Khardungla pass. The road today was much better and we reached Leh in the afternoon. We spent the evening at the Leh Bazaar shopping for some shawls & woolens. We had dinner at a nice hotel in the Bazaar and got to taste some exclusive Kashmiri dishes like Roganjosh & Rista.
Day Five: We were contemplating whether to go to Pangong Lake but then decided against it since we had an early morning flight the next day and covering over 300 kms in a day would have been hectic. We instead chose to visit the very famous Hemis Gumpa, Thiksey monastery & Shey Palace and later spent some time on bank of river Indus.
As you would have realized by now, we clearly did not lose anything by not taking the Manli-Leh road as we could instead cover a lot of ground in and around Leh. Even though we were there for 5 days, we still could not cover places like Pangong & TsoMiri lake. Maybe this will make us all go there again. It was truly an amazing trip to an awesome place ....
