Great Place to visit and........ Review on Ladakh

Ladhak is a district situated in the North of India in between the Karakoram mountain range to the north and the Himalayas to the south and close to Siachen border between India and China. The majority of the population living here belong to the Buddhist community.

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An experience:

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I vividly remember having spent close to 8 hrs in a cold, icy and snow-clad Rohtang pass on our way to Leh and Ladak. I would rather say that we were stuck at that place. The main reason for my saying so is because a truck had suffered a major accident, causing one of the smallest possible roads to get blocked. This left us with very few options i.e. either we need to walk all the way to a small village which was at a 16-18 Km downhill with no food at all or we could stay in the car for a long time and wait for the road to be cleared up which could take another 7 hrs. But people around me along with my brothers had different plans. They charted out a plot to make the stuck truck moving. Several sardarji's shoveled out the snow that had arrested the truck's movement. The locals with their immense experience with such things and my brothers with their technical knowledge paved a way for the truck.

To our delight and relief the truck came alive and as if in a movie it started running on its sweet sounding wheels. But imagine this is a pretty normal occurrence for the locals around there. We thanked God and continued our journey, which would be more peaceful from that moment on, to Leh.

Although our journey started on a really bad note the city of Leh and Ladak took care to it that we do not suffer any more of these unfortunate occurrences.

Enough said... I shall now start out with my review on this exceptionally beautiful place.

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Best Time to visit the place:

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The best time to visit the place would be in May - July ie during the end of summer and beginning of rainy season. At this time there would be summer season out there.. Generally Ladhak is closed for the other 9 months of the year for tourists.

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Ways to reach Leh:

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There are several routes to reach Leh. The simpler of the many would be by air. The other one would be the roads which is much harder. The route you choose to reach Leh is very important.

1. Airways:

This is the simplest and easiest way to reach Leh. There are regular flights from Delhi to Leh. Also there are flights from Srinagar to Leh once a week. But after reaching the place you might find it difficult to get acclimatised to the climate there. If you are planning a short trip of 5 to 6 days (Or even shorter i.e. of 2-3 days) then Airways is the best possible route. Airplanes destined to this region are open only for the 2-3 months of summer and rainy season.

2. Roadways:

There are two options if you decide to hit the roads to reach Leh viz.

a. Srinagar -> Leh

I don't know much about this route as we hadn't explored this one. But this is as good an option, I hear.

b. Delhi -> Manali -> Rohtang Pass -> Sarachu -> Tanglangla Pass -> Leh

The 485 km route, open only for 3 months in the year, takes around 27 (Travel agents may say that its a 24 hour journey but believe me it takes no less than 27) (For us it took about 32 hours) hours with an overnight camp at Sarchu at an altitude of 4,000 m. But as we were stuck at Rohtang we cancelled our overnight stay at Srachu and had to spend the night at a small village on a dilapidated guesthouse. The journey through all the passes is truly exceptional with amazing scenic beauties.

If you intend to travel with you family I would ask you to take the air route because the road route is a lot mentally and more so physically torturing. If you are traveling with your cousins or friends or people of your age (i.e. if you age between 20-30) I vouch the road route for you.

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Finding a Place To Stay:

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One might find no problems at all in finding a decent Hotel to stay. Several Guest houses are available too. Price is very reasonable indeed! Apart from that you may find certain guest houses where home made food is available which greatly reduces your restaurant-bills. Make sure you eat a Ladhaki delicacy named momu, a stuffed modak kind of thing. Its awesome!!!

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Places to visit:

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We have made it to Leh! And we have also found a place to live! Now what? You might at first be too tired to notice the beauty around you! So obviously we need to take rest for about a day or so and then continue with our tour there. By rest I don't mean sleeping throughout the day! You could go out for walking to the market place or go for small shopping (No! There aren't big shopping Mall's but once in a while you notice some awesome shops selling locally famous goods) to adapt to the climate there. There are obviously several scenic places to visit in and around Ladak.

Gonpa (Thats what the locals call a monastery there):

There are many (I guess 10-12) monasteries’ there. The brilliant thing about these Buddha’s temple around here is the painting. Those paintings are about 500-600 years old! still they look so beautiful and shine so beautifully that you are easily drawn in towards it to admire the sheer beauty. The cemeteries there have a strange history. Instead of a tomb we have a dome-like structures in the burial place. The size of the dome indicates the affluence of the person buried. Larger the dome richer is the person.

Must visit Gonmpa's include Hemis Gonpa, Thiksey Gonpa and Alchi Gonpa, Spitok Gonpa.

Pangong Lake(Must visit) and The Tso Moriri:

Situated at a distance of 150 Km from Leh Pangong lake is amazingly, astonishingly, awesomely, excellently beautiful. Even the amount of adverbs used by me is less to describe this beautiful lake. Do visit it to get rid of all your worries.The Pangong lake in Ladakh. Ladakh is rated as one of best adventure tourism destinations. They say that the lake changes its colour 4-5 times a day. I don't know exactly what those colours are. I don't even know if its true as I had seen only one colour - blue at that time of the day! I hadn't been to Tso Morirr lake but if you get time do visit that lake too!

Passes:

There are several passes around Ladakh and one among the must visits is Khardung La, the highest motorable pass. La meaning a pass and Dhak meaning land. So Ladhak literally means a land of passes - not surprisingly though.

Trekking:

If you are among the more adventurous type of people then one among the many things that Ladhak has to offer is trekking. Even if you have come to this wonderful place with your family you can go with other people, who could as well be total strangers to you, to trek. There are several sherpa's who could guide a group of 5-7 people for trekking. But make sure that you get acclimatised to the surrounding before you venture out for trekking.