So let's start with my journey during the Ladakh trip. But before that let me introduce the group I was traveling with. My friend with whom I had booked the tour is an Architect, specializes in City Planning and was accompanied by her father who seemed to be a very avid reader. In fact, we had 4 architects in our group - my friend, a couple who have their own firm and a Pondicherry based architect who is originally from Mumbai. My roommate was a banker by profession but bird lover at heart. He was accompanied by his sister and niece, all of whom had traveled in BNHS camps earlier. There were 2 old ladies, one of which had come with same purpose as mine - enjoy the nature and its views! We had 2 elderly couples one of which ran a equity brokerage firm. One middle aged person who is wonderful photographer (His camera lens was so long and used to take so many pics at an instant, we used to call it machine gun). Another person from Gujrat had a great deal of idea about birds. One more girl from Mumbai was also present. Our group leaders had a prior experience of visiting Ladakh for birding. In fact, one of them had been coming there since the 90's and once traveled from Maharashtra to Ladakh on his scooter. Other group leader was of same age as mine and had studied with few of my school friends during his graduation. With this bunch of passionate individuals, I traversed the beautiful region of Ladakh.
Another thing, being not well versed with the birds and their nomenclature, I might not be able to state the birds I saw during the trip. But I will try my best to recollect the names towards the end.
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| View from plane - Tso Moriri Lake |
So day 3 of the camp came and I was finally fit to go. BNHS had organized 4 Innova cars for our traveling. We first went to the high altitude
Hemis National Park. Thanks to the binoculars given to me by Vikas, I was able to spot few birds. Most of the people had DSLR (I had a point and shoot Nikon camera, but its battery malfunctioned after coming back from Pangong). At the national park, we saw a big herd of
Bharal/Himalayan Blue Sheep. As I remember most them were females, and there was one male whose horns were distinguishing him from others. Then we encountered many Yaks.
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| Yak Yak Yak! |
After having light but wonderful
Pulav in the National Park itself, we headed to
Hemis Monastery. It was quite and serene place. Inside the monastery, there were many paintings of Buddha and (probably) other mythological characters in Buddhism, painted on the walls. One of the painting (which I initially thought) had depicted the birth and rise of Buddha (My roommate differed with me on this point. With him being a Master in Indology, I think I will agree with him). Outside the temple, I had interesting confusion. I had removed my Woodland shoes outside before entering the temple. When I came out, there was another pair of exactly same model of Woodland shoes removed by another person lying next to my pair. After trying both the pairs, I finally realized which pair was mine (I was bit furious though, as I thought the other guy had done it deliberately). After having a tea at the base, we went back to hotel. Unfortunately, my roommate started feeling bit uneasy and after a round of hospital and "Oxygen", he decided to not take the next day's journey to Nubra Valley as we had to cross
Khardung La while traveling.
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| Hemis Monastery |
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| Hemis Monastery |
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| Hemis Monastery |
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| Hemis Monastery |
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| Hemis Monastery |
On Day 4, we started our journey towards Nubra Valley. On the way, we saw magnificent landscapes with a variety of colors of rocks (red, purple, black, white). Roads were usually smooth with few exceptions. As we neared the valley, we could see dunes of sand piled over one side. The hotel at Nubra valley was also good. At the valley, we also got the opportunity to ride a double hump camel. It was pretty difficult to get a camel at that time, as the place was very crowded by the time we reached. Add to that the fact that Sun was about to set. All thanks to my friend, we were able to ride camel for 15 odd minutes. Of course, that wasn't the best thing at Nubra Valley. When we reached back, as I saw the landscape I was sure that the night sky will be worth the watch. And I was not disappointed at all. At night, even from my room I could see many many stars. I still remember standing in common balcony of first floor at hotel with one of the fellow traveler, asking her what the particular patch in sky was. It was a bit vague pattern which I had not seen earlier. When we went to the terrace, the ambient light had reduced and the patch was much more visible. Soon we were joined by another person who told us that it was the "
Milky Way"(The image shown at Wikpedia matches with what we saw). Afterwards, other enthusiasts joined us and took pictures of the Milky Way. As I waited to observe the night sky, I could see some shooting stars in between. As we had an early journey next morning, I decided to head back to my room by 10:30 PM itself, even though my heart wanted to be there for the whole night.
Next day we started our journey back Leh. On the way, we stopped near Diskit Monastery. The huge statue of Buddha was visible even at the bottom of the hill. We waited in the area for some time for birding. During our journey to Nubra valley, we had not made a halt at Khardung La. However, during the return journey we decided to get down at Khardung La and take a group photo. Khardung La is claimed to be the highest motorable point in the world. We had fun taking group pics there. Unfortunately, my friend started feeling dizzy at that height and could not join us for the pic. In fact, after 10 minutes at the top, most of us started feeling tired and were panting. As there was some road work going on, we reached back to Leh a little late. So our group leaders decided to call it a day and gave us time to check out the market. I bought a sweater (the group leader had instructed me to get an extra layer of woolen clothing as it was going to be colder and breezier at the lakes). In one of the shops, when the shopkeeper heard us speaking in Marathi, he asked us if we were from Maharashtra. He told us that majority of the tourists in Leh were from Maharashtra region. In fact, even I had made a similar observation. Whenever I roamed around in the market area, I would hear a person speaking in Marathi every 100 meters. After the purchase we headed back to hotel for dinner.
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| Buddha Statue at Diskit Monastery |
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| Return Journey from Nubra Valley |
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| Shyok River |
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| Khardung La Top |
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| K Top |
Now was the day when we made our foray towards Pangong Lake. It was a tougher road than Nubra Valley. Before going to Pangong, we made a stop Thikse Monastery located near Leh. When we reached the place, prayers were in progress. Like Hemis Monastery, the place serene and peaceful.
We stayed at hotel Pangong Residency which was surrounded by mountains from all sides. I was looking forward to night sky watch as that area did not have too many hotels to affect ambient light. Of course, the main attraction of the day was Pangong Lake. Due to some ongoing road work on the way to the lake, we were delayed by more than 40 minutes than the expected time. We were afraid if Sun sets, we might not be able get a good view of the lake. However, once we reached there, we were enchanted by the magnificent view of the lake. I made some idiotic attempts at taking selfies (which continued for the whole of tour). We first had a photo session at the location where 3 idiots was shot. Afterwards, we went a little further where there was a flock of birds. I sat near the lake for around 10-15 minutes observing the water, birds, photographers and more importantly tried to feel the quietness of the place. As it started getting windy and colder, we all moved in a small dhaba style hotel and had hot lemon tea. After returning to hotel, we were told about the early next morning trip to a place where we could see Black Necked Cranes. As I wanted to stay late in the night to gaze at stary sky, I opted to stay back in the morning. In the night, the sky was even more amazing. I tried locating some constellations, but could only go far to see Big Dipper, Pole Star and Cassiopeia. We even saw the shooting stars in the Perseus constellation which had appeared in August month's Google Doodle. I had a very good discussion about night sky observation with one of the fellow travelers. He told me about his experience at Ramgarh bungalow. He took photos of Pole star every few seconds for 15 minutes, so as to see the trace left by other stars which appear to revolve around the pole star. I remember him explaining me camera telescopes which try to compensate earth's rotation to take more accurate photos of stars.
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| Indian Army |
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| Heading Towards Pangong Lake |
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| Does it remind you of 3 Idiots (And no.. Karina didn't turn up in scooty for me) |
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| Sun sets at Pangong Lake |
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| Relaxing at Pangong Lake |
After some good sleep in the night, and heavy breakfast of Aloo Parathas, we were joined back by the people who had gone for the early morning birding session. While returning back we made a stop at
Chang La, another high altitude pass. Again made a ridiculous attempt at taking selife. During the journey, the group in my car had a long discussion on 2 topics. First was food and second Mr. Narendra Modi. The food part revolved around the type of regional food available in Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and how it is priced across cities. Then the discussion moved to Modi and his government. We discussed what should be done by the government, where the money should be utilized, whether building statues of past leaders actually worth it, about the Gujarat model of development, etc. We were people from different professional backgrounds and it was nice to hear everyone's views.
In the evening, we visited the
Leh Palace as well as the
Shanti Stupa. Both are very good monuments situated at Leh city itself. The Leh palace was constructed in such a way that the King must have had a complete view of the city from the palace. Currently, the palace is being restored by ASI and due to the restoration work, there is a lot of dust around the palace. Most of us did not wander much in the palace except for my friend who climbed all the levels of the palace till the top. I found Shanti Stupa to be a major attraction among the foreign tourists. You get a magnificent panoramic view of Leh city from this place. After visiting these places, we visited the marketplace again and tasted the carrot cake at one of the bakery. The climate was much easier than Pangong village where in the night I had to wear monkey cap and gloves on the terrace.
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