Getting Leh'd - Day 2

Name of the Trip:

Leh Trip/ Yeah Yeah Yeah Trip/ PITB trip

Places Covered:  

Bangalore - Srinagar - Sonmarg - Drass - Kargil - Leh - Khardung la - Nubra Valley - Pangong Tso - Tso Moriri - Manali - Chandigarh - Bangalore (7500+ Km; 9 days)

Mode of commute:

Plane, SUV, Shikara Boat, Enfield Bullet, White Water Raft

We had to start from Srinagar early if we were to reach Kargil by evening. Dhava - our saarathi -  had made it clear that that meant waking up early and leaving the hotel by 7 in the morning. When i woke up at 6:45, the chairman was almost ready. Thankfully 2 of the girls were still sleeping. Getting ready in no time, we settled the dues at the hotel (we sadly did not receive any discount for the malfunctioning fan) and left before 7 after loading the luggage on the rack on top of the scorpio. This was basically on the premise that we shall top-up our stomachs en-route. That also meant that everyone was hungry. This is where (Abi introduced the term) "Rainy Day Provisions" - ready to eat provisions that the Chairman and Abi had brought along - came in handy, especially the cup-cakes. Rainy day snacks were loaded at the back of the scorpio, where the CBO was in permanent sleep mode. So while we filled up our tanks with snacks, Dhava drove into a refuelling station and filled up the scorpio's tanks.

The snacks only delayed the inevitable.. Hunger was back in no time and we were looking for dhaabas/ restaurants again. Soon we found a place which looked decent and stopped. While Dhava parked the vehicle we rushed to the restaurant to order the 1st round. Aloo parathas came fast while mixed veg parathas took some time to come (even though 80% of the mix veg was aloo) The food was ok but this time too there was no salt. It was around here that it dawned on us that perhaps the average Kashmiri / Ladakhi consumed lesser salt per capita than say someone from Bangalore. Thanks again to CFO/Chairman from bringing along the hand sanitizer. Hunger was the secret ingredient that made the food tastier i guess. After finishing the parathas, we got more rainy day food including chocolates and water bottles (Kinley/Aquafina costs a standard INR 30 anywhere between Srinagar and Manali). As we left, we found the dhaaba's stock of cool drinks stocked in the stream of cold water flowing nearby. Best way to serve the cool drinks chilled. Low electricity bills... Low carbon footprint... “Jugaad” at its best.

There was a river/rivulet (as against the many lake-ulets emerging from Dal Lake ;)  that flowed by the road we took towards Sonmarg. After a while, we decided to stop and stroll around the river. Clear, cold water flowed over the river bed while larger rocks jutted out of the river. The more adventurous members climbed on these and posed for photos and the smaller mountains (Kashmiri hills?) not far away provided a good back drop for the group photos as well. We did want to PITT (refer day 1- Srinagar airport) but found no rest rooms nearby. So we kept moving. Slowly the land scape was filled with mountains and the further we went, the higher the surrounding mountains became. Further up we came to a park on the other side of the river. The setting was beautiful with the park overlooking the river. Very tall coniferous - like trees arose from the rich green and trimmed lawns. To provide the perfect background, the tall mountain peaks far behind had white tips  - our first sighting of snow :) And to top it all, to cross the river there was a wooden bridge. But what interested us most was the "paid toilet" sign at the entrance! We gladly paid the 10 rupee (per head) entrance ticket for the park to PITT. We also topped up the mineral water bottles at INR 30 apiece, took some pics on a giant tree that had fallen down and set sail once more.

Within no time, we were in Sonmarg which was more like the park we had seen.. Entire valleys covered in lush green lawns which were surrounded by mountain ranges covered with coniferous - like trees and some of the distant peaks covered in white. We did see a lot of camps at Sonmarg. There were some mountaineering sites and some places had horse riding as well. But since we were more interested in lunch, we quickly made our way to the JKTDC restaurant which also happened to have veg/jain food. The Chairman and I went in first followed by the girls. It was dark inside and so it took a while for our pupils to dilate and see the innards of the room - there were at least 20 to 25 pretty young kashmiri girls staring back at us. One of the lenses from chairman’s specs popped off. (yes.. that actually happened) After awkward stares were exchanged, we also realised that there was no food/plates on the tables nor were there waiters in the room. As it dawned on us that food was not being served in the room, we moved out in search of another veg restaurant which we found across the road. The food was awesome (of course.. except for the salt.. which we added in liberal doses before gorging) - the butter rotis as well as biryani was mouth-watering and special mention has to be made of the delicious thick curd. But even this was not enough to cheer the chairman as he was consumed in thoughts about his damaged specs. In spite of my stomach making loud noises in protest, i still had large portions of rice and dall (this move proved problematic to the others later on.) After lunch, Abi set off to find the toilet for PITT. She might as well have taken a magnifying glass. The hotel had the smallest toilet we had ever seen. It was a 3 feet * 3 feet room in which it was difficult to even turn around, let alone move around.

We set course for Kargil / Drass once again and by now, the roads started gaining serious altitude. and the valleys and gorges became steeper. At one point, the road split ahead of us, with one road heading up and the other heading down. We headed up. Quite some time later, we could see literally thousands of tents by the road that stemmed down. These - as we found out later on - were the tents for pilgrims undertaking the Amarnath Yatra. Sometime later we stopped at a small village for tea. Here, we had an option for tea or Kawah. The tea was served in a small cup, but what we got in the name of Kawah was normal black tea..  (Chairman made puking face...) :( The real surprise turned out to be a packet of NANDHI Milk (all the way from B'lore) we saw at the provision store in that village. Hmmm... Probably the fact that nandhi milk is the cheapest tetra-pack available in the market could also have played a role in it being in this far flung area. Next we saw a weird looking vegetable in one of the shops... that turned out to be the weirdest Aloo Abi and I have ever seen. The shop after the tea shop had a lot of cooling glasses kept on the display window. So we tried our luck to see if they could repair Madans'. No luck.. But instead we did get some monkey caps.. Uma and CBO went for 'nakkli' Nike caps while i went in for original "addibas"... :) CBO got into the mood - she started bargaining with the guy but she (1) did not have enough time to reduce the price as we were in a hurry and (2) the pahadi guy looked intimidated by the CBOs bargaining. So we took the caps and headed out... moreover my stomach was not in the best of conditions either.

Next stop was Drass. We stopped at the war memorial built for the brave soldiers who had sacrificed their lives so that we people can lead safe lives. It was an emotional experience and one that gave fresh insight into the heroism and spirit of our soldiers. During the kargil war there were many instances where our soldiers - knowing very well that they would not make it out alive - went down all guns blazing - Maybe to protect a comrade or to conquer an enemy bunker inflicting heavy damage to the Indian army or simply to kill as many militants as possible before they succumbed to their wounds. These war heroes, with their amazing display of courage and selflessness took back many mountain peaks from enemy hands including tiger hills, tololing, 3 pimples etc. All of us came out of the memorial with moist eyes and great pride for the Indian Army. We bought a few souvenirs and boarded for Kargil.

By this time, the skyline was getting dark and my stomach was getting upset :) In technological terms, I wanted to download badly. But there were no hotel en route. We reached Kargil pretty late. Immediately on entering Kargil, we looked for specs repair for Chairman, which we didn’t find. Then we started looking for hotels. We found one on a hilltop with a breath-taking view of the sunset, but we thought that the (fast diminishing) view of the sunset was not worth the amount they were charging. So we decided to look for other hotels. We found another place. But it didn’t look decent nor safe (it did actually look like "hotel decent" of Jab We Met). By this time, pressure was building in my stomach and i couldn’t stand (or sit or lie) waiting any longer to find a hotel room. We stopped at a place which looked good. But the rates were high.. Madan and I talked to the manager who was a nice guy except when it came to reducing the hotel rates. That’s when CBO walked in. What followed was a high voltage bargaining match between them. Both the "Guys" of the group could just stand and watch the uppercuts and the jabs from both sides. It dawned on us that the hotel manager was an experienced campaigner. But the CBO did not let go before getting a rs. 100 discount off the bill. We took the rooms, dumped the luggage and i rushed to toilet. Later, We went to the girls room, watched the movie "kahani" which everyone liked - Uma became a fan of Vidya Balan . After this, we went down to the restaurant, had food, came back and slept.