Ladakh Chronicles, part 5 – Nubra Valley | Where The Streets Have No Name

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Ladakh Chronicles, part 5 – Nubra Valley

April 5th, 2009

Desert on the top of the word

9^th July
After a nice rest for two nights and a day, we didn’t find it difficult getting up early. In fact, we were ready and on our way by 7:30 in the morning. After all, we all had a reason to be excited… Nubra Valley. We were going to be in huge valley spanning across many mountains and all this at 10000 ft. But there was one more edge to the excitement… The amazing Khardungla pass. Yes, THE Khardungla pass, world’s highest moterable pass. Being able to drive at 18,380 ft above sea level is an amazing feat by itself. Have to praise the hands who built these roads. Before reaching Khardungla you pass this rock formation along the road, which locals call “Gateway of Khardungla”.

It was really a great feeling standing at the Khardungla pass. I was speechless and out of breath (actually, literally) by the feeling of being at 18,380 ft. I could only imagine the feeling of someone standing at the top of world on Mount Everest; It must feel great just being there, even for few seconds. For first few minutes I and Maggi remained in car. One reason was chilling wind outside and another reason was (for me that is) the car standing next to ours, with two beautiful (presumably British) girls in it. After fooling around for a while, we decided to get out of the car and take a look around. Jaimin, Nupoor and Neerja went into small restaurant for some hot bowl of Maggie noodles; while me and Maggi (the person one, not the noodles) hung around in a souvenir shop. After a while as I spotted those chicks returning, I retired to our vehicle hoping to get some video coverage of beauties at highest pass in the world. Oh, the joy of being a male!!

As we left Khardungla pass, Maggi was quite charged up. At one point near a glacier she asked to stop the car, collected some ice from glacier wall and started throwing it on us at backseat. Although we left her with a warning, I really wish we should have put some ice in her sweater. Beside this, girls were busy sharing around their stock of sweets and mints, while we guys were having fun pulling their legs. Neerja being the youngest of the lot became our favorite Bakra (or Bakri). Poor soul had to go through lot of verbal torture all the way. Eventually Nups was also targeted but Neerja topped the list of being most targeted. As we passed Shyok valley and Shyok river, we got our first glimpse of the vast Nubra Valley. We could see the Nubra river flowing along small villages in green patches in between the gray surface. Our destination for the day was Hunder, but we were to going to the hot springs at Panamik first. Panamik village is famous of its hot springs. The mountains adjacent to Panamik have high amount of sulfur with other minerals, which causes the hot springs. The water was amazingly warm; it rather felt quite hot, against the cold wind. The mountains were beautiful and different from what we had seen so far. They had sort of yellowish orange tinge to them, thanks to the sulfur and red rocks.

From Panamik we headed back straight to Hunder; the desert at 10,000 ft., truly a wonder of nature, this is the only place in India where one can find Bactrian camels (two-humped). It’s an amazing place where one can stand in the sand dunes and lay sight on the greenery around as well as snow laden peaks beyond horizon. A marvelous tryst of nature’s wonderful creations.

At around 4:00 we reached our guest house, Snow Leopard. We just dumped our bags in our rooms and gathered at garden restaurant, as we were hungry like pigs. We hadn’t had our lunch yet, that is besides some tidbit snack and Maggi’s mints. We sat around the table while waiting for food, talking and teasing (Neerja, who else?). As always Prateek had his stories from past trip to share, and we would always find something to tease Neerja with any given topic. Have to say this though, even though we teased her sometimes way too much… she was really sporty and took part in the fun.

In the evening everyone decided to go for walk around Hunder village. After everyone returned from the walk, we again sat down in garden and chatted till dinnertime. Apparently, these guys went to army check post at village border; as well as river bank. I felt really dumb that I missed it. Anyway, that wasn’t the only thing that I missed; apparently my morning laziness was going cost me morning trek to Hunder fort next day.

10^th July
Another sign that I’m aging; I can’t seem to shake of my sleep sometimes early in the morning. Otherwise I wouldn’t have missed the morning trek to Hunder fort. It was fun trek, from what I could make out from the photos and talk. That’s two too many chances I missed visiting some good places, in less than 24 hours. What more, as I was sitting in garden with Maggi, I fell off my chair. As I reacted quickly and tried to suppress my fall with one hand, I accidently put my all weight on my single thumb (don’t ask how I managed to do that). A jolt of pain ran through my brain, causing a burst of thousand flashlights in front of my eyes. For whole 3 minutes, everything was looking whitewashed, or kind of overexposed to me. Maggi was absolutely dumbstruck as she couldn’t figure what was happening. I was sitting like a statue with zero expressions on my face, holding my thumb tightly. Anyway, I suspect I might have caused a hairline fracture as my thumb still hurts a bit even today.

Anyway, soon we were off from our guest house and to Hunder desert. It was really a strange feeling standing here. You could see mountains all around and to the farthest point your sight could reach. You are walking on the sand dunes and you can’t shake off the feeling that you’re really above 10,000 ft. In the land of rocks, mountains and snow who would have imagined being in a desert. As we were killing time, Maggi got bit by shutterbug and wanted to take my snaps. I like to shoot, but being shot is not in one of my top favorite activities. After couple of shots I started giving weird poses, which eventually pissed her off. So to cool things down I took back control of my camera and made her pose for some shots. By this time we could see our camels arriving on horizon. As they neared, we could see that they were… rather shorter than I had thought. Prateek and Jaimin had decided to opt out from ride. Good for them, cause as soon as we started our ride, I understood that I wasn’t going to like it much. Apparently, it’s… in quite literal sense, pain in the ass. As well in hip, waist and back. I wonder how people would be riding these things for days across the desert. Then again, I think it might be possible that seating wasn’t very good on these camels here. Luckily, ours was just 10 minutes ride around the desert. So when it was over, I was more than happy to jump down from my camel and free my hind from torture. Luckily for me, I wasn’t the only one with that feeling.

Nupoor got more that she had bargained for with her camel ride, as Neerja’s camel kept sneezing… on her. Though we got few laughs out of it, she was rather quite irritated with camel saliva covering her left arm. After all she is a doctor and hygiene is her second nature, so I can understand the feeling. But I must admit it was rather fun to see how that camel kept and sneezing and every single time he would find Nupoor in his range.

Next stop was Diskit Gompa (monastery). This 350-year old monastery is the oldest and largest one in the Nubra valley. Situated at around 500ft above from Diskit village, on a ridge overlooking settlement to south. Spread almost vertically, its architecture consists of many small building piled on top of each other. This was our first monastery visit in Ladakh, and I was quite moved by it. I simply loved the entire atmosphere and sense of peace offered by it, even when it was full of other tourists around. Beautiful frescos were spanned all across the walls near main prayer hall. As I stepped in main prayer hall, a strange and beautiful feeling took over me. My senses were exploded by an awesome ambience surrounding me. It was all so full of colors and joy; yet so serene and peaceful. I just sat down quietly and let the beautiful feeling settle in my mind. I guess this was the moment, when I got so interested in monasteries… that I had already made a plan for return trip to Ladakh, specifically for monasteries.

Soon we were on the way back to Leh. Around 4:30, we took a stop at small camp near Khardung village for some hot bowl of Maggie noodles (besides, it was the only thing available there). But the cook made it well and as per our instructions (with sliced veggies and onions), so some of us had another round of it. Anyway, we were quite hungry as we hadn’t had anything after morning breakfast.

We reached back to hotel. One thing we all missed in travelling was good music (except that I had my trusty iPod, Maggi had her iPhone and Neerja had her MP3 player). Most of the CDs our driver, Amjad had were… well, let’s just say pretty dull. So, we made a plan. Since our car stereo had MP3 support, we decided to take 15 songs per person (of his/her choice) from my iPod and make one kick-ass compilation CD. As there were 15 songs limited per person, chaos reign while selecting songs from list. After many alterations, deletions and additions, along with expert comments on each other’s song choices… after hour and half, finally our CD was ready. We were set for next day’s long drive to Tangste.

Related videos from Maggi’s youtube channel: