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Published: September 4th 2021
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Day-4: 26-08-2021 - Leh to Nubra Valley:
One of the most exciting parts of the Ladakh tour is - crossing the world's highest motorable pass - Khardung la (La = Pass) at 18350 ft - to enter the Nubra valley.
Apart from Leh, its surroundings (Sham valley and Hemis), two most frequented places are the Nubra valley and Pangong Lake. Few tourists also go to Tso moriri.
Leh - Nubra - Pangong makes a triangle. Leh to Nubra via Khardung La takes about 4 hrs. Nubra to Pangong takes about 7 hours and Pangong to Leh via world’s second highest motorable pass - Chang La takes about 5 ½ to 6 hrs.
In Nubra valley, attractions are Diskit monastery in Diskit village (~120 km from Leh), 6 km further is Hunder village famous for sand dunes (!) and another 90 km down in the valley almost on the Pakistan (PoK) border is the Turtuk village (215 km from Leh).
Starting from Leh, we immediately entered steeply rising mountains with snowy peaks. Khardung La is about 40 km from Leh (~1 ½ h).
What we found there was sheer madness.
Many tourist descriptions advise to
carry oxygen cylinders (available on rent for 1200-1500 rupees with ONE mask) since oxygen level at Khardung La reduces further to 49 percent (from 65 percent in Leh). Our driver had advised us on the previous day to carry a lot of water and drink plenty of water. He said: water is oxygen. After three days of acclimatization in Leh, oxygen supplement will not be required - he had said. We followed his advice - and he was right. Of course with some caveats: do not stay at Khardung La for more than 15-20 min and don’t exert yourself. The tourists were doing just the opposite! There was a big crowd near the marking stone and the sign board for taking pictures. Here is the world's highest restaurant! I will come back to this madness during the return journey as it was even crazier!
Of course we also took our pictures at the highest possible point an ordinary man can go. Some youngsters who wanted us out of their way helped us in taking our pictures - so we made our exit in 5 minutes!
There is a military check post a few
kilometers before Khardung La (towards Leh) at 15300 ft called South Pullu and a similar check post on the other side of the pass - again at 15300 ft called North Pullu. These are the two safety points in case any mishap occurs including oxygen deficiency requiring rapid descent. There is also an ‘Oxygen Cafe’ at the summit.
Leaving Khardung La quickly, passing North Pullu, we had lunch at Khalsar village (11600 ft).
Now we were moving along the Shyok river - river of death. Because the terrain rapidly loses altitude, and the river bed is full of boulders, the flow of the river is very rapid and looks dangerous. Shyok river will accompany us till Turtuk losing nearly 1 km of altitude.
At places, where terrain is flat, there are ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) - 4 wheeled scooters - rides. They charge Rs. 1000 for a 4 km ride. Rs 250 per Km! Space rides must be cheaper!! The Ahmedabad to Leh flight had cost us less than Rs 5/km...ha ha ha. We did enjoy it.
Next, we reached Diskit, the site of the huge Maitry Buddha statue and Diskit monastery. This time we followed
our driver’s advice and avoided going into the monastery but did visit the big statue. This statue - rather another small statue of Buddha inside the temple - was the focus of our attraction. We had seen a TV serial - Ice Road Truckers-India’s Deadliest Roads - on Discovery channel when we were planning the Ladakh trip. The TV serial was made in 2016 and it included bringing this smaller statue to Diskit. Seeing this TV serial which travelled to Pangong and also Turtuk - was in fact the reason why we omitted Pangong and settled for Turtuk.
5-6 km further in the valley is the Hunder village (10500 ft) where we had our hotel. On the outskirts of Hunder, there are sand dunes. There we had a ride on double humped camels - Bactrian camels.
Our hotel in Hunder - Goba Guest House had good ambience, every few meters in Hunder you find streams of water coming from glaciers. The sound of the streams in otherwise very peaceful surroundings was very pleasant to the ears. Hunder - the Nubra valley is surrounded by tall mountains. There are green patches of vegetation, mainly tall poplar trees. All these
give a very nice ambience. Thus in Hunder you have sand dunes and green forest together.
Apricot trees are abundant in Nubra valley. We had dinner under Apricot tree on the first day at Hunder. Second evening, the temperature had dropped and it was not comfortable to sit in the garden restaurent.
Khardung La:
Sonal Mehta
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Very good info
Photo 61 and 68 are zee best