Day 7: TOW Khardungla

Day 7: 24th September
So today's plan was to go to Khardung La and Nuubra Valley. Khardung La till recently was the worlds highest motor-able pass. It is at a height of around 18000 ft. while Nubra valley is a high altitude desert with a river Shyok flowing through it which is actually on the way to Siachen Glacier, well known for being the world's highest battle ground.
We left early to Khardung La. Khardung La is just 40 kms from Leh. But while Leh is at 11000 ft height Khardungla is at 18000 ft. So the road from Leh to Khardung La is very steep. It took us more than an hour to reach there. We reached there at 7:30 am. The weather was cold and there was a shadow because of the mountain behind us. So we could not stay there for more than 15 minutes. We just took snaps and hurried out of there. Even walking at such height was strenuous.
From here at around 136 km away is a small town called Hunder which is in Nubra Valley.
The way to Nubra Valley was again beautiful and unique. Unique in the sense that the Valley between barren mountains was at some places lavishly green and at some places was a desert with a flowing river. When the fertile valley and the deserts met it was quite mesmerizing. Because it was end of summer and the river flow was less, there was less greenery. Surprisingly hundar is at a height of around 9k-10k ft.On the way to Hundar there were lots of army camps which are base camps for the army camp in Siachen Glacier.
Though we were descending down from 18k ft, I was feeling a bit sick. The road was curvy and i was nauseous. We stopped at around 10 o clock for breakfast. That's exactly what I wanted, a stop and a small nap time. So others went for breakfast and I slept in the middle seat luxuriously. So at the end of their breakfast, I was feeling back to full fitness.
At around 10:45 am we reached Hundar. Hundar is known mainly for two things, the sand dunes of Ladakh and the double humped camel Safari. But sadly there were no double humped camels to be seen. Supposedly as there was a fight between villagers and camel operators, the camel operators were banished.
But the Sand dunes of Ladakh was enough to lift our spirits. We stopped at the outskirts of the village on the banks of river. Though river would be a misnomer. May be it was a stream.
Also there were Leh-berry fruit trees and lots of them. The fruit was tiny and sour in taste but tasted good. Then we moved on to Sand dunes which were adjacent to the stream. It was like a vast desert with sun beating down on us except for the fact that it was quite chilly. Surprisingly there was one more family on holiday, who were also from bangalore. We played and enjoyed for some time in river till 12 o clock and started back to Leh.
With Ladakh being dominated by buddhist monastery also known as gompa, the trip would not have been complete without visiting a Gompa.
Fortunately on the way back our driver took us to Diskit gompa, incidentally one of the largest and the oldest gompa in Ladakh. The Gompa is at the top of mountain, though our vehicle did go to the entrance of gompa, the whole establishment was actually multi storied as you can see in the picture. So the climb to the top was tiring. But as soon as we reached there the view was spectacular. We could get the bird's eye view of the whole nubra valley. The monastery was colorful. Though there was no shortage of tourists, because we were interested in the monastery, one of the monks got one more prayer hall opened for us to see. It was filled with more statues than the previous one, smaller but equally captivating.
One of the features of gompa is the prayer wheels. A cylindrical structure with exquisite paintings or carvings on them and have a rod at the top so when rotated rings a bell at regular intervals. Its supposed to bring good luck. But for me more than good luck, the sheer novelty of it gave more enjoyment in rotating it.
So at around 1 o' clock we left gompa and back to Leh. We reached Leh at around 4:30. The cook at the hotel toasted us some bread to go with Omelet. We played cards till 7 and went out for dinner.
I do not remember exactly, but i think this was the day when we had the worst food. The food was served late after almost 1 hour of waiting and it was not tasty at all. So we came back to hotel and settled the bill as we had to check out early in the morning.
As had become practice we played cards for some time before sleeping. It was always me, Adarsh, Mayur and either of Akash or Sunil but most of the times Sunil and with Daya happily sleeping while we played.