Kolkatta - Durga Puja - 2014

Suggestions

• Getting to the city from the airport is easy.  You can either wait in the airport itself for the Volvo bus or you can walk out of the airport to the town just 10min away (depending how many luggage that you have) to catch a bus to the town.  The Volvo buses takes you to important parts of the town but less frequent.
• Finding restaurants on the main street was difficult except in the Park Station area.  Most of the eating places are roadside eating places.

  

  Crowd at night

• Good time to visit the pandals and enjoy the decorations is during the day time, when there’s relatively less crowd.  Going to pandals at night time was to experience the festive atmosphere.  The crowd at night was totally unbelievable.  
• The police does an excellent organization during the festive time and there’s no need to worry about going around at night (but use common sense).  I never felt threatened (or threatened any one) when I was walking around 1am in the alleys from pandal to pandal.
  
• The metro in Kolkata is really good.  During the puja time they operate from 2pm and the services continue ’til 4am.
• The queue to get the ticket to get into the metro is long, so if you are planning to make multiple trips, getting the tickets for the future trips when you are at the counter will be good idea.
• The buses in Kolkata are not in good shape but very helpful to move around and very inexpensive.
• The most decent auto and taxi drivers compared to my dealings with the guys in Chennai or Mumbai.  The auto rickshaws are shared one and it doesn’t cost much and the auto drivers ask the fixed price which is very reasonable.  The taxi guys were
  
  using the meter to charge the customers most of the time and only a few guys asked little more than the price showed on the meter.  This is completely different my interaction or fear of dealing with the guys in Chennai.  Despite me being from Chennai, I get ripped off by the auto guys.
• Railway canteens are good and nice.
• When you try to get the local train tickets in Kolkata, it may be confusing a bit because there’re two unreserved counters.  For local trains, go to the counter near platform#5 or go to the counter with the list of station names & ticket prices.
  
• If you are planning to take the boat ride from Daksheswar temple to Belumath, remember that it’s a open boat and gets really hot so remember to wear sunscreen and cover your head.
• You can wear foot wear inside the Belumath facilities but not inside the buildings/temple, so don’t bother leaving the foot wear outside and walk in the hot ground.
• Millenium park is a nice place to view of the Howarh bridge

  

  View from Millenium Park

  but if you visiting alone there you may feel awkward.
• The traffic cops in Kolkata are very friendly and helpful.  Ask them for direction or any help in case you need any guidance.

Observations - Cultural

• Been to many temples in North India and it is the only place where I say statues of (South Indian god) Lord Muruga and
  
  Lord Ganesha.  Lord Muruga pretty handsome with mustache that you don’t find in the South Indian temples.
• Bengalis consider Kali has their daughter and the Durga puja is celebration of their daughter visiting their homes.  This is the reason why it is so special to them.  So join the festive atmosphere and ask questions, people will be more than happy to explain.  Another belief is tha the Lord Rama prayed to Kali before going to war with the bad ass Ravana and killing him.  There is symbolism of Kali as Lion with ten hands and each hand symbolizes different things.
  
• Can’t believe that hand pulled rickshaws are still in common practice in Kolkata whereas this hand pulled ones were replaced by cycle rickshaws in 1970s in Tamil Nadu because it is cruel to let someone pull you while pedaling is better.  Kolkata being a communist ruled state where they stand for labor, I couldn’t believe this practice is still in place - sad.
• The Kali temple at Kalikhat seemed to be Bengali equivalent of Thirupathi in the South India (second richest religious place
  
  next to Vatican in revenue).  There’s a long line to get into the temple but the priests there were openly asking for money to cut the lines and get in to the temple quickly.  Don’t pay a penny or paise to those guys.
• You will be able to see heads of the sacrificed goat heads lined up in the temple, so if you get troubled with those, please be aware.
• What I couldn’t believe was that there’re people smoking in the pandals and these are the people who are the organizers of that particular pandal.
• In busy restaurants, you are not allowed to work on your lap top because they don't want you to occupy the seat for a long time.  I was asked to put away my laptop in Haldirams.

Observations - Don't Miss

• Coolest thing other than the pandals was that the thousands of people crossing the road from one side to the other side in a matter of a minute, like waring armies clash.  It is like the road crossing in Shibuya, Japan but 100 times more people.
  
• Park station cemetery is one of the places a must visit in Kolkata.  If you really want to scare someone to death, hide in one of the tombs and jump out when someone walks by.  This place is so eerie.  British soldiers from late 18th century are buried here.  Very beautiful place.

My Journey - During Durga Puja

Met a Bengali guy, RK Sarkar, working in Delhi sat next to me in bus from the airport.  Talked about how it is hard to find good jobs in Kolkata and he had to leave to Delhi to work for the last ten hours.  He seems to follow politics in every part of India very well and we were talking about Jeyalalitha so much, I was impressed with his knowledge of what’s going in Tamil Nadu.

Once we get into town, there were a lot of banners and advertisement all over the place, been told that it’s because of the Durga Puja.  Finding the place I was staying was pretty easy and I could manage with my little Hindi and some English.  During my stay in Kolkata, I didn't have any difficulty because of the language.

The home owner, Chatterjee, was a really cool guy to talk to and very friendly.  We were talking about his life and his family background before I headed out to see the pumas, one of the interesting things about his family is that his grand dad was the first meteorology scientist in India.  Chatterjee had worked in more than ten different countries before settling in Kolkatta and Singapore was his favorite foreign country.  He gave me some trip idea on where I should go.

Pandals are amazingly built and I didn’t even realize that they’re made out of cardboard for some time.  Every pandal has a theme and Kali is decorated according to the theme, like RD Burman music themed pandal was constructed like a huge piano and inside the pandal all of the decorations were music themed.  There’re pandals with tribal themes where Kali was decorated in a tribal costumes and made to look like a tribal goddess.  

With Raj Dipnath

Couldn’t find any restaurants to eat so had some vegetable puffs and cake for lunch.  Met a guy, Raj Dipnath, in one of the pandals and he was very kind to explain the believes behind the festival as well as he made me aware of the themes of the pandals and details of each pandal.  Without his explanation I would have missed a lot of details.  Spent rest of the day walking around with him and his friends to different pandals in South Kolkata.  As the night time getting closer, the crowd started to build in every pandal.

Pandal with Green (recyclable) Theme

Before exploring the pandals in the North Kolkata during the night time, I decided to take a break in the room.  Chatterjee offered tea and we had a nice conversation on how he spends his time and about the Bengali movie themed wedding he had for his daughter who married a white guy.  Also, discussed the treatment minorities in different countries, pop culture and movies.  He invited me to his club that he runs in his home during the weekend nights where there’s a karaoke bar.  Just informed my plan for the night and left to find some food and to visit North Kolkata.

Tasted the fish cooked in the mustard oil (hilsa fish), which is a speciality of Kolkata, and it was good but didn’t crave to eat it again.  To get to the metro waited for the taxi or auto but at 7pm the place was filled with people and not able to get any vehicle to go to the metro station.  So decided to take the bus and it was easy.  Very long line in the train station and people were patiently standing in the line to get to the ticket counter and there’s no fights or rushing.  The metro journey was fast and very convenient.  Waiting line in some of the famous pandals were

ridiculous, like 2hr wait to get to the pandal.   One of the coolest things other than the pandals that I saw was the people crossing the major intersection.  The cops were doing a great job keeping people on the side of the road and when allowed the people to cross, literally close to 1000 people from each side of the road trying to get to get to the other side of the road, felt like the war movies where the armies were colliding.  Because of the crowds, I could visit a very few pandals and decided to come back the next day to visit some of the most artistic pandals in North Kolkata.

Visiting Kali

Mobile Cow Temple Near Kalighat

After having some relaxing tea discussions with Chatterjee, I left my backpack with him before heading out to the Kali temple.  Promoted Groupon with him to grow his karaoke bar business.  When I reached the Kali temple, I was surprised with the number of people and goats there, as well as where there’re cows on the small pick up truck for people to pray for.  I was contacted by one of the priests of the temple to get me into the temple quickly (and I have seen people taking their service to get in and out within 30 minutes).   I decided to stay in line and go in the normal way to see the god.  But after standing in the for two hours and when it started to rain, I started to reevaluate my decision but decided to stick with my values (at least for once) not to pay those a$$holes.  

Kalighat Experience

The temple is not a grand one and there are two different queues toget into the temple.  Overall size of the main alter is very small and to get to it you have to go through the small entrance and that’s where the god bring the animal out of everyone.  People were shoving and pushing to get into the entrance and if you have anyone elderly in your party, it is very risky to go through the entrance.  And the priests who take the people in for money start pushing their clients just before the

entrance in the line to cut the waiting.  It takes less than a minute a go in and come out of the main alter and when i entered in one of the priests pulled me out of the line into a small space near the god (they could easily identify who are foreigners I guess).  Unlike other Indian temples, the goddess Kali was not in a pedestal but very close to the ground.  I was able to get the dharsan (view of goddess) for a good two minutes and then the priest started asking for money.  I gave him Rs.100 and when he asked for Rs.500 more I just walked out saying that I didn’t have the money.  I didn’t even want to give the Rs.100 but didn’t want to make scene there.

Headless Goats

The one minute dharsan is the spiritual experience visiting the temple and also in the temple they sacrifice goats for the goddess Kali.  Just outside the main alter, in the open area, I could see about 30 goat heads and a few meters away, a couple of guys were skinning the sacrificed goat body and cutting them into pieces.  The view of Kali is really spiritual and I could still see the image in my mind.

Pandals Again

Took the metro to the North Kolkata to visit a few award winning pandals and they were really grand.  Some pandals were almost half the size of the football field very well made with waterfalls.  Some of the pandals were made look like mountains with waterfalls and inside the pandal there’re decorations of heaven, himalayan caves, etc.  Headed back to Chatterjee’s place around 6pm to pick up the bag to head out to Darjeeling.  

Kolkatta Train Station

Streets in Bad Shape

Arrived at the train station two hours early for the train and spent time people watching.  There’s a beggar sleeping on the train station hall and a cop was walking around him trying to see what he could do.  The beggar didn’t get bothered by any of these and having a nice nap, and after some time the cop just left him alone.  There’s a long line of bags sitting on the platform for reserving the queue to get into the unreserved compartment in the train.  My fellow passengers were from Nepal, Bangladesh and UK.  Taking off to Jaipalguri on my way to Darjeeling

Return Trip from Darjeeling

The train trip in the 3rd AC with a family from Kolkata and not much interaction with the fellow passengers.  When I asked the family where Mother Therasa’s place is, they were wondering why I wanted to go there.  Guessing that when you have something very valuable very close to you, you won’t find the value of it.  When I got off the train, my main concern was where to have the breakfast because of my previous bad experience in finding places to eat, luckily the train station canteen was there.  The train station canteens have changed a lot in the last few years, this one is completely different (good way) from what I used to when I was growing up.  

Visit to Daksheswar Temple

The trains are not crowded like the ones in Mumbai and the crowds are manageable (I was going in the train at 8am on a weekday).  The Daksheswar temple is about 10 minute walk from the train station and it took about 30 minute to reach the station from the Selodah station in Kolkata.  Daksheswar is very well organized compared to the Kalighat temple and no one was lurking there for money.   The temple was not as old as the Kalighat (Kali) temple but much better environment with a nice breeze.  The queues are well organized and there’s no cutting queues by paying some priest.  The boat ride from the temple dock area to the Belumath took more than 45 minutes and it’s hot in the open boat but the cost of the ride is only Rs. 10. 

Belur Math - Ramakrisha Math 

Belur math is a very nice and peaceful place.  There’re signs to leave your shoes outside, put on a hot day, there is no need to leave the shoes outside because the ground will be too hot to walk around barefoot in the math area, you can leave your shoes outside each of the building before entering in them.   There’s a long line to see the current president and his visiting time is at 11am and I didn’t want to wait there to see him,  but

visited the temples and other facilities.  There’s a ferry service to Howarah from the Belumath but to save time, I took a taxi to millennium park and arrived at the park traveling through the Howrah bridge.  I am glad that I didn’t go with the initial plan of walking on the Howrah bridge because there nothing great and I had seen the views when coming to the Belumath in the boat.

Millennium Park - Embarrassment

St. John's Church

Being alone in the Millennium park was awkward because it seems like a lovers paradise.  At noon and on a weekday there’re a lot of lovers sitting around and enjoying whatever :-) while I was enjoying the view the bridge.  For Rs. 5 entrance ticket, the park is a good place to hangout.  St. Johns church is about 10 minute distance from the park and the church is one of the oldest churches in Kolkata with a lot of

memorial plagues from late 1700s or early 1800s.  The road where the St. Johns church is, there are a lot of old buildings and a nice area to walk around.  I was walking in that area because a few people indicated that the Victoria memorial is close by and I started walking in that area ’til one of the traffic cops told me that it’s far away.  The traffic cop asked me wait next to him and stopped a local bus for me get in to go to the Victoria memorial.  There were a lot of nice parks on the way and there’s no way it is in a walkable distance from either the Millennium park or from the St. Johns church.

Victoria Memorial

The Victoria memorial park is a very nice park and within a couple of minutes I noticed that there’s no toilet that I could find.  It is a very beautiful park but I was there on Monday the day the museum is closed.  After spending a little more than hour walking around the park, I walked to Haldiram’s for lunch.  After a long time, good lunch in a reasonably good restaurant.

Cemetery Idea Rejected

I wanted to visit the Park Station cemetery which one of the oldest ones but there’s a confusion because there’re two cemeteries in that area.  After some discussion, I was told that the cemetery near St. Xaviers college one is the the place of interest.  The cemetery is a very beautiful place and there’re no words to describe it.  There’re not many people in the cemetery and with the moss covered ground with more than 200 year tomb stones

with a huge tree covering them are beyond description.  Met one of the guys from Singapore who was there on a mission to make a documentary about Britishers movement in that part of the world in early 1800s for documenting Singapore's 50th anniversary.  When he mentioned that he was waiting for the perfect lighting, I gave him a idea for candid camera that I surprise and scream at the people walking in the cemetery and he could film the reaction of the people.  He was smart enough not to agree to that because we’d have killed someone if we surprised them there.

Ride to the Airport

Took the Volvo bus from near the Haldirams and it took more than

90 minutes to reach near the airport - it didn’t go to the airport, but I have to walk about 10 minutes to reach the airport.  But during the 90 minutes of the bus ride, I could see most of the old and new Kolkata. 

Conclusion

Durga Puja is the best Indian festival I have enjoyed so far.  If you are in India during the month of Dasara, you should try to visit Kolkatta.  I really had a great time in Kolkatta.  If you have a few days to spare, visit Sikkim, it is more beautiful than Darjeeling.

Road to Srinagar - Heaven on Earth (Leh - III)

Suggestions

• If you are traveling in a car or bus from Leh to Kargil, sit on the passenger side of the vehicle to enjoy the scenery.
  
• Visit the Hari Parbat  - you have to get the tickets to get into the fort in a different part of the town.  The panoramic view from the fort is well worth it.
• If you take auto rickshaw to the airport, it will be stopped about a km from the entrance and you have to carry your luggage to the entrance.

My Journey

Getting the share taxi

There is a small board at the polo ground in the Manali highway as the new shared taxi stand and I was there very early in the morning (630am) watching different transactions going on there.  There were more taxis than the tourists in the stand, there’s no chai shop around that area and there’s a very poorly maintained toilet at the back of the taxi stand.  There are shared taxis to Srinagar, Manali and to Kargil leave whenever the vehicles get full, and the taxi union controls which taxi goes when. The office (small booth) opens at 8 am and they start announcing the taxi registration numbers and their destinations in Hindi, if you don’t know Hindi, ask the guys who stand around there.  The whole place comes to life only after 8am.  

When someone walks in to the taxi stand and enquires about something, there are about 10 people surround him to answer the question or curious about that person :-) Around 745 am one guy came in a vehicle to start selling the regular chai, Leh chai (very salty-pink in color) and Leh bread (naan kind of bread).  There are a lot of people just standing around the taxi stand and driving in and out of the stand, but no vehicles left to anywhere ‘til 9am.  Finally, our vehicle got full around 930 am and we left to Kargil.

Kargil

The road from Leh to Kargil is paved highway with a lot of small towns with restaurants and ATMs.  This highway is a five star highway compared to the Manali highway.  The scenery on this road is good but not as breathtaking as that of the Manali highway except the sections after the area called Moon Landing. We reached Kargil in less than six hours even after taking a long lunch break in one of the villages.  Kargil is a decent size town with a lot of shops and restaurants.  I found a hotel very close to the share taxi stand thinking that I’d leave very early in the

morning to Srinagar.  There’s not much to do in Kargil and it is a jump-off point for the trekkers to reach different parts of Kashmir.  I set out to see the only

museum in town that has the silk route artifacts, when I reached the museum it was closed.  When I shouted out for anyone, a guy came out from his home below the museum, to open the doors, collected Rs.50 and walked along with me inside the museum to put some pressure on me to see and to get out of the museum soon so that he could do his regular work :-)  After spending about 15 minutes in the museum, seeing photographs, money during the earlier 20th century, things traded during at that time, etc., I went to the town to walk around.  It is predominantly a Muslim town with very few tourists hanging around.  The next-door neighbor in my hotel was in Kargil for business and was planning to leave at 10am by shared taxi to Srinagar, so made arrangements with the shared taxi to go in the same taxi.  Made arrangements with the taxi driver that I wanted to spend some in the Kargil war memorial on the way to Srinagar.

Shared Taxi Ride and War Memorial

In the shared taxi we had four locals, French tourist (William), a Spanish lady (Itxaso) living in Rishikesh and I, traveled to the Kargil war memorial first.  Seeing the Tiger Hill and the other ridges where the actual war happened, and how close they are to the main highway artery that connects Leh to Srinagar gave a great perspective of the importance of the conflict.  I was disappointed to see no one explaining what happened during the war in English but saw a soldier stood in front of the crowd giving military style speech about the war for about 20 minutes.  And at the end of the speech, he said “Jai Hind” and left, there’s no question and answer

- it was just an one way conversation.  Don’t know why they couldn’t put any interactive media in the memorial to pride themselves of the winning of the war..!  One of the locals in the taxi, Sarvar, was explaining what happened at different points on the road during the war and it was interesting.  But I could sense his leanings towards to Pakistan by the videos that he was sharing and exaggerating the casualties on the Indian side.  

The section of the road near Sonamarg was bad and we could see the after effects of the cloudburst there; also this section of the road from Kargil is very dramatic and beautiful.  Sarvar showed us where Amarnath is and indicated that it’s possible to take helicopter to

Amarnath from Sonamarg.  As we got closer to Srinagar, we could see a lot of military personal on the roadside but the numbers are not as high as what I expected. 

Srinagar Dal Lake

Since I have already made arrangements to stay in a boathouse, William & Itxaso wanted to come along with me to see the boathouse before deciding where to stay.  Fridose, with whom I was dealing with regarding the boathouse, met us near the near to take us to the boathouse.  I thought that the boathouses are on the edges of the lake, but there are all parked at one end of the lake close to each other.  Unlike the boathouses in Kerala, these boathouses don’t move and they are always docked in one place.  Since it was off-peak season, there’s not many people around our boathouse and also, it is further away from the main road.  We liked the boathouse and we decided to stay in the same place.

We just sat on the boat talked about our travel stories.  We talked a lot about why Itxaso is living in Rishikesh for the last five years and her stories about traveling in India.  The discussions went into scuba diving when we started interacting a few Israeli guys in the next boat and what the cool places are to teach scuba diving for one of the Israeli guy who has Master certification in scuba diving.  Contact information exchanged between the tourists.

Old Srinagar !?!

After leisurely having breakfast, I set out to explore Old Srinagar with the Israeli guys with Fridose’s brother.  The Old Srinagar is not impressive and there’re not any old heritage buildings to take a look at and also the mosques are very simple without any extravagant artwork.  The old mosque structure is different from the regular mosque structure where there’s no dome structure but looked like the structure of a church with huge prayer halls.  The visit to the Hari Prabat fort was very good and we had to go to a different part of the town to get permissions/tickets to get into the fort.  There is a lot of military presence in the fort and the view from the fort will let you understand the size of the Dal Lake.

Hitch Hiking

My Israeli friends wanted to visit some of the Mughal parks, so I bailed out

and wanted to go to the Sankarachraya temple.  I was stopped by an inspector, who was registering the vehicles those were going up the hill to the temple, and asked where I was going (I was the only guy who was walking up the hill while everyone else is going by car/auto).  Told him that I would like to walk up to the temple, he started talking to me in Tamil and told me to get an auto to go up because it would take more time and he tried to get me an auto but no one was answering.  So when the next vehicle stopped for registration, he asked them to take me in their vehicle to the temple.  The temple is a simple one with a lot of security (you are not allowed to carry phone/camera into the premises).  On the way back, I hitch hiked and got the ride in a car with a couple Chilean girls, who were traveling in the Kashmir/Rajastan area for three weeks.  Interacting with the police and hitch hiking were a better experience than paying Rs.200 for the auto to go to the temple..:-)  

Sunset Shikara Ride

On returning from the temple, I bargained a shikara (boat) for Rs.250 per hour to go on the sun set ride in the Dal lake before returning back to the boat house.  The shikara ride on the lake with less tourists was good and I noticed only one power boat with water skis but overall the lake was calm and nice.  Not sure how the lake will be during the peak season.

End of an Awesome Trip

I was afraid that the time that’ll take to get to the airport may be

long because of the security but I was wrong.  There was not that many army personal on the way and the security at the airport was through but quick. You will be stopped about a km from the entrance of the airport where you have to scan your bags before you can continue your trip to the airport.  The airport is well maintained and had to go through the security at least in three places within the airport before boarding the flight.  But overall, it was quick and no issues.

Exploring Ladakh (Leh - Part II)

First part of my travelogue reaching Leh from Manali by Enfield motorcycle can be found at: http://shantagunny.blogspot.in/2015/08/gunny-motorcycle-diaries-manali-to-leh.html

Suggestions

• If you are traveling in Leh during the non-peak season, you get easily get 25-30% discount on the published taxi rates.  Take a look at the published taxi rates and calculate how much the published fare for your trip would be.  This knowledge will help you to negotiate better.  Before start negotiating, take a look at the vehicle first and make sure that you are happy with that.
• Every destination in Ladakh area may or may not be beautiful but the journey to those places will be definitely awesome.
• There are a lot of guest houses and hotels close to the old town
  
  
  near the palace area.
• The share taxi stand is now moved to a new place (polo ground) that’s located in the Manali highway beginning area.  If you are planning to take share taxi to Manali or Kargil or Srinagar, you need to have patience and belief that you would get there.  The people in the taxi stand are very helpful and will let you know which taxi will leave first to your destination and you have to wait til the taxi get full, it may take 30 minutes or two hours.
• Instead of booking separate taxi rides, e.g. Leh to Nubra valley
  
  or Leh to Pongong, etc., have an itinerary and book as a 3 or 4 day trip, you will be able to get deep discounts.
• If there’s no major floods or landslides, you will be able to go to Pongong from Nubra Valley without coming to Leh, when you book multi day tours, you will be able to save time.
• If you are planning to go to Tso Moriri from Pangong lake using backroads, you need to get the inner line permit and plan to get it a week or earlier.  
• Not many people venture to the Tso Moriri because of its remoteness that is one of the reasons why you should visit.  
  
  There’s limited accommodations near the lake, so as soon as you arrive there, book a place before you go out to enjoy the views.

Getting the Discount

Before going to the taxi stand, we talked to the receptionist about the taxi, our plan and asked for his suggestions.  With the help of the published taxi fare booklet, we calculated different fares for different plans and finalized on a less expensive plan for four days.  To cover the places that we wanted to cover, the published taxi fare has price for five days so right away we knew that we could easily get 20% discount and after negotiation we were able to get 30% discount with the first driver that we talked to.  We left to Nubra valley around 1030pm because we need to cross the check post before certain time.  

Khardungla

We saw a lot bicyclists on the way to the Khardungla pass and view of himalayas in the background of Leh was pretty awesome.  The road was dusty but well maintained.  There’s an oxygen station run by army and a cafeteria at the 18380 feet level.  It was not as cold as what we expected.  We spent about 15-20 minutes walked around taking a lot pictures and testing my endurance by doing pushups at the high altitude, we continued our journey to Nubra valley.   After coming down from the Khardungla pass, we took a break at the Khardung village for lunch and tea, if you want to enjoy the food at the military canteen, it is available there. 

Orchard of Ladakh

The Shyhok river and the valley is very beautiful with a lot of

vegetation, since the climate in the valley is mild at the 10,100 ft level, people were able to do farming there.  Even on the side of the roads, there are a lot of lavender plants.  This area is called "Orchard of Ladakh”.  We decided to visit the Diskit monastery before continuing to the Hunder, and climbing the stairs to the top of the monastery was really tiresome but it is worth time and it is a such a peaceful place.   In contrast to this 14th 

century monastery, there’s a new and modern monastery with 14meter statue of buddha is close by.  You can go there to have a good view of the Nubra Valley and I didn’t find that monastery interesting.

Sand Dunes

The main attractions in the Nubra valley are the sand dunes and Bactrian camels (two hump backs).  Diskit is the government center in the valley so it is a little bigger town than Hunder.  We reached Hunder around 5pm, while my friends were taking the ride on the

camel, I was walking around the sand dunes enjoying the beautiful scenery.  Compared to the sand dunes in Rajasthan or any other desert area, it is not huge but the location of it between the mountain ranges is the beauty.  The whole place shuts down once

the sun goes down.  We wished that we went to Turtuk which is very close to the Pakistan border which became accessible only after 2010, but no time.  There are a number of tourists visit Nubra Valley for camping but majority of them are just to just a day visit to see the sand dunes.  More than the scenery of the sand dunes, the scenery along the way is very beautiful

Road to Pangong Tso

We really wanted to take the road through Warsi La to Pongong but due to the latest cloudburst and bad weather, that road was closed

so we had to go through Leh. We took the road through Changla, which is the third highest motorable pass in the world (17,688 ft), to Pangong.  As expected, the scenery is very dramatic with the views of monasteries, yaks and himalayan marmots.  It is depressing to see most of the tourists getting very close to the marmots and in some cases feeding them to take pictures.  

Pangong Tso

As with any tourist place in India, Pangong was crowded and the signs about “no motor vehicles beyond this point” or “no camping

allowed” do not have respect, saw people riding their motorcycles/cars very close to the lake and also saw a person camped closer to the lake.  As usual, I could see beer bottles and other trash thrown around the lake which is depressing.  Ignoring all these, if you look at the scenery it is mesmerizing and couldn’t find anyone getting in the water for swim.  Guess what, no one is willing to do it, i was dumb enough to do it, so got in to the water and ready to take a dip but at last minute afraid of

getting arrested for swimming there (this lake is considered as one of the sacred lakes), got out of it just standing in the water for sometime.  The water was not that cold but very clear and nice.  It is one of the largest (83 miles long) high elevation  (about 14,000 ft) lakes that’s shared between India and Tibet(China).  The view of the clear blue water surrounded by mountains is very beautiful.

There are a lot of tent sites as well as concrete buildings available to stay in Spangmik, which is the name of the village on the shores of the Pangong Tso.  Surprisingly, it was not very cold at night and I could get out of the room around 5 am to see the sunrise without much winter cloths.  We decided to wake up early the next day to drive to Tso Moriri.

Drive to Tso Mirori

This is one of the remotest and beautiful landscape that I have seen,

this drive is the best of the best.  We drove up to the Merek village and the drive is so beautiful.  Most of the tourist don’t go beyond Spangmik but you need a four wheel drive to go to Merek.  On the way to the lake, we saw a number of Brahmini ducks, Tibetan Asses (Kiangs) and nomads setting up their tents in remote areas grazing their goats.  This is also one of

the high altitude lakes (14,500 ft) and at night this place gets really cold.  We met a group of people travelled from Mumbai wearing no shoes/socks and cotton cloths freezing in the dining area, because they had been told by their tour operator it won’t be cold.  I really wanted to see the night sky but didn’t bother to fight the freezing weather so slept well.

Adventure (almost) gone Bad

We stopped briefly for tea near Tso Kar (white lake) and didn’t find a lot tourists staying here.  Due to the high salt content, this lake

looks white from far so the name Tso Kar.  Also on the way, we passed through sulphur lake and a water spring.  Since there’re not many tourists traveling here, you could enjoy quite, calm and remoteness, that is hard to find in India, here.  Once you reach the Manali Leh highway, you will see a lot of traffic.  We stopped at the Taglangla pass for some time and the driver wanted to make our trip interesting so he took on the

off road to cut 5 km of travel through the winding road, it was like rolling down from 17,000 ft.  It was fun for 5 minutes before car

got stuck in the mud.  We tried hard to move the vehicle but no luck, but we were lucky to get stuck near a place some people were working laying cable for the BRO.  Five of us managed to push the car out of mud after trying different tricks for about 45 minutes and continued our journey to Leh.

Last Minute Things

We reached Leh around 4pm and decided to take the motorcycle to the mechanic to take a look at it for the long ride the next day.

 Since one of the riders was having hand pain, we decided to leave one motorbike in Leh and take only one bike back to Manali.  I decided to go to Srinagar and fly out of Srinagar to Chennai.  There’s a long line of people checking and running their bikes, so by the time we got our bike it was dark.  We decided to look for the share taxi stand and the exact location of it was not found by the time we went back to the room because different opinions/directions provided by others.  We packed the stuff for the riders and put them in the bike before went to sleep.

Conclusion

I wish that we rode the bike to Nubra valley, Pangong lake and Moriri lake areas, but it needs a lot of time and planning that we didn’t have in this trip.  May be next time.  It is one the best trips of my lifetime.