37. Exploring Ladakh

Last month I suddenly found a way to fulfil my long pending desire to go to Ladakh. Rajeev has hung his boots; he refuses to be pushed into my travel plans. So when Didi said a tour operator from Kolkata, who also happens to be a second cousin, was planning a tour of Ladakh I jumped in without second thought. Ladakh is not the easiest place to travel, especially with my sister who is pushing seventy. But she is feisty and I believe in angels…

So I flew to lucknow with a jacket and woollens, in the smouldering month of June, leaving the salubrious  climes of my dear Pune, to climb into a train to Delhi with a jing-bang of cousins, nieces and a nephew, not to forget a grand-niece all of 7 years old, on the 8^th  of June. The tour-operator, Barnali Chatterjee, ( Sardeshwari Travels) had arranged for us to freshen up and rest in the ‘Kali-bari’ in Chittaranjan Park before we boarded the Rajdhani from Delhi to Jammu in the evening. That gave us a chance to see the very clean and spacious Kali temple of Delhi. Shortly 3 more people with Barnali reached from Kolkata, making us a group of 15. 

We reached Jammu on 10^th where Tara, who cooked for us throughout the trip, joined us with a whole lot of provisions – including duck eggs and vegetables I’ve never eaten before, Himsagar mangoes and water melons. I learnt that feeding a group of Bongs to keep them happy and satisfied is no mean feat. The next morning we piled into two SUVs with all of Tara’s and our luggage to drive up to Srinagar. The guy driving my vehicle was a Kashmiri called Ashiq. Like his name he was quite a colourful character and a hot-head. While still in the Jammu section we got into a traffic jam and another Jammu bound Punjabi taxi driver came in Ashiq’s way and uttered an expletive to boot. Well what ensued was less than pleasant – I got a firsthand experience of the rift between Jammu and Kashmir even if it is one state on paper and also how difficult it is to separate two grown men affected by temporary insanity. Well it all ended after Barnali threatened to call someone at the LOC (whatever that meant) and Ashiq bleeding from his head. I quickly dosed him with some Arnica, fearing for our own health in the hands of a driver with a wound on his head and vengeance in his heart. 

Well the rest of the trip was incident free and we finally reached Srinagar in the middle of the night and groped our way into some house-boats. This was a new experience for me and much better than staying in indifferent hotels. The boat owners, Noorbhai and his brothers turned out to be wonderful hosts and conversationalists. Our boat man kept us intoxicated with his cups of fragrant ‘kahwa’ – wonderful concoction which I am trying to recreate at home, alas! in vain.

Our house boat 'Naaz' on the Jhelum or as the locals say 'Jehlum'

AHARBAL

The next day Barnali had planned a picnic to a lesser visited place called Aharbal about 85 kms out of Srinagar, via the Mughal Road, as most of us had already visited Srinagar before and seen the usual places of interest. We also had another family of three join us who had flown in from Kolkata. It was a lovely place and we had chicken curry and rice for lunch.

 

Cherries in an orchard enroute

 

Beautiful Waterfall at Aharbal (pics by Paromita)

The Picnic

On the 12^th , 3 SUVs with Ladakh numbers and Ladakhi drivers came for our onward trip. They made a lot of fuss about load balancing. We had already been asked to leave all our extraneous stuff in the houseboat itself. In my case there wasn’t much for me to leave back so I left my mobile which had lost all networks on reaching Jammu! Apparently prepaid simcards are jammed there. But I had not realised that without my mobile I couldn’t tell the time or date! So here onwards my diary of events becomes a little suspect.

KHEER BHAVANI
Our first stop was at the beautiful temple of Kheer Bhavani some 25 kms out of Srinagar in a village called Tula Mula. It is a very important temple for the Hindus of the valley. A number of legends and stories are associated with the temple. The spring water surrounding the deity is said to change colours and when it is black it is said to denote the advent of inauspicious events. It is said that the waters turned black at the start of the insurgency in 1989.

Kheer Bhavani

Travelling 434 km from Srinagar to Leh on NH 1D is an experience of a lifetime. You drive along the Sindhu River through the beautiful Sonmarg till you reach the Zoji La pass at a height of 11578 feet, when you enter Ladakh. There is an absolute and dramatic change of scene as you cross the mountain wall and enter the dry and arid Drass valley which proclaims itself to be the second coldest place on earth after Siberia. We were thrilled to see snow an arm’s length away and actually touched it when driving through the Zoji La pass. We were asked to stay inside the vehicle and not expose ourselves to the cold breeze. 

Zojila Pass

Then we halted at the Kargil War Heroes memorial for a very late lunch at the army canteen. 

Kargil War Memorial (pic by Paromita)

 
I am sorry to say that right about this time the much spoken about altitude sickness gripped me and I managed to puke my guts out all the way to our night halt at the Lamayuru, Ladakh’s oldest monastery. Hereafter things got a little hazy for me and more or less remained hazy and nauseous till we reached Leh the next day and both I and my sister checked into the SNM (Sonam Norboo Memorial) Government hospital , tourist ward, and guzzled a tank or two of pure oxygen.

LAMAYURU

We stayed the night in Hotel Niranjan within the Lamayuru itself. The spectacular view all around cheered me to some extent.

Mahasidhacharya Norapa, an Indian scholar, is said to have meditated at Lamayuru for a long time and had caused a lake which filled the area to dry up and built the monastery thereafter. The monastery makes a spectacular view situated on a mountainside. It is the largest and oldest Monastry in Ladakh housing some 150 permanent monks. It originally consisted of 5 buildings.

ALCHI

The second monastry we passed enroute to Leh was Alchi. Alchi is one of the most important monasteries and Budhist centres in Ladakh. It is said to have been built by the great master and translator Rinchen Zangpo between 958 and 1055. The wall paintings inside the monastery portray Budhist and Hindu motifs and also reflect the history of Kashmir under the Hindu Kings.

The day we landed there ie 13^th June happened to be a Budhist festival and the place was chock-a-bloc with people.

ZANGSKAR – SINDHU SANGAM (confluence)

Enroute we stopped for lunch at the confluence of the rivers Zangskar and Sindhu which then goes on to form the Indus. 

After which our driver, Naseem, thankfully hurried us back to Leh. We were put up at a large guest house called Nezer Holiday Inn run by a wonderful couple, Razia and Aijaz. Razia admitted us in the hospital, the next day, carried lunch and dinner for us and fed us and took care of us while our group was in Nubra. She even took out time to give us company on our city tour of Leh. Amazing lady! Getting to know this family was definitely a high point of this trip.

Our group went on to Nubra Valley over the Khardungla Pass. We (my sister and I) decided to give the highest pass a pass and spend some time exploring Leh.

(There is plenty to see and do in Leh http://justtravelmusings.blogspot.in/2014/07/exploring-ladakh-spending-time-in-leh.html.)

(A trip to Pangong and Tsomoriri lakes is also covered separately @ http://justtravelmusings.blogspot.in/2014/07/exploring-laddakh-pangong-tso.html)

DHA - HANU

On the 21^st of June we started back for Srinagar at around 10 am. We drove down a longer route via Batalik to be able to visit the Aryan Village Camp of Dha - Hanu (twin villages). This route is green unlike the rest of Ladakh as most of the fruit orchards are grown here.

Picnic on the way

 

The residents here are supposed to have come from Central Asia over a 1000 years ago purportedly looking for the grave of Jesus Christ. They are Budhists but also believe in their own Gods. They look different from their Ladakhi neighbours. When we tried taking their picture their constant refrain was ‘pisa lao, pisa lao’ meaning ‘give me money’. They speak an archaic language Shina and also a smattering of Hindi. I asked a lady to speak into the camera which she self-consciously did. She told me her community consisted of 60-70 families of uneducated, poor farmers. One young girl was studying in college but did not reveal her antecedents to her class mates or pose for my camera.

 

We were supposed to halt the night in Drass, but I think our tour operator pulled a fast one on us and we ended up sitting in our vehicles till 4 am when the Zoji La pass opened to let the traffic pass. A number of vehicles were waiting and all the small time hotels were full. Thankfully the drive back to Srinagar was pleasant and seemed a cakewalk after the difficult terrain of Ladakh.

SRINAGAR

We checked into our house-boats and rested half the day. In the evening we took a tour of the old city in an auto to see if we recognised anything.

Dal Lake totally taken over by houseboats and shikaras

Lal Chowk. Srinagar has become crowded and dirty. Old charm missing.

Jama Masjid

 

AVANTIPUR

On the way to Jammu in Anantnag district you come across the ruins of the temples of Avantipur. Dating back to AD 855-883 these beautiful temples faced massive destruction during medieval times.

The Avantipur ruins which have not been maintained properly by the J&K govt

The next day we started for Jammu in a very, very slow 13 seater. 
The driver was a chain smoker who had lost his wife a couple of months back, so we heard and sang along sad, old Hindi movie songs all the way, fearful of missing our train. But it so happened that the Himgiri Express was late by over 5 hours and most of us spent the night dosing on benches or steel boxes on the platform. I spent the night chasing owls, with a camera in hand, but didn’t get a single clear picture. We caught our 40 winks in the train and was happy enough till I felt the blast of hot air on my face, around midnight, when de-boarding in Lucknow.

 I am almost sure I will visit Ladakh again…