Travel Diaries – Leh Ladakh to Kargil

2 days in the Ladakhi weather are just paradise. Although we went towards the end of the season, the weather was still pretty pleasant in the day and nicely cold in the night. 2 days just breezed by. At the end of it, I felt that 2 days aint enough to totally enjoy Ladakh. Based on how our journey had panned out, you need atleast 4-5 days in Ladakh itself. 1-2 days should just be to acclimatize yourself to the ladakhi altitude and the temperature changes. Then further 2-3 days to move around ladakh and visit all the sights I mentioned in my previous posts.

Special note for people with asthama problems and bronchitis – please take extra precaution in ladakh. If possible, carry some canisters of oxygen with you in case you travel by road. If you take the flight to Ladakh, ensure that you spend 2 days by just resting and not taking hectic travels. For you, flight is the best option!

So, finally we packed our bags, this time with some added goodies from Ladakh and prepared to move along to Kargil. When I say prepared, I mean mentally and physically because the way our journey had occurred till now, a small 1 hour delay in traffic is just another day in the office.

Kargil was a tricky thing. It was the month of Ramzan. So, all shops and activities in Kargil would wind up early. Coupled that with early sunset meant that we had to move quickly towards Kargil so that we reach there, check in before the prayers began. The thing on our side was the fact that the road was very clean with no sign of snow and relative less amount of distance to cover.

Loading our bags we started off from Hotel Chubi towards Kargil and we were met with some really bright sunshine along with warmth which we hadn’t seen since we reached Manali. En-route to Kargil, there are 2 places to visit just as you leave Ladakh – a gurudwara and a place called as Magnetic Hill.

I don’t know the significance of the magnetic hill but the thing is that it’s a somewhat steep slope where, if you keep your car in a marked area, instead of sliding down when not in gear, it moves up! You have to see it to believe it!

The road to kargil was relatively dry with absolute no sign of moisture. The road, however, is pretty neat and developed compared to the ones we got from Manali till Leh. In addition to the 2 points I mentioned above, on the way, we saw a nice Buddha temple which has a 4 storey high Buddha statue! It’s a thing of beauty!

We stopped a couple of places for our breakfast and then some tea. The apricots in this area are awesome along with local vegetation which is extremely fresh. We drove past a lot of small-small villages where there were not more than 5-10 houses (out on the main road) and there was a lot of cultivation in place. One thing to note – the villages were spaced only 10-15 kms apart. So, we would have encountered around, say, 20 odd villages between Ladakh and Kargil!

We had lunch at an extremely small dhaba. The food was nice as I was told. The thing about such places is that it is really honest cooking. They don’t cheat, they don’t need to impress anyone, they just cook the best they can with what they have. Fellow travelers reveled in Rajma chawal along with some really nice parathas and omlettes!

Well, you must be wondering how come the journey has been so enriched with pleasant and incident free experiences. The thing is that we were really cruising to Kargil – at around 3 pm, we were around 30 kms away from our destination. However, when we finally checked into our hotel, my watch showed the time – 7 pm!

4 hours, it took to cover 30 kms. No it wasn’t traffic – it was nature again. See, when you push something, it pushes back! That’s exactly what happened when delayed us. The road which connects Ladakh to Kargil is a national Highway which is used by Military a lot. However, the road is narrow as you move along the mountain region. In the name of development, we noticed that at a lot of places, road widening activities were taking place. They were tearing up a side of the mountain so that the road could be widened. At some such place, they were drilling and suddenly, just about 500 meters from where they were drilling, the side of the mountain gave way and a manmade landslide happened.  The problem wasn’t about the huge stones which were there on the road, the problem was this enormous piece of stone which was stuck to the side of the mountain threatening to slide down onto the road.

As a precaution, no one was allowed to go through. Even military trucks were blocked! After much discussions and deliberations, it was decided that they drill at the base of this stone so that it slides out – easier said than done. They tried drilling for around an hour and a half but still no luck! Now since there was a lot of traffic accumulated at either end, a discussion was taken to allow the current set of vehicles to start rolling under extreme precautions. Lucky for us was the fact that our side of the traffic was asked to clear out!

So finally, we started the last 30 kms of our journey, through a couple of villages and behind a lot of traffic till we finally limped into our hotel at 7 pm!

Kargil, in the evening, was a pretty quiet place. People were just in the mood to wind up their day, head home and think about what they were going to do for the next day. The hotel where we were put up – Hotel Siachen – was a decent enough place to spend a night. Special mention of the food there – it was awesome!

Btw, it was our planner’s birthday the next day, so we had a small sponge cake which we bought and had a 12 o clock cake cutting ceremony there. However, the cake was such that we didn’t even attempt to eat it – it was as they say, a stage prop!