Our trip to Ladakh

Discussion in 'Travel' started by frndlysgp, Jun 4, 2015.

  1. PriyaSrini

    PriyaSrini Moderator Staff Member Platinum IL'ite

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    @frndlysgp Turtuk village is so beautiful I can imagine myself staying there for a week and still wanting more :banana
     
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  2. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    [FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif][FONT=arial, sans-serif]Day 9. Next day after the break fast we started our journey to Srinagar. I had read that there is a war memorial 5 kms before Drass sector. Distance between Kargil and Drass was around 65 kms and our driver said he was not aware of the war memorial. So were very [/FONT]conscious[FONT=arial, sans-serif] to find this place on the way. There were few boards mentioning the distance to war memorial so we knew we were on the right track. It was located on the highway itself, so we stopped in the Kargil war memorial. This place makes you silent, emotional,patriotic and what not. To actually see the place where the 1999 Kargil war(Operation Vijay) was fought was some thing altogether. The army had a short briefing on what happened in 1999 how Indian posts were taken over by the terrorists and how Indian army fought in a terrain and conditions which were not so favourable for India.

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    We spent a good 2 hours here and after that continued our journey. We crossed the zojilla pass. All through our journey from Manali to this point we crossed so many passes and heard so many stories from drivers on how few trucks went down or met with an accident and never felt scared. But this Zojilla pass while driving down was very scary, the muddy roads and the 2 way traffic made it even more scary...We din't talk any thing till we descended as we din't want to disturb the driver.
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    [FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif][FONT=arial, sans-serif]We finally reached Sonamarg, where we did horse riding to see around for 1-2 hours. Srinagar is very [/FONT]commercialised[FONT=arial, sans-serif] as compared to Ladakh. But Sonamarg was so serene and beautiful. After the ride we had lunch and drove to Srinagar. From Sonamarg to Srinagar we could see lot of police force every 1-2 kms as it was season of Amarnath yatra. We reached Srinagar and our driver left us near the dal lake where our boat house was booked. The boat owner came and picked up near the dal lake. We took a shikara to reach our Boat house. We decided not to go out and took rest in the evening. We sat on the boat house terrace in the evening just to see shikara's going around the beautiful dal lake.

    1. Enroute Kargil-Drass

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    2. Kargil war memorial

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    3. Vijaypath

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  3. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    1. Amarjawan

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    2. Dedicated to all the army men who sacrificed their lives for the country.

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    3. Vijaypath

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    4. The peak tip is theTiger hill which was the strategic point in Kargil war, as seen from the War memorial.
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    5.
    There is an Indian Army post on the top of these peaks...and a Pak Post some where opposite to the Indian Post In some other Peak.... After the Kargil War there will be guards in these posts even in winter where in temperature dips to -60...Itsms the guards cannot come down even if there is any emergency in home. The only time they can come down is when their health deteriorates, in that case info will be sent to Delhi. Delhi will inform Islamabad only after mutual agreement a chopper goes there to pick the Army Guard. This protocol is followed by both India and Pak incase of emergencies. Din't know what to say after hearing this

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  4. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    1. Drass sector

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    2. View enroute Drass-Srinagar

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    3. Scary Zojilla Pass

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    4. No wonder Kashmir is called Switzerland of India

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    5. Heavenly Sonamarg

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  5. Lathasv

    Lathasv IL Hall of Fame

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    @frndlysgp
    I'm curios to ask were you not scared of terrorists on your Ladakh trip? :)
     
  6. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    Day 10: We had planned for Srinagar siteseeing. We first took some pics in the traditional kashmiri outfit in dal lake. Later left to Shankaracharya temple. There was tight security no mobiles,cameras were allowed so we kept everything in the vehicle and went to temple. After climbing so many stairs there was a long queue. We went through the queue had darshana and came out. Srinagar has so many gardens but it was not the season to visit gardens. We just went to Nishant bagh gardens that being quite popular. There were not many flowers so we just walked around for some time and came out. We had lunch and with out informing us our driver took us to some emporium. There were beautiful carpets but anyways we din't have any plans of buying it, we saw few more stuff. There pashmina shalls were very beautifull. But I had bought it already in Leh and the city where we live is very hot so din't find any reason to buy more. So we left the place and then went to one famous mosque. It was a very hot day and as it was Friday the mosque was full of people who came there to pray. Anyways I was not allowed inside and my husband din't wanted to leave me alone and go. So we just walked around the mosque spent some time then we just left to the boat house. Even though there were more places to see it was very hot and also we were very tired travelling for the past 12 days so we just returned. After some rest we did a Shikara ride in the evening and saw the sun set. Food was good in Boat house and the boat house itself was very luxurious.

    1. Boat House @ Dal Lake

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    2. Flowers around Boat house

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    3. Shankaracharya Temple

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    4. Nishanth Bhag

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    5. Beautiful flowers in Nishant Bhag

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  7. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    1. The famous Mosque in Srinagar

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    2. Colourful Shikaras at Dal Lake

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    3. View in Dal Lake

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    5. Sunset @ Dal Lake

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  8. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    [FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Day 11: It was the time to fly back home with all the sweet memories of our road trip. This was the first time we almost travelled 2500-3000 kms by road for continuously 2 weeks. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]We had break fast and left to Srinagar airport to fly back to Delhi. Flight was delayed a bit but then we safely reached Delhi. We stayed one night in Delhi as we were flying out of Delhi on the next day morning. We stayed near the airport so that it will be easy to reach the airport in the morning. We checked in the hotel and after fresh up we wanted to taste some local food in Delhi. Din't wanted to go to fancy places as its very common. So we decided to go to Parathawala galli in Chandini Chowk. We took metro to reach the place. There we tried some excellent street food and then reched back to hotel. Next morning we flew out of Delhi.

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  9. kaniths

    kaniths IL Hall of Fame

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    One of the best travel log I have read recently.. Lovely! :thumbsup
     
  10. frndlysgp

    frndlysgp Silver IL'ite

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    Thanks @kanakaRaghavan

    @PriyaSrini
    Yes Turtuk is so very beautiful and it is not yet crowded by tourists as it was opened to tourism only in 2010. My regret in this trip was that may be I should have stayed few more days there...doh1

    @Lathasv Ladakh as such don't have any problem of terrorist attacks. In fact Ladakhis are very soft and hospitable people.I have never seen such wonderful people. But I was continuously monitoring Srinagar news before going there. Also there were a lot of police force in Srinagar considering the fact that it was Amarnath yatra season, initially i felt bit uncomfortable seeing lot of police force in Srinagar. But we hardly stayed 2 days there.

    @Kaniths Thanks a lot. Am making an attempt to share all my travel experiences here...
     
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