Leh - Ladakh

A trip to Ladakh was on my mind for the last few months so when my favourite tour organizer Women on Wanderlust (with whom I had gone to Bhutan two years ago) advertised their upcoming tour to Ladakh I jumped at the offer. My vacation started on a funny note when my Australian colleague asked me not to tell him about my personal life when I told him that I was going to Leh (lay) on my vacation! I was apprehensive about the kind of company I would have in the week to come but that turned out to be the least of my worries. Our group was made up of sixteen wonderful women, each an achiever in her own way and we were never short of things to talk about.

Unlike in Bhutan I realised that here you do not easily get a glimpse into the life of a Ladakhi family unless you consciously go looking for it. That’s because the schedule is so tight what with visiting Shanti Stupa, the Gurudwara, Alchi Monastery, rafting in the Zanskar and the long drives through Khardungla and Changla and much more. The only Ladakhis I got to know well were our three wonderful, funny and entertaining drivers whom I was really sad to say good bye to on the last day.

Words do not come easily to me while describing the place, especially Pangong Tso, so I will leave it to the photographs to do the needful. However for people who have travel to Ladakh and Bhutan on their wish-list I would suggest that they go to Ladakh first. The monasteries in Bhutan are beautiful and stay in your mind’s eye for really long and one invariably tends to compare other monasteries with them.




I tried not to compare the two but couldn’t help myself and hence found that I liked the outdoors, the Pangong lake, the Zanskar river, the high mountain passes to be more of an attraction of the region than the monasteries. Infact the Shey Palace is poorly maintained and it saddens one to see that and one can easily give Sindhu Ghat (where most of the Ladakhi public ceremonies take place) a miss unless there is something happening there at the time of visit.




Our driver Raja had told us ‘Mumbai ke fashion aur Ladakh ke mausam ka khabie bharosa nahin karna chahiye’ but we were lucky to have been blessed by the weather Gods throughout our stay. The mountain passes are not easy to navigate and we had to wait a couple of times when a vehicle broke down on the pass or when a truck got stuck and almost pushed off the mountain while making a turn. I knew that this vacation would need me to be physically fit and I managed the long drives at the high altitude with no medication but I was very breathless and giddy at Khardungla and on the way up to Changla. I wish I were as adventurous as this group of French bikers whom we saw at Khardungla. The average age of their group must have been 50! And my colleague just told me that a marathon is likely to take place in Ladakh in August this year. It starts at a village across Khardungla and ends at Khardungla. The world's best athletes are expected to take part in this 237 km marathon that is expected to last 70 hours.


All in all Ladakh is worth a visit. I wish the place were better maintained though. The Leh market is filthy, shopping is a poor bargainer’s nightmare (but I love the turquoise and coral prayer wheel I bought there). You breathe in diesel fumes almost all the time and there are stray dogs all over the place. The tiny eateries that sell yummy Maggi look questionable with regards to their hygiene standards. There are few public toilets and they are almost always unusable. And yet Ladakh is worth a visit. There is something in the air there and you feel very connected and close to nature in that place...