Nubra Valley - The Silk route beckons

"It can also be the highest traffic jam in the world", warned a travel magazine of Kardungla. Kardungla is more famous as the highest motorable road in the world at 18,000+ feet. Luckily we did not get stuck there but the potential exists. Before that, as the saying goes, "Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start".

We left Alchi after breakfast and headed for the Likir monastery. The vastness of Ladakh is probably best experienced during the drive from Alchi to Leh. From the highway connecting Alchi to Ladakh we took a left turn to go to the Likir monstery. The land is vast in front of you and at a great distance away are the mountains. The vastness of this land is accentuated by the fact that there are no man made structures anywhere around. Nor is there any greenery. It is just barren land and barren mountains all around.

Likir has a nice golden Buddha outside the monastery. The Buddha is peacfully sitting in a chair. The whole ambiance and luckily for us, the weather as well, was one of calm. You can see vast distances every side you turned and in the mountains ahead, cows were tiny dots. Nothing else appears on the landscape and the eternal Ladhaki silence envelopes you. I took in the scene for quite sometime before entering the monastery.

We left Likir and drove towards Leh. The land seems even more vast now and you can see kilometers of road ahead of you. "This is where the shot the song in a Hindi movie", said our guide. The sky a deep blue and the clouds so white that they hurt your eye, hovering above brown mountains. Marvels of God. These are areas which give amateur photographers like me a nightmare. There is no way that you can capture the grandeur of what lay in front of you. No lens and sensor can match the combination of your eye and brain. As you approach Leh, you see the Ladakh Range of mountains on one side and the Zanskar range on the other side. The Indus runs with you for some time.

Our destination was not Leh but the Nubra Valley. So we went briefly into Leh to buy a pair of batteries and were on our way to an important tourist destination within Ladakh. The Kardungla Pass. Actually I should be saying, Kardungla, since La means a pass but everyone, including the board there, says Kardungla Pass !!! It has the distinction of being the hightest motorable pass in the world. Add to any other highest thing that you want, like the 'Highest Traffic Jam in the World', 'Highest Tea Shop in the world', 'Highest Hotel in the world', 'Highest Urinal in the world'. Hey, wait a sec. The last one is not true. There is no urinal out there !!! Anyway, you get the drift don't you.

As you go past Leh and get into the mountains for the Kardungla climb, you get an amazing view of the Ladakh range. So many snow capped mountains and they give you an idea of how high you are climbing. Up ahead you can see the road on the mountain and way way up the Kardungla. The road appears on the snowy landscape as if someone has parted the white hair on an old man. On the razor sharp slope of one of the mountains, we saw a mountain goat standing fearlessly on a ledge. It merged so well with the mountain that it took the expert eye of our driver to spot it. We made the mandatory stop at Kardungla and took pictures besides the board proclaiming that this was the "Highest ..". you know what !! This board must be the maximum photographed board. My guess is even Monalisa may not have been photographed so much !! The guys who wrote out the board must be feeling very proud !!

As we descended from Kardungla into North Pulu, we started seeing the marmots. These cute guys kept appearing once in a while to the delight of all of us. In one area, we saw 4 to 5 of them. All the them scurried into their burrows. We thought it was the noise of our vehicle till we saw the eagle swoop down and sit on one of the stones above a burrow. He (or she) was obviously searching for lunch. The eagle sat calmly on the rock and was not fazed by the noise of our vehicle. As it always happens, you have the wrong lens fitted on your camera when you need it !! I had the 28 - 70mm lens on my camera, when I desperately needed a 300mm. I took one shot of the eagle and then hurriedly took out the 300mm lens from the bag, took off the smaller lens from the camera, simultaneously started fitting the 300mm lens and praying that no vehicle came from behind us to disturb the eagle. Maybe I was too preoccupied with fitting the 300mm lens that I didn't pray hard enough. Just as I finished fitting the 300mm lens a car came from behind us, honking gloriously !! So now I had my 300mm lens pointing at lot of stones !! The eagle never came back but we saw a lot of marmots running all over the place. We crossed that and saw an amazing frozen lake with a couple of rare ducks in it. We were too hungry that we did not stop there but promised ourselves that we would stop on our way back.

We had our packed lunch at North Pulu and Gayathri started complaining as soon as we started from here. This was definitely due to the height. I asked her to take a Saridon and told her that we will be OK once we drop by another 1000 ft or so. North Pulu was at 15,000 ft and it was quite cold out there. We proceeded from here towards our destination, Tigar village. The landscape kept changing along the way and we reached our destination by evening. The rest of the day was for rest !!! Pardon the bad pun. (In case you didn't notice :))

From North Pulu, you slowly descend into the Nubra Valley. Two rivers, Nubra and Shyok, meet here. If you take the left road, you will go to Diskit and Hunger. The right road leads to Sumur and Panamic and all the way to the Siachen glacier. This is an arid area with the small towns providing whatever little greenery they can. In the distance is the mighty Karakoram range. On one side Pakistan and one the other China. You are really at the edge of your country here.

We pass through a small village road and arrive at our destination, 'The Silk Route Cottages'. The season hasn't started yet and there is barely any staff there. A small mud road runs behind this resort and that was the original Silk Route. Inside the cottage we sees some photographs taken during the early part of the 20th century of people who walked the Silk Route. With some leather wrapped around their legs, rugs across their shoulders and mules carrying their load, these people have braved this harsh landscape in order to trade. Unthinkable for people like us who cannot step out without a jacket over the sweater and a monkey cap over the scarf. Hats off to these doughty people.

The next day we started after breakfast to the Diskit monastery. On the way I saw a huge sandy tract of land in the middle of which a bus, dwarfed by the immense expanse, was traveling slowly. I pointed it to the driver. He said we would also pass that way. It was an amazing sight. We crossed that place and arrived at Diskit monastery. After seeing the monastery, we left for Hunder.

Hunder is a strange place. I mean it is a mini desert. Ladakh itself is called a high altitude desert but Hunder really is a desert. It is a large area where you have sand dunes, and, listen carefully, camels !! Yup. This area has Bactrian camels, which were supposed to have got here during the Silk route days. It is really a funny feeling seeing sand dunes at this altitude and in the evening you can see dust storms here. The bactrian camels are domesticated and form the livelihood of many people here. These double humped camels take tourist for a ride on the sand dunes. All four of us took the ride. Each on one camel, ofcourse. You get the most scared when the camel gets up. These fellows are very sturdy and you feel quite safe sitting on them. Nearby these sand dunes is a forest of thorn buck. We played on the sand dunes for some time and when you take your slippers off, your feet burn !! We got back to our cottage, had lunch and visited the Panamic hot springs. This is till where you can go in this part of India. Beyond this is the military area. 70Kms away is one more highest in the world. The highest battleground, Siachen. It is when you see these mighty mountains do you crave for a world without borders. I mean, what sense does it make to have such natural beauty and have no one except few soldiers from each country see it !!! Nature not only tells you about the insignificance of man, it also tells you about the foolishness of man. On way back to our cottage from Panamic, we stopped near a small hill. A trek up the hill takes you to a nice little lake. This has holy significance to the Tibeteans and you can see the common sight of stone over stone over stone all along the way to the lake.

The next day we started for Leh and as we had planned stopped at the frozen lake. A couple of ducks were still around and a few marmots kept popping out of their burrows. We got out of our Qualis and slowly walked towards the lake, trying not to make any sound so that we can shoot the ducks. With our cameras. Our guide made a small noise and the ducks immediately took wing !!! I took a couple of snaps of Gayathri. The kids just refused to get out of the car. We kept seeing the marmots, got to Kardungla and with a bit of breathlessness made our way to Leh, for a well deserved evening of rest.

Gasping for breath – Pangong Tso

We thought it would only be a drive to the lake and back but it turned out to be a wildlife safari as well!!! And I am not complaining.

The day started pretty early. We left the resort at 6:15 and stooped after 40 kms to have some hot parathas or paranthas, as they call them here. From that point we took a left turn to get to the Changla Pass. The straight road leads to Manali.

Slowly and steadily the road climbed up and up. We could see the lines the road forms on the mountains and at a distance was the Changla Pass, all covered with snow. The temperature started dropping as the car kept climbing. At one point, on the mountain slopes, there suddenly appeared a bunch of rabbits. We slowed down to see all of them run away from us. The Himalayan pheasants (not sure what it is actually called), with an ash color body with a touch of red feathers kept crossing the road at regular intervals, reminding me of one of the great unanswered questions of all time, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”. We got to the Changla pass, which is the third highest motorable pass in the world. Ladakh afterall is the land of high passes. It was all covered with snow. Luckily for us some important military person had come then and the military folks gave all of us some tea. It was godsend in that weather.

We slowly started the climb down and the beaver like Himalayan Marmots started appearing. These cute guys are seen in high altitudes. As we progressed we started sighting them more frequently and kept stopping to take some snaps and videos. They were very shy and kept running into their burrows as soon as they sensed our presence. There was a stream running below and along the banks there were many more of them. The best sighting happened after we had traveled some more distance. And I royally screwed up a great photo-op.

What happened was that we came across this marmot which was standing on its legs and was very close to our car. My SLR was not with me and Gayathri passed on her Digicam to me. I was sitting next to the driver and had the best view of this fellow. In the movie called ‘Ghost and the Darkness’, Michael Douglas shouts at Van Kilmer for having used a new gun to combat a lion and failing. I understood what he meant. I rarely take pictures with the Digicam. In my urgency to get a good snap of the marmot, I zoomed on him, got him perfectly centered and then in my infinite wisdom, pressed the ‘Off’ button !!! So instead of the marmot freezing on the screen, it just disappeared. It took me a second to realize that the screen was now blank due to my blunder. Desperately I switched on the camera. The modern electronic devices need some time to get their brains in working condition and the camera was slowly booting up. As you could have guessed, the marmot waited till the camera was ready for action and then vanished before I should shoot. I gave the camera back to Gayathri, who took it with a ‘how-come-I got-to-marry-this-guy’ expression on her face.

Along with marmots, we kept sighting lot of different varieties of birds. We stopped at one place to take some pictures of the scenery around, when we saw a hare running at top speed. Until you have seen these animals running in the wild you do not get an idea of the speed they achieve. This guy just bounced around and was gone in a jiffy. Even our best athletes can’t match the speed nor the perseverance. We proceeded further and down in the valley below the driver spotted a ‘Kiang’, also known as the Himalayan Wild Ass. This looks like a cousin of the horse. They are supposed to be present in the Chungthang Plateau, which was not where we were. So initially, Ankur, our guide, challenged our driver and said it was either a horse or an ass. But the driver was a wise young guy and it turned out that he was correct. We were thrilled to see the Kiang and imagine our surprise when we saw a large bunch of them a few kms later. All these fellows were grazing and we could get down and have our fill of photographs. They stayed where they were and so I could now check the button and click the right one!!!

The landscape was typical Ladakh landscape. It was with great difficulty that we could move away from all the wildlife that we saw. Slowly the car was proceeding towards the lake. At one juncture we see a board which proclaims that you can get the glimpse of the lake from that point. We did see a spot of blue at a distance but nothing prepares you for what would hit you in the next 15 mins time.

We turned a bend and then gasped for breath. The high altitude of Ladakh had nothing to do with it. The Pangong Tso lake appeared in front us, bearing an indescribably beautiful blue color. It is as if someone up above decided to lay down a layer of turquoise on the earth and decided on this place. The blue spreads out like a huge carpet as far as your eye can see and you have to suppress your urge to walk on it, reminding yourself that it is indeed water. The lake’s blue is further accentuated by the brown mountains that surround it on all sides. A cloudless sky, bright sunshine and in the distance, snow capped peaks. The only thing you hear is the silence, the whole area enveloped in a calm which only nature can provide.

The beauty of the place hits you as soon as you take the turn. Involuntarily you gasp for breath and your mouth remains open. The only words that escape our lips simultaneously is, “Unbelievable”. I get down the car with the sense of wonder intact and only then realize that my mouth is still open. I close it, only to open it again and mutter, “Unbelievable”. I lost count of how many times how many of us used that word. It is said of Tajmahal that though it is the most photographed monument in the world, when you see it, you are filled with a sense of wonder. Multiply that effect with any number greater than 0xffff and you still would not get the magnitude of wonder right. Photographs do no justice to this lake. You need to be there, atleast once in your lifetime.

Pangong Tso lake is unique in the sense that ¼ of it lies in India and the rest lies in China !! Since this is the border area, no boat rides are allowed on the lake. So there is no unnecessary activity which spoils the beauty of this lake. We did see a border patrol boat on the lake.

There were lot of sea gull type birds in the lake and I had a ball capturing them on the camera as well as photographing the lake. Gayathri too kept muttering, “Unbelievable”. The kids were mightily thrilled. We were there for some time and then started towards a resort a couple of kms away along the lake. The lake kept changing color as we drove along its edge. You can probably see every shade between green and blue there. We saw some very rare type of ducks. White ducks with a dash of red. We had our packed lunch at the resort and after a cup of tea, left for Leh. We kept on looking at the lake till the last possible moment savoring its beauty. It was almost as if you were leaving behind a magical place.

On our way back, we saw the Kiang group at the same place we left them. The marmots kept appearing along the way. One additional animal we saw was a mountain goat, sitting on a ledge along with its kid, which was sitting on another ledge!! We arrived in Leh for our evening cup of tea.

This trip to Pangong Tso turned out to be the highlight of the Ladakh tour and I was happy that I had kept it towards the end. In this one day trip, nature reimbursed me all the money I spent on the trip and then gave some more. When you stand facing such mighty nature and great beauty, you do tend to question many of the material values we hold dear.

Pangong Tso, I will be back.

Mudumalai - Third time lucky

I wasn't sure if the trip would happen this time and it was becoming a habit. The earlier two trips which I had planned for Mudumalai didn't happen. For some valid reason ofcourse. So when all events pointed to the same thing happening again I was worried!!! It turned out to be third time lucky and we were off along with Subbu's family (Subbu, Shobana and Skanda) to Mudumalai during the Christmas break of last year (2007).

I had heard about the Leewood Estate (aka Anaikadu resort) from my boss. I checked their website and gave their number to my friend Subbu. He diligently followed up with them and ensured all the arrangements were taken care of. (Check out the website http://www.homestaykodagu.com/home_stay/anaikaadu_resort.htm for more details on the resort that we stayed at)

We left at around 11:15 am and drove all the way till Mysore before stopping for lunch at Hotel Siddartha. The road from Mysore to Mudumalai was quite OK with a few bad patches. We crossed Gundlupet and after some time entered the Bandipur National Park. As usual I was very happy to see the forest. The road was good and it was a pleasure driving here. On the way Harini sighted a deer and then some peacocks. There were black faced monkeys at one point which were interacting with people. This is not something the forest authorities permit but people do stop and start interacting with animals when they can. Not a good thing to do in a forest. We crossed Bandipur and entered the Mudumalai section. You cross the Moyar river here but the river is not very wide. The traffic in the Mudumalai area was dense and it took as a longer time than we anticipated to get to Masinagudi. We finally go to Masinagudi where a driver from the resort was waiting for us.

At Masinagudi we took a right turn after the police station and drove for around 7 kms to get to the Singara post. There we left our car and the driver took us in his 4 wheel drive for 3kms. There is no road here and the dirt track is not easily motorable. This place requires a vehicle with high clearance. It was a rough drive with the vehicle passing over tough terrain and going over some streams. So you can imagine all of us being shaken and stirred !!! Inspite of all this, the drive on this stretch was probably the best drive of our trip as we saw the maximum wildlife here. The driver first showed us a couple of deers which were hidden behind some bushes. Then we saw peacocks and we got lucky and saw a sambar deer. The big fellow, with light brown skin and no horns, looked at us with interest briefly and then vanished into the sunset !! After these sightings we reached the resort and what a place it was !!!

The moment we saw the resort we were taken in by it. It was standing there alone, away from the office building. The ground floor was a huge open dining hall from where you can comfortably sit and see the coffee estates and the forest in front of you. The two room upstairs had 4 beds each. The rooms opened out to a balcony, which faced the forest and the water hole and the salt pit in it. Seats were thoughtfully provided so that the scenery and wildlife can be observed leisurely from here. The website advertises this as 'your own machan' and I cannot but agree with the description.

After the customary bonfire and a nice dinner, Subbu, Shobana, Gayathri and I sat on the balcony, late in the night, after the kids had slept. Were were lucky that it was a full moon day. . The cloudless sky ensured that the illumination of the moon was enough for us to observe any animal which came nearby. Gayathri suddenly noticed a movement and pointed it out to us. Subbu had a bought binoculars along and when we used the binoculars we saw that it was wild boar which had crossed the fence somehow and come in. We watched it with interest for some time before it disappeared. We sat there for some more time imbibing the experience and it was an experience to cherish. The forest all around us and the hills of Mudumalai were illuminated by the radiance of the full moon. The silence that enveloped us was broken once in a while by the engine of some vehicle climbing a steep ghat section somewhere we couldn't see. The eager anticipation of all four of us for some wildlife and us sitting next to each other and talking in whispers so as not to scare off any wildlife that would come. Time passed with us not sighting any other animal and we decided to call it a day, or shall we say, call it a night !!!

The next day, after breakfast we went for a small trek till what was supposed to be a river nearby. It looked more like a small jungle stream than a river. It was quite hot that day and the place our guide took was like a small pond formed by this stream and it was hidden by lot of tall trees. It was cool at this place and we spent some time taking photos. On the way to the stream we saw the footmarks of bison and elephant and elephant dung in some places. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) we didn't encounter any wildlife during our small trek.

The post lunch period saw us leaving for the Mudumalai sanctuary for the bus safari. There was not much of wildlife in sight during the initial part of the safari. Almost towards the end of the trip we saw a group of bisons. Other than the bison, we saw the usual suspects, deer and peacock !! After the safari, we went to the Teppakadu Elephant camp. Here is where trained elephants arrive after their 'day job'. The elephants started arriving one after the other. You can watch them being fed by the officials here. This place also has a small museum on wildlife which gives good information. One of the attractions here baby elephant, which is supposed to have been orphaned, and was picked up by the forest officials. It now lives at this camp. We got back to Singara Post where the 4 wheel drive came to pick us. Just as we got into the estate the driver took us straight on instead of turning towards our rooms. I was wondering what he was doing when the headlights of the car illuminated a bunch of deers near the salt pit. It was a unique way of seeing the deer !!

The night again, after bonfire and dinner, we sat again on the balcony to try our luck and see if we could sight some wildlife in the night. The moon didn't rise as early as the last day and we had to wait for some more time for illumination. Our vigil didn't yield us much in terms of wildlife sighting but no one complained.

The lack of sightings in the night was compensated by the deers, peacock and the different birds that we saw in the morning. There were a bunch of deers which had come to the water hole. They must have arrived early in the morning or very late in the night. As it started dawning and the light from the sun started grazing the earth, the deers started leaving. The peacocks remained till the kids woke up and needless to say, the kids were thrilled to watch the peacocks.

We decided to go to Ooty the next day and left after breakfast. We climbed up the ghat and in an hour's time we were in Ooty. We decided to see the botanical gardens and the lake. As a town, I felt Ooty can be maintained better. It does lack neatness. Since we were there on a week day the rush was not too much. We saw the botanical garden, had our lunch at Commercial Street, bought some Ooty chocolates from a bakery there and went to the lake, where we took a boat ride. We left Ooty after 3 o clock and got back to Singara post.

The 4 wheel drive this time was again very eventful. We were looking for some wildlife and when we were about to cross a stream I noticed a bison standing nearby and staring at us. Our driver stopped the vehicle for all of us to have a look and take a photograph if possible. When you see it close by, you realize the hugeness of this creature. With his black skin glistening in the dying light he was watching us. And we watched him and realised that he was not alone. We were thrilled to see more bisons, whom the trees had covered earlier. Slowly they started moving away into the thicker part of the forest. Very reluctantly we had to leave that place and get back to our rooms. When we got back to our rooms, we saw that a huge number of deers have come to the water hole. There were atleast 15 deers or more. Added to it there were also a few black faced monkeys around. All of us had tea sitting in our balcony and watching the wildlife outside. You could realize how sensitive to sound the deers were. These chaps would have been around 300 mts or more away from us would turn their heads and look in our direction whenever we spoke to each other, even if it was in a low tone !! After some time a wild boar came that way and vanished into the overgrowth. Our excitement was high when we sighted something like an ant eater, which moved very fast and vanished.

The night bonfire was interesting for the kids as Subbu had organized a treasure hunt. The kids were maha excited by the treasure hunt and finally found the treasure, which was with Subbu !!! After the dinner our night vigil continued. The moonrise was getting delayed every day and we sat in darkness that enveloped us. Suddenly we heard something like a splash and Subbu was sure that some animal had entered the water hole. With eyes wide open and with the aid of binoculars we saw and saw but nothing was visible. Reluctantly we went to sleep as we had to leave the next day.

We woke up early and I decided to go for a walk within the estate. Being a good 'cityzen', as usual, I got out with my mp3 player and the headphone. Once I got out of the room I realized what a stupid thing that was. The sounds of the forest early in the morning are more melodious than what any great music director can dream of. I can fully resonate with a recent ad when it says, "Why listen to the sound of humans when you can hear the music of heavens". I saw some nice birds and peacocks. It was a lovely experience walking within the estate in the morning.

We left the place very reluctantly. It was great going on this trip with Subbu and Shobana. Ranjani and Harini became good friends with Skanda. This trip was an experience which all of us will treasure.