Srinagar offers many excursions around and within the city. A cultural tour visiting the mosques followed by a walk through the old city is to travel back in time, garden visits, Shikara rides on the lake are addictive, the gentle gliding of the boat, the views and the reflections lull you into a loose limbed stupor, to wake up to indulgent shopping by other shikaras peddling artefacts, costume jewellery to woollen shawls to locally made apricot chocolates. Your visit to Kashmir is not complete without tasting Wazwan, a multi-course Kashmiri meal, which is mostly meat, based serving up more food than one person can logically consume. And to top it all there is the Kahwa, Kashmiri green tea flavoured with green cardamoms and served with crushed almonds. Some excursions include a visit to the picturesque site of Pahalgam and Gulmarg (a skiing destination in winter) and Naranag, the site of an ancient temple complex now in ruins.
SRINAGAR TO LEH: Srinagar to Leh Via Kargil and Uley: This is a drive of about 422 Kms and is best done with two nights enroute to break the long drive – at Kargil (205 kms) and at Uley(200) . The first part of the drive on the Srinagar – Leh highway (NH 1D) is though large stretches of valleys, spectacular meadows, mountains all around and almost always travelling alongside a river or it’s tributary. This highway follows the historic trade route along the river Indus and passes through places like Dras and Kargil which were prosperous towns when trade on this route flourished. Virtually snow bound in the winter months, this highway is maintained by the Border Roads Organization who are seen constantly at work repairing the roads, plowing snow off the road close to the high passes. Boards strategically placed along the highway advise “BRO tips” for safe driving along the highway. Some like “ Don’t be gama in the land of Lama or Driving is Risky after Whiskey”
A quick lunch stop at Sonamarg set amidst the famous meadows of Kashmir and from here the landscape changes dramatically – dry and in myriad shades of brown over the Zozila Pass (11, 640 ft) along to Drass for a brief stop for tea. After Zozila is when you first set foot into Ladakh and there is the tangible change in landscape and dwellings. Drass at 10, 659 ft is considered to be the world’s second coldest inhabited place after Siberia. We glimpse our first prayer flag adorned Chorten just off the road. A war memorial dedicated to the martyred soldiers of the 1999 Kargil war is located at Drass. We reach Kargil around 6 pm. Kargil is a somber little town that lies crowded down the middle and scattered on the hillside above and close to the Suru river below. Being a popular stop over, there are many hotel options one of the oldest being Siachen right in the market place. Adequate for an overnight stop with decent food and rooms, Siachen has friendly all-male staff; young men who make their way from the plains of Punjab to work here.
Lamayuru is one of the oldest monasteries in the Zanskar valley and has an impressive collection of old manuscripts. We noticed that almost every monastery has a snow-covered range behind it as a backdrop and are usually set high on a hill. Close to the monastery access is a restaurant that serves Tibetan specialties and is a popular lunch stop for travelers on this route. After Lamayuru you encounter the Indus River, revered as the foundation of Indus Valley civilization. Driving along the Indus River, you descend to Uley to the popular Uley Ethic Resort.
From Uley, Alchi is about an hours drive and is very distinct from the many gonpa’s we visited on this trip. To begin with it is spread flat over an area of over 5 acres with the river Indus flowing nearby, and considered to be the largest of all the Gompas built by RInchen Zangpo, the Great Translator in the 11th century. The monastery comprises of several shrines dedicated to Manjushri, Lhakang. The temples are independently placed and inside are some of the most beautiful paintings and inscriptions believed to have been made by artists from Kashmir. In the monastery campus you also have Zimskhang hotel and restaurant. A sublime place to stop and soak in the tangible and restive atmosphere of Alchi. From Alchi the drive to Leh is about 69 kms and the landscape and mountains appear like high mounds of gravely shifting sands, at some places packed as high porous mud hills like a giant termite hills.
LEH:Leh is a curious mixture of development and enduring Ladaki architecture, and has the atmosphere of every tourist hot spot within a wide circle of snow-tipped mountains. Innumerable cafes and restaurants line the deep lanes of the city interspersed with hotels and shops selling Tibetan jewelry to Kashmiri Shawls, Thankas to t-shirts and trekking equipment. Days are abuzz with activity and movement while nights are a hush, softly lit restaurants behind chalk-calligraphed black boards inviting you to grilled trout, spare ribs, pizzas and sizzlers. At a height of 11,500 ft. Leh is low on oxygen and hence proper acclimatization is recommended especially for those who fly into Leh usually from lower altitudes. This is accomplished by complete rest (doctor’s orders) on the first day after which the body is tuned to the rarer atmosphere.
Diskit Gompa, the Samsthaling Monastry in Somour where we stayed are worth visiting, while the walk from the Silk Route Cottages to the Samsthaling Monastery in Sumour is a beautiful walk through leh berry (sea-buck thorn) plantations, charming village houses, chortens, prayer drums along a glacial stream is memorable and highly recommended for nature lovers and birding enthusiasts.
An early start on the next day for the final sojourn Jispa to Kullu covering 150 kms was the most tiresome part of the journey. Travelling though scenic mountain terrain driving over innumerable glacial brooks flowing over the very roads we were driving on, we made a quick drive upto Rohtang, the first mountain pass on the picturesque Pir-Panjal range of Himachal. Rohtang at a height of 13134 ft. is just a couple of hours drive from Manali, a delectable draw for the domestic tourists who arrive by the droves to catch some snow and also for activities like skiing, yak rides or just photo-ops. This crowds the rather narrow, run-down highway prone to landslides to a painful bottleneck that can last for a few hours, with a long line up of cars and buses on both sides. We heard harrowing tales of how it took some people 7- 10 hours to clear the route, we cleared the jam in about 4 hours thanks to some help from the army but by the time we reached Neeralaya our retreat for the next 3 nights in Kullu it was past 4 pm. Having been in a Innova from 5.30 Am to 4 Pm in the evening, arriving at Neeralaya was hailed with much eagerness and passionate assertions about how none of us will move out of the hotel for the next three days.
The drive of 560 kms to Delhi was done at a stretch with a cursory stop for Lunch. We left at 7 Am from Neeralaya and reached our home in Gurgaon at 8 pm. Thinking back, though I would not change anything on our program, the only stretch that gave us anxious moments was between Leh and Manali. We named our album of pictures as ‘a trip of a lifetime’ not only because of the distance and destination we accomplished but also for the time and experience we shared with our children. Some moments can never be replicated as certainly as none of us can be 14, 19, 21, 43, 47 years again. Besides though one may be tempted to drive this route again, the awe and adventure of a first time trip is unmatched