Getting Leh'd via Srinagar

Thanks to Vodafone I couldn't post my bits online as I traveled. And well it is best that I couldn't. I may have missed an amazing view or a breath of fresh air in the bargain. So am pasting the bits I had put down. Its a lengthy post but if you didn't have the time you wouldn't be here would you ? :P


1. Here we go again
2. Jammu
3. Srinagar
4. Gulmarg
5. Kargil
6. To Leh
7. In Leh
8. Pangong Tso
9. Khardung la

Here we go again
The last trip to Leh was via Manali so the next one has to be via Srinagar. Have been keeping a tab on the tix prices since April but they were too expensive.  Saw a sudden drop on Monday and booked the tix on 19th. A couple of others to join in. Himalayas here I come again.

Ok so there are *absolutely no* reservations in hand. All we have are the to and fro tickets. Nice!!

Jammu
So still no reservations and 2 OK landings by Spicejet we are now in Jammu. The initial plan was to spend a day here but frankly we had no clue as to what could be done here. As the plane taxied to the parking bay the pilot announced the outside temperature and the decision was made, we need to get out of here. 250rs by prepaid cab to the bus stand so Chucked it and walked outside for a rick. 150rs "fixed rate" by rick. Chucked that too. Saw an oncoming tempo and jumped in with the backpacks. 32rs ah finally in my budget ;) Couldn't fit into the seats but who needs that anyways.

Reached the stand and found that we can get to Srinagar in 8hrs by shared cab. Done but food first. Hogged down some amazing palak paneer and tried our best to bargain down the shared rates too. Got a discount of 100rs :( and took the only available Innova out of there.

As we rode through Jammu we could see it was a pretty big city. Definitely not my cup of tea. Good move to skip it.

As we rode along we reached bear Patnitop and found ourselves stuck in a huge traffic jam. Reason - the police were trying to control the Amarnath yatris. Crap didn't plan on this. So 7 hours later the jam is slowly being handled. Why can't we desis drive in a single file? Shoot the car that moves into the opposite lane I say.

Srinagar
After a couple of more stops which paled in comparison to the earlier jam we were finally Srinagar bound. So instead of reaching Srinagar by 10pm we reached there by 7am. Well who cares. Headed straight to the LP recommended hotel. Fuckers have raised their rates by nearly 300% in 5 years. Chucked them and took the cheaper one next door. Slept for a few hrs and then headed straight to Dal Lake. Frankly the first impression was not great. It was too crowded. The house boats are piled all along the boundary of the lake. Too many shikaras and too many people there too. What was i missing?

One shikara ride. That was what was needed. Once you get up close to the cool waters of Dal Lake you are in love. The cool waters and the friendly shikara-iers get you into the mood. The day just got better from there. The sunset is especially great out here... 
Check out those pics on picasa.

The khawa was delicious too. Thanks for the reco Alokey.

Another LP recommendation here "Shamayana" disappointed with the mutton being undercooked. Veg was ok. 

Vodafone does not have good connectivity here. Definitely no data connectivity. Thats great!

Gulmarg

We had allotted two days for Srinagar. Considering Pehlgam was all crowded up with the Amarnath yatris we decided to skip it. Gulmarg was the obvious choice to explore. Leaving out the annoyances of getting the tickets to the cable car ride, which are surprisingly called gondolas, we reached the peak 4200m... all snow capped peaks bordering with Pakistan. The steepness of the slope was crazy. Luckily the clouds view for most of the time. Once it opened up it was as scary as staring down from the roof of a sky rise in NY. Check out those pics on picasa.

Blogged on my way here... the last of the data connectivity :)

Tip: do bookings for the cable cars online @ http://www.gulmarggondola.com/

Kargil

The whole idea of the trip was to head out to Leh from Srinagar... via Kargil and explore the route along the way. Well Srinagar to Kargil is pretty with just Sonmarg on the way so picked a shared cab again and decided to bunk at Kargil. Hell even if we didn't decided that we would have hard to. The roads were closed on us due to construction from 11am right up to 4pm leaving little time to travel. Guess what we had to actually clear the path ourselves and threw quite a few rocks over :)

We landed out at the j&k tourist hotel in Kargil only to decide to skip it for lack of hot water. For some reason the local here showed us the worst rooms in the house while there seemed to be better

Did I mention that I am in slippers up to this point. My freaking woodlands disintegrated... didn't store them well since my previous trip I guess. Got a pair of Chinese shoes at Kargil. Will defn need it in Leh.

To Leh

Wanting to explore the route from Kargil to Leh we we wanted to hire a car for ourselves. Now here comes in the desi irritation. The Leh and Jammu taxi unions are at odds and they don't allow each other to do "sightseeing" for tourists in the other's territories. God when will these unions let us be?

Regardless we found a good cabbie for the ride to Leh. He showed us around in Kargil and off we went. Lamayaru, moonscapes, mulbekh and khatse were covered and we reached Leh at around 8pm. No reservation here too. Tried calling up the LP recommendations again to find out that they have raised their rates by more than 300% here too. LP please chuck India off the list of bargain travel destinations.

Thanks to the cabbie we got a decent room on old road for a good rate. Sleepyyy.

In Leh

Exploring Leh today. Headed to the palace and then saw a senior woman trekking up to the monastery above. Male ego took over and we followed her. Phew we made it. Climbed up to the temple above and got some awesome pics from there too. 
Check picasa for those.

Pangong Tso

While I have been to Pangong on my last visit here I just couldn't get the image of the night sky out of my head. I could enjoy that sight a thousand times over. We booked a cab to Pangong and got a Japanese couple to share the ride with us. All of us wanted to stay there but didn't bother with advance reservations. We reached there by 2 and managed to strike a deal for the tents. 

The moon was a couple of days away from a full moon. Pretty bright. The night came and so did the stars. The sight was pretty but paled in comparison to what we saw the last time we were here. Gaurav+Atibi we were lucky as hell. On this trip I've already experienced more traffic jams than ever before and a flat too :(

Some pics at picasa

Have some panoramas of this place which turned out pretty great and no I ain't sharing those :P. 

Khardung la

So now we had the last day to ourselves. Khardugla was on the cards. But I frankly ain't interested. Who wants to see a pass all over again? Then our buddy finds out that people cycle down from the pass. I joined in at the last moment and the ride rattled each and every part of me. 
See details in this post.


What next? The next trip would be a trek to Stok Kangri. Crossing 20kft would be a good badge to earn.

Well Kerala may be God's own country but J&K is his very special holiday retreat. And we all know where he'd rather be ;)

So was it a good vacation? 
Hmmm... still trying to remember my office password.. have till Monday ;) 

2012 - Getting Leh'd all over

2010 - Just got Leh'ed