Trip to Ladakh, land of Lama, Himalayas and Snow!

Hi guys, I am here after a long time, I have been doing good and life is going steady. In my last post, I wrote about travelling to a beautiful place called Manali, situated at a height of 7000 ft. I expected that I will soon visit some other place soon. And this time, we decided to celebrate our new year at a height of 12,000 ft and also visited a pass situtaed at a height of 18380 ft where the temperature drops to a staggering -30 degree C. No more suspense, let's start with the introduction of the place, Ladakh.

It is a beautiful and scenic place, the on season is summer which starts from June to September, but because we wanted extreme weather and temperature of -30 to -40, we decided to visit Ladakh during this time.

We boarded a flight from Delhi to Ladakh on 31st December, flight was delayed by 3 hours as there was fog and zero visibility. Finally, the flight took off and we landed around 12 am at Ladakh. And we were warned that we must give 24 hours for our body to get acclimatize for the higher altitude and cold. You cannot click pictures at Leh Airport as the airport is under Indian Air Force.

View of Ladakh from airplane

We were four guys and few of them had vomiting as the temperature changed 20-30 degrees and none of us had seen such low temperatures. Never the less, I decided to go out and visit the market and interact with locals. The local people are Ladakhi and follow Buddhism and the kids are very cute. I made sure to wear four layers of woolens before going out. The first thing I bought in the market was protein bar so that I never run out of energy. People boil water to drink here, welcome to the land of Lama. I returned home after having some lunch. The cold was getting on me.

Next day, we went to Indian army museum called Hall of Fame and Magnetic Hill and the scenic Sangam where two rivers meet. Historically, there have been wars which were fought just 500-1000 kms of Ladakh and that makes a big impact on the place. The Indian army museum also has a memorial for the brave soldiers who laid lives in wars and also the names of the martyrs are mentioned on the wall. The man who died to save us.

Indian army museum Hall of Fame

After spending good time at museum, we headed to Sangam which is the spot where two rivers meet, Zanskar and Indus, it is beautiful and a good percentage of water freezes during winter. We felt amazing to be here. In summer, we have rafting here as the flow of river is extremely fast and take you many miles easily. It is the highest rafting point in the world.

The breathtaking view of Indus and Zanskar junction
It feels you are in some heavenly land. We spent a lot of time here, walked on ice and even jumped on it. It was an amazing experience, and it was the first of its kind. Nothing can be more pleasant as the nature, it has immense power.

The beautiful Zanskar

We went to a monastery after that. It was my first monastery visit and it was deeply spiritual one. Here is a local saying, in the land of Lama, don't be a Gama. It is based on a massive wrestler, Gama who weighed 150 kg, it is hard to survive if you are massive in the land of Lama because the people have to constantly climb and descend.

We also went to Shanti Stupa, which is at a height of 11500 ft and it was freezing here too, we stayed here for 15 minutes as the sun was setting and it will be very cold soon and it would be better to head to the guest house and to not do a lot of physical effort. Stupa is a temple of Buddha, where peaceful chants are played. The Shanti Stupa was voluntarily built by Ladakhi community who did free labour.

Shanti Stupa, Ladakh

Next day, we planned to visit Kargil which is 400 kms from Ladakh, Kargil is the place where India and Pakistan had a war, at 20,000 ft, brave soldiers of Indian army fought against the enemy. Around 520 soldiers lost their lives in order to protect the territorial integrity of India. We were very interested to visit the place in order to pay tribute to the brave souls. The view along the way was beautiful. It was full of snow capped mountains, the river which was flowing alongside. Some pictures of the way-

As you can see complete snow everywhere. India's climate has extraordinary varieties of the climate, ranging from tropical in the south to temperate in central and alpine in the Himalayan north, so we never had seen so much snow. At a point, we travelled covered on all sides with snow, even on the street and the car was skidding a bit but the driver did a great job. Our brain was making us think that we are not any more in India as it was so much snow and after an hour or so we wanted the snow to get over. But then we finally reached Kargil and met soldiers of the Indian army. Interacted with them about their life and local conditions and hostilities as the temperature touches -40 at night. It is the second coldest inhabited place in the world.

It was our dream to visit the place, Kargil War Memorial at Drass.

It is hard to even imagine that how at such icy peaks, the army must have fought. It was at 20,000 ft that they fought and the terrain was extremely tough and risky. The tiger hill was visible from Kargil War memorial.

With a very heavy heart, and respect for the armed forces, we returned back as it was about 3 pm and staying more would mean, we would not able to reach Ladakh safely as the way was not so easy and the normal speed of driving on the ice was 15 km per hour or less.

Next day, we had no plans to visit on any crazy hill or something but we started to speaking a guy who was just opposite to our room, he was solo travelling and then we made our minds to visit Khardung La top which is at 18,300 ft. There is an army post which is used for communications with Siachen glacier base camp. The weather was such that it was advisable to stay just for 15-20 mins. Also, the oxygen reduces at the height. Our new driver was someone who has served along side the army at Siachen glacier and at Bana post, 21300 ft, the highest manned post of the world. And had some inspirational stories to tell us.

Me at 18300 ft, crazy and wild

It was an amazing feeling to see the Indian flag at such an amazing height, it just gives goosebumps. I also saw three guys puking who was here only for minutes. The soldiers stay here for three months and the post is manned 24*7, 365 days. For any person belonging to any country, such an enormous effort by any army makes us respect them, after all, they are there so we are safe at our homes. We can only appreciate them and they feel happy and satisfied.

There was a Shiv Temple at 18300 ft which was playing devotional songs and it felt really out of the world. My hands were turning red, we jumped in the snow, and threw snow balls and left the place. We haven't any beauty like this before and this was something, we will take back and never forget.

Hope I will visit soon the place again. Also, let me mention a very important thing, all the money which I spent there was from my savings which I invested in cryptocurrencies. My last post on steem was pretty old, I am back here and you will find me here more often. If you liked the pictures and the my update, kindly give me a shoutout so that I feel inspired to write more. Let's spread happiness and peace in the world, Namaste!

P.S.- All the pictures in the article are captured by me.