Travel Diaries - Mesmerizing Leh & Ladakh - Part 4

Acknowledgements:

First of all, whoever has been, is or will be reading this blog, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for patiently lending your ear, I mean eyes!, to sift and scan through my innumerable adventures and personal rants. Don't look so puzzled? There is nothing mystifying here. Pangong Lake is the last of my travel places as a solo traveler cum tourist in this spiritual-adventure trip. So, isn't it my duty to thank you for tolerating and rating (in your mind!) on my writing skills, unique perspectives, suggestions and recommendations and the objective representation of the reality of all the places and events that I had visited and experienced? I should, right? That's what I did.

Without much folderols, let's drive through into the spell-binding enchantress called Pangong Lake.

The hospitalized families from Chennai didn't make it to the Pangong Lake for their own reasons known to them. Hence, it was just me and one more decent family of 3 along with the driver cum guide who was different from the guide and driver we had during the Khardung La Pass. Having still not yet recovered from the previous day's excruciating travel, the guide announced that it would be one more long trip with stops at Thiksey Monastery and Chang La Pass.

It was a sweet place - Thiksey Monastery. Too good. The balmy breeze flowing through my tidily combed hair with the sun gently caressing his rays and neatly packed with pin-drop silence.What more you could ask for when you wanted to be in such a place in the first place. It's like striking gold at the exact spot where you wanted the gold reservoirs to be!

After a quick break at Chang la Pass for teas, restrooms and much needed dog stretches for the aching body, the guide proceeded towards Pangong Lake. The never-ending meandering roads coupled with the bumpy roads would have made the ride even worse if it hadn't been for the scintillating snowscape and landscape that punctuated the bleak landmass.

The towering mountains were the palliative reminders of pure truth that our so-called important personal problems are extremely trivial and insignificant in nature which needs to be dealt heads on instead of being bogged down by the weight of the situation. 

Hours later, the first glimpse of the Lake was shown by the guide. It was completely majestic and left me with wanting to see the entire lake ASAP. Many a turn and the whole lake was in sight. A sight to behold! I had never seen anything in my life like that before - On TV, Movies and Net - Yes. But, in person - NO. It was like Switzerland had taken a grand detour and parked her grandeur at that spot. Needless to say, Switz is also on my Bucket List which I would like to visit one day in the future whenever time permits.

I am certain that many would have seen like me in numerous movies to the captivating beauty of the Swiss Mountains and crystal-clear waters with her lush and verdant tress in the backdrop. Pangong Lake is exactly like that picture minus the trees. Just like how our capital Delhi is a land-locked place, Pangong Lake is also within the confines of mountains and lands on all sides. It is an arresting piece of visual setting by the omnipotent Demiurge. 

Having been shown to our cosy quarters which was basically a tent attached with a toilet and bed, the guide gave us a good trip around the lake. The weather was nipping, the winds were piercing and the waters of the multi-hued astounding lake was harshly cold. As the sun set down, the driver rushed us to our accommodations as the weather could turn pretty nasty it seems. Serving to a okay dinner, our sleep was welcomed with a pitch blackness. The guide asked us to properly secure our tents and not to leave it any cost as the night-time temperature with the howling freezing winds can make you sick and unhealthy. 

Listening to his instructions like a Math student in an Integral class, I immediately switched on the torch in my mobile. Was I afraid? Nope. More than that. I was freaking scared. Just imagine. You don't the language and are in an extremely remote place of the country. The place is astonishingly new. No power. Inclement weather outside. Any stray or wild animal could easily come madly rushing into the tent or any local could have simply unzipped the tent and made their way out of my tent like a King/Queen with all my belongings. Even when I was feeding the tiger or close to being trampled by a herd of wild elephants, I wasn't that frightened as I knew that others could understand what I said and most importantly, I was in safe hands. But, here. My only thought was to chant Krishna's name with the hope that morning would be fine. That was the first day, okay night!, in my full trip where I feared the worst for my life. 

Early morning was the sweetest thing that I had heard and seen from the previous night's nightmarish experience. The colors of the water in the lake had radically changed like a caterpillar to a butterfly and the pleasant romantic winds with hot tea was as soothing as a Shreya Goshal's song. It was time to bid adieu to this cracker of a place and head towards our hotel again with stops at Shey Palace and Hemis Monastery. 

Lunch was outside the Hemis Monastery and inside the place, monks were doing their ritualistic dance and the teacher was helping the students to do it in a more synchronized and co-ordinated manner. It was nice. Short stopover at Shey Palace and guide proceeded to the hotel where I packed all my things and headed straight to the airport in the next morning with the same family who had accompanied me to Pangong Lake.

Leh-Ladakh is a MUST visit place for everyone though the flight tickets are expensive. Speaking of flight, kindly ensure that your airplane is really scheduled to depart on the said date and time as they are liable to reschedule based on the whooshy weather at the airport. I had faced a similar situation before I departed from Chennai to Delhi as they said that the flight from Delhi to Leh was cancelled and I was allotted a flight on a different date. But, after politely requesting him to advance the flight timings to the previous flight so that the tour itinerary isn't delayed because of me, I was given the morning GoAir from Delhi to Leh. 

Since the flights were fickle and capricious as the stock market, I decided to not to book any flight from Delhi to Chennai and waste my money on my departure but to travel by train so that even in the worst-case scenario if my flight from Leh to Delhi was re-scheduled, I would still be able to book a train ticket from Delhi to Chennai. As luck would have it, I got myself a ticket at RajDhani (Don't exactly remember the name of the train now) and visited the nearby Palika Bazaar to kill time as the train was due in the night on the same day as I landed in Delhi from Leh.

Palika Bazaar is an ideal place for lovers and romantic birds as there were many shops that sold cheap items. How good were the items? I don't know as I didn't buy any excepting for an excellent book to read during the journey from Delhi to Chennai.

With the train slowly chugging into Central station, there is nothing like home sweet home as my travels had taught me a valuable lesson to not to take unnecessary personal or any problem seriously and at the same time, solve the necessary problems before it goes out of hand. 

Finally, before wrapping the travel diaries up, unless and otherwise you know Hindi, DON'T EVER visit Pangong Lake alone. I am not saying that the place was ACTUALLY dangerous or the locals were REALLY thugs. The place is drop-dead gorgeous and I didn't interact with the locals as language was a barrier, thus, I have no idea how they are.

It's just that our mind works in mysterious ways and when we are in a freaked out panicky state, it starts to generate unrealistic imaginations imbued with fear and hyperventilation. Just imagine what would have happened had I shouted in the middle of the night that someone was attacking me when there was no one in reality just because my mind was playing tricks due to my personal fear. I would have caused an unnecessary and unwanted furor and who knows what could have happened to others because of my fear. Luckily, nothing of that sort happened. 

It's just plain wrong in my opinion to make others falsely believe of any imminent danger when there isn't any in REALITY as the other people would also start to get frightened and tensed and cause a chain reaction of undesirable consequences. 

The point which I also wanted to emphasize is that there is always safety in numbers whether you know the local language or not. 

Please do enjoy yourselves in this amazing Pangong Lake and immerse in the riveting splendor of Leh-Ladakh at least once in your life. 

Hope you liked reading my longggggggggggggggggggggggggg adventurous cum spiritually oriented travel diaries. Most importantly, the recommendations as I felt it would be immensely beneficial if at all you were to travel to any of these places.

Thanks a lot again.

Ciao!

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