Hey everyone, bear with me here at the beginning since things are going to look a bit clunky and I will be writing from my phone. However, I prefer to get things down as I go rather than waiting until afterwards to create a polished fantasy of events.
I imagine there are multiple ways to get here, but most tourists for sure will arrive to Ladakh by plane, and unless you live relatively close that means probably at least two flights with a relatively long layover. That’s because as far as I can tell, flights generally only come into Leh in the morning. In my case I started from Bengaluru on a 9:00 PM, 2.5 hour flight to Delhi. Upon arrival we then had a five hour wait before we could catch the 5:00 AM flight to Ladakh’s capital “city”, Leh. Unsurprisingly, one does not arrive well-rested!
As this is a fairly planned trip which I’m doing with two workmates, Dorothée and Betsy, there was a friendly driver waiting for us who took us straight on to the homestay where we will do three days of easy rest while our bodies adjust to the altitude. I didn’t take any photos at nor around the airport since it’s primary purpose is obviously military and they seem to take that quite seriously. However, it is more than adequate for simple civilian arrivals and that also seems to get handled well without too much fuss. Upon arrival and immediate departure from the airport, I was first struck by the barren landscape. This is so different from other highland sites I’ve visited in India, but those were not nearly as high and were also in northeastern India, whereas Ladakh is very clearly part of the northern most point of central India. Yes, there were mountain peaks everywhere, but it seemed like a dessert.
Even though this is ostensibly a trekking trip, for the first three days we are definitely not roughing it.
We had to wait until 8:30 for breakfast but there were comfortable benches in the dining hall and they had some nice tea awaiting us.
After breakfast I had to wait for about 90 minutes while my room was still being prepared, and honestly, it was bad. I was just about falling out of the chair. I was so incredibly tired. Thankfully, I was finally able to get into the room a bit after 10:30 AM and immediately got into bed where I slept straight through until 4:00 PM. We then met up for some tea and cheesecake which Dorothée, ever the intrepid explorer had brought from her scouting trip into the city center. This then was followed by a game of Bananagrams (which I had never played before) with Betsy; it was actually quite fun; I think I will pick up a few sets for my language classes and maybe another just for me. We then went back to our rooms to rest a bit more before dinner at 8:30 PM, and straight to bed again after that.
All in all, it was a good first day and I look forward to seeing what will happen tomorrow as we all head into the “city” to explore a bit. Anyways, for those who were interested, thanks for accompanying me on this first attempt to do a travel blog, and I hope to if not entertain, at least keep you reasonably informed. Let me hear from you if you have any questions or suggestions.
Travels with Jay 