Leaving Srinagar
Our Srinagar guesthouse host brought us tea in the morning. He wanted us to help locate this guest from Christchurch who had stayed with them several times. A quick look on White Pages did the trick. We were pleased to be able to make the old man happy. We will give the lady in Christchurch a call back in NZ to tell her as well.
We tuktuked to the taxi stand for minivans to Kargil and Leh. A full vehicle was just pulling away. So we had first choice of seating for the next vehicle, but it also meant that we had to wait for it to fill up with 7 passengers. We occupied ourselves while waiting with people-watching; we noticed that even young Ladakhi uni students had wrinkles (presumbaly due to the strong UV at high altitude).
After 2h30 of waiting (and several false hopes of an imminent departure as some waiters dropped away), we departed with only 6 passengers. Each driver appears to have a different mental breakeven point; we had to change to another vehicle whose driver was happy to leave with only 6 pax.
On the road … finally
It didn’t take long before we saw gushing streams and rivers of grey snow-fed water. It was about 90 minutes when we got to Sonarmarg, a popular scenic area close to glaciers for those who don’t have the chance to venture too far from Srinagar.
We started some serious uphill climbs on unsealed zigzags. In parts, the slopes were just unretained shingle. The driver paused and hesitated at one point as he saw some shingle starting to slip on to the road.
The scenery was very majestic with sheer cliffs dropping off from the road into the valley, the bottom of which had a gushing river and many horses grazing on green islets.
Even though it was Ramadhan, we stopped briefly twice for the driver to rest. We were the only ones eating. The two stops allowed us to understand the variation in ethnic mix as we travelled eastwards.
Srinagar has fair-skinned Kashmiris with Indian/Pakistani-features, but as we went eastwards, people became more Nepali/Tibetan/Chinese-looking (somewhat mixed features) and are still Muslim. Further eastwards towards Leh tomorrow, they’ll get even Tibetan/Chinese in appearance but will be Buddhists.
Arriving in Kargil
Just over 6 painless hours after departure (at around 5pm) we arrived in our nightstop, Kargil. I’m pleased we didn’t take the bus as it takes about 10 hours. We had been delayed slightly due to a landslide (which killed two people a couple of days ago) just outside of town. We also had to register ourselves at the security checkpoint as we entered Kargil (elevation 2817m, 9,242 ft), and also at two other localities en route. As Srinagar was only at 1730m or 5675 ft, we had climbed over 1000m today.
Our first choice of hotel was very ridiculously overpriced, but we managed to find a better place for less. We walked around briefly before dinner and observed the interesting mix of the populace, ranging from Kashmiri to Tibetan in features but almost exclusively Muslim. I quite liked the atmosphere.
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- Breakfast stop between Srinagar and Kargil.
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- Breakfast stop between Srinagar and Kargil.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- Trucks awaiting police inspection are backed up; we were lucky we could jump the queue in a car.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- There was a bit of slippage as we waited for our turn to pass traffic; it wouldn’t have taken much for a landslide to bury us.
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- One of many narrow places where vehicles pass.
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- Beautiful scenery from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- It’s a long way down if you roll off the road from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- Beautiful scenery from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- Village on the way from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- Lunch stop just before arriving at Kargil.
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- Lunch stop just before arriving at Kargil.
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- Scene on the way from Srinagar to Kargil.
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- A landslide washed a house away and killed two people in Kargil.
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- A landslide washed a house away and killed two people in Kargil.
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- A landslide washed a house away and killed two people in Kargil.
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- Kargil street scene.
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- Kargil street scene.
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- Kargil street scene.
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- Kargil street scene.
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- Swift-flowing river in Kargil.
