Ladakh Trip - July 2008

kritikal

Hey y’all,

I am planning to head to Ladakh towards the beginning of July, along with a friend of mine. We have drawn out a rough itinerary, based on whatever we have read up over here and elsewhere. This is our first trip – so the places that we have included in the agenda are the usual suspects But we are open to doing other place(s).

June 30th – Leave for Srinagar from Udhampur (This is a town 60 kms from Jammu)
1st July – A one-day trip of Srinagar
2nd July – Leave for Leh early in the morning . Stop-over at Kargil
3rd July – Visit Lamayuru on the way. Reach Leh
4th July – Spend the day at Leh. Acclimatize and arrange for inner line permits. Check out Leh Palace, Namgyal Tsemo Gompa/Sankar Gompa et al, depending on the time available.
5th July - Leave for Pangong Tso. Stay at Tangtse.
6th July - Return to Leh
7th July – Leave for Nubra Valley. Stay at Diskit
8th July – Return to Leh

Okay, the part after this is where we need some heavy-duty help! We need to be back in Delhi for our flights back on 13th evening. We are planning on coming back through Manali, which essentially means we need to leave Manali on the 12th evening. We haven’t seen Manali either, so ideally we would like to do a day here ( not too gung-ho about this though!). We are kind of confused on whether to leave Leh on the 9th or the 10th. We also want to do Tso-moriri on the way back. So when should we leave Leh?


Some other questions, that we could use some help on :
1. Since we get only a day at Srinagar, we intend to do Dal Lake, Jama Masjid and the likes. We want to check out Gulmarg, but since this is about 50 kms off Srinagar, can we try doing this on the way to Leh? Would it be on the way?
2. What is the likelihood of getting shared jeeps from Srinagar to Leh? What will be the approximate cost? Plus, we are two girls traveling. Is this a safe option?
3. We are flexible about the days when we visit Pangong Tso/Nubra Valley. I read somewhere that it is better to do Nubra before Pangong Tso (or is it the other way around?!).
4. We have also got mixed reviews about Nubra. We want to visit the Hemis Gompa too. So is it possible to go to Nubra and return back in just one day (i.e. 7th July) and save one more day for Hemis?

Thanks so much

nayan

Unless you are a die-hard monastery enthusiast you will spend around 1-2 hours in Hemis.
Why dont you do it on 6th July... the day you return from Pangong. you will anyway be passing Karu. Hemis is just a 10mins drive from Karu.

chirag

All the best for your Laddakh trip. I admire your spirit that you are going on a trip, just 2 of you. I plan to do the same trip with an organised group in the end of July. Do tell me how this comes out.

vistet

Do Nubra first , and get more time acclimatizing around three thousand , gain some comfort . The most important thing , which you have nailed already , is not sleeping at Pangong Tso , which is thousand meters higher than Leh.





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Nuala

2. What is the likelihood of getting shared jeeps from Srinagar to Leh? What will be the approximate cost? Plus, we are two girls traveling. Is this a safe option

I just asked the same question today by chance in a travel agency in Delhi ( the owner is from Srinagar ) and he told me that there are shared jeeps from 600RS to 1000RS leaving Srinagar towards Leh. The trip takes the whole day leaving very early in the morning. It is the fastst option as the bus takes 2 days.

As for how safe this option for a girl? I am a girl travelling on my own and I have never had any problems travelling on shared jeeps.

Good Luck!

Yogesh Sarkar

If you are apprehensive about taking a shared taxi to Leh, why not take the bus? The only problem would be visiting Lamayuru, which might also exist with the shared taxi if not all occupants are interested in visiting it.

Gulmarg is out of the way and since you don’t have private transport, it wouldn’t be best to go there.

Also if you are planning to go to Pangong Tso then it would be a good idea to spend the night at Lukung or Spangmik, while Tangste is a nice little village it just can’t come close to the charm of staying only a few hundred meters from Pangong Tso!

I would also recommend that you start from Leh on the 9th for Tso Moriri, though the biggest hurdle is going to be the fact that not many are interested in doing Tso Moriri en route to Manali so you might have to hire a vehicle for yourself or do Tso Moriri trip separately and then do Leh - Manali in a single day.

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vistet

Bus is slower .. but this doesn´t necessarily mean that you get more days in Leh , effectively. The night in Kargil is the major advantage of the Srinagar-Leh road, use it and you´ll feel better the first night(s) in Leh.

More here

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kritikal

Thanks a ton, you guys

@nayan,

Thanks. We'll do Hemis on the way back from Pangong!

@vistet,

We'll go with your suggestion and do Nubra first. Is it possible to do Nubra and return to Leh in just one day?

And thanks for busting some myths about acclimatisation!


@Yogesh,

We've been refering to your site a lot! As much as I would like to stay closer to the lake, at Lukung or Spangmik, we are getting mixed opinions about staying close to the lake, since it might be difficult to acclimatize. What do you think?

Also, from whatever we have read up on your site and elsewhere, Tso moriri excites us. I am a big wildlife enthusiast and would like to see the reserve there too, if possible. We would like to devote a couple of days here. So I will ask you the same question that I popped to vistet - do you think we can do nubra in a day so that we can get more time at Tso moriri?

I guess it will be good if we can just leave for manali through the Pang – Sarchu – Darcha – Manali route. Would you know if there are buses which run on this route? Either that or we have to bank on some luck of finding a few people who are doing Tso moriri enroute to Manali!!

@Nuala,

Thanks! The only thing we were a wee bit apprehensive about the safety factor was that it's a two-day journey with a halt in between.

@Chirag,

Yep. I'll definitely post a trip report once we get back.

vistet

Buses : at this time you will have HPTDC (link on my blog) , HRTC (clunky ) and private buses running Leh-Manali.

Yogesh Sarkar

Now I am going to say something which won’t go down well with few others here, but here it goes.

Forget about acclimatization and AMS if you want to enjoy Ladakh!

Frankly speaking if the only reason you don’t want to spend a night at Lukung and Spangmik is the acclimatization part, then chuck out Tso Moriri from your itinerary.

Why?

Because Tso Moriri and Korzok are higher than Pang, Sarchu and Pangong Tso. If you can’t sleep at those places, how will you survive at Tso Moriri?

Sleeping at 10k feet isn’t going to prepare you for sleeping at 15k altitude. If you really want to enjoy these places then stop thinking about AMS and just go for it! Other wise simply visit Pangong Tso as a day trip and spend rest of the time in Nubra and visit monestries like all those who are afraid of AMS, do!

You can certainly do Nubra in one day; however it’s not something I would personally recommend.

If you can somehow manage to get to Pang, I am sure you can negotiate with a taxi driver to take you to Manali. But chances of that are bleak. Best option is to do Tso Moriri as an individual trip and then come back to Leh and then return.

kritikal

Point noted!
Okay, we haven't exactly done our homework on altitude, I guess

I guess we'll just have to figure out once we get there, since we have to rely on shared jeeps/buses etc. But yeah, thanks! We're keeping our fingers crossed that AMS doesn't play spoilsport and we can get to stay at Pangong Tso and Tso Moriri

amarshah

Krital, what i suggest is to go and tell few agents about you intent to do Tso Kar & Tso Moriri and go back to Manali with a rough date. They will post this and you might be lucky to get a few people. The cost for the taxi would be approx 20-22k.

In regards to AMS, Yogesh is right. He had suggested me a good thing and it worked perfectly. Drink a lot of water at regular intervals. Trust me it did the trick for me when i was reaching Leh from Srinagar.

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Amar

Year 2008 Trips - http://amards14.googlepages.com/

vistet

I´m so not impressed by this kind of bravado, and the the associated attitude of looking down at the people who are presumably cowering down in the valleys , adhering to safety guidelines. For the record I´ve camped higher than all the destinations discussed here.

I work in a intensive care unit , and I´d say we have a above average portion of risk takers here : bikers , a hang glider and winter trekkers.Some of my co-workers have literally worked under fire with UN missions in Somalia and Bosnia. We are not without connection points with the exotic stuff that rolls in here , I´ve treated hypothermia victims with own experiences of digging in for cover during snow storms , and we´ve had bikers been nursed by a biker. My reaction to a guy with a broken leg from falling down a ridge near Ritjem is more like " cool , that went well ..same ridge I went up ?"

We are less than impressed with other things though : the basic reaction to someone who has been hit by a avalanche is , politely put , bad judgement : how did they manage to do that ? The avalanche analogy is not completely off topic here , since it involves letting others deal with consequences of something easily predictable :

"We did managed to climb up Baralacha but Vikas was out of my control when he felt so heavy on his chest. ..I had to return to a lower ground level soon. We rode back to Drass and got help from Local police. We stayed back at the Road side tent and got medical aid." (From Adrenalinerider )

My point here is that this where we starts to get peeved : there are some patients who just are unnecessary , staying out of our hands involves just basic common sense : wear the damn helmet , don´t experiment with diving equipment .. or ascent guide lines .
I know it´s futile not to expect meeting hypoxic fellow travellers on the roads in Ladakh , I still will have this basic reaction at first : this was supposed to be a day off...

Sleeping at 3000 is no fix against AMS at 4500 , even locals can get altitude sickness here. OP got that part right , and planned a intermediate stop at 4000.
Time spent at 3000 will be used by the body to acclimatize , which involves several different processes , with different time scales. The first effect of increased red blood cell production is not visible until the end of the first week , changed respiratory drive from the normal carbon dioxide drive happens within second to fifth night for most people , changed acid balance within x days .. The long and short of it is that nearly none of us will achieve full acclimatization to Leh´s altitude but time there will slowly push us towards some of the capacity of a Ladakhi. One big step of those changes occur within the first week.

What can be avoided has already been touched upon , but I´ll mention another example that has come up here recently :

"I had zero energy to even move few feet to the left. After some time I was lost into a strange world. The Illusion of being in hell was just flapping my eyes. My eyes were open but could see glowing colors. A normal man would say he say an alien ship but I knew that it was more of a Shock to the brain due to lack of Oxygen. I some how managed to get up and go out of the tent. I felt like the ground was shaking and the illusion was so damn real I could barely differentiate. Started feeling a strange sensation on my chest. Felt like a huge load of stones were on top."

This is an example of what we can see on fast ascents to Sarchu : affected balance , interesting neurological symptoms .. and what appears to be early stages of a pulmonary edema . (Objectively verified pulmonary edema at the same altitude here)

This does not mean that you can´t sleep in Sarchu , I´ve slept higher , the difference is how much time you put in to it. Ascent rate , not altitude absolute .

This is illustrated by another traveller , who also broke ascent guide lines en route to Sarchu (some weeks in Dhasa , followed by a trek to 2800 just before the road )but less severely :

"I was not sick, although there were some slight funny symptoms of altitude. I remember at the camp in Sarchu (4100 m) inside the toilet tent that I moved around to search for my torch, then my toilet paper, then my camera that I dropped etc and because of my too many fast movements I felt as if I was a bit drunk, I had slight orientation problems, but so only then when I moved too fast. It was funny Also at Sarchu I had to laugh a lot about stupid things and couldn`t stop laughing... So I felt nice."

Funny or not , these are neurological symptoms. If you are comfortable with having your brain affected and believe it won´t interfere with your experience , go ahead and ditch the safety guidelines - but please stay out of my jeep , taking care of someone going unconscious after the projectile vomiting and ataxia phase once is enough , thanks.


Instead as seeing this as an obstacle to be removed , you can see the possibilities : acclimatise well , concentrate on few goals .. and enjoy them fully . First time on the road to Leh I was at times strangely unmoved , I remember thinking this is ...big , but lifeless. Gravel pit of the gods , I remember thinking . On later trips I´ve seen myself and others dumbstruck by the play of colors ... and seeing others less acclimatised mirroring my earlier reaction. Full color perception , one of the advantages of avoiding hypoxia. Another simple observation is that I´ve seen myself awake a lot more time on the road.

Few if any have major problems with coming to Leh when taking a night stop in Kargil , as you and I did . There is no valid comparison here : have you done the same road , without the water thing ?
The water myth is a commonly repeated theme , but you won´t find the medically trained repeating it , in fact you´ll find some of them warning against it. Keep track of your drinking , don´t increase it.







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Yogesh Sarkar

Look I am not going to argue with you because frankly I done enough of that earlier. As for the OP, look at the advice I have given. Frankly you failed to notice that she was planning to sleep at 4600+ meters and while continuing to advice her against staying at <4300 meters. While my reply might be viewed as a bit direct, it provides her the info that is actually useful for her to make an informed decision.

Now it is for the OP to decide whether she wants to spend the night at 4600meters, 4300meters or at 3200meters.

Ps. As for your example, next time you might want to quote someone who is credible enough.

vistet

OP pretty much nailed it from the beginning (unless the altitude for Tangtse is badly off the mark ) : acclimatize well around 3500, one night at 4000, next 4600 - close match to ascent guide lines. Going higher than Korzok would need a second night there.

I have no problem with , and have never argued against, anyone sleeping at any altitude , only with starting from too low altitude. A medical exam for anyone planning to sleep seriously over 5000 is probably a good idea, though.



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