On the top of the world!!!!!

I was dumbstruck!!!!
For a moment I thought I was on another planet. It was eerie!!!!

In the last 4 hours I had experienced chilly winds, snowfall, rainfall, dust storms and the excess heat of the desert.

It was my journey through the highest motorable pass (at 18380 ft) in the world – Khardungla in Ladakh

Ladakh has a moon like landscape. I think it is the closest one can get that to being on the moon. Buddhist chants fill the airs of this land which surprisingly has been devoid of terrorism despite being so close to the Pakistan border.

You will find motorists from all around the world with their Harleys trying to scale the highest peaks of the Himalayas. The landscape is filled with small villages and each one having its own monastery, unique in architecture and having a different story to tell.Budhism and Hinduism almost intermingle as you find idols of the Buddha and Hindu deities inside these magnificent structures .If you are fortunate enough you might even spot a snow leopards feeding on the mountain goats on these high peaks near the monasteries.

The people of Ladakh add to the beauty of the place. The locals are very friendly and helpful. The Tibetan food is healthy and keeps you in good shape in these almost harsh and extreme conditions. The capital – Leh is essentially cut off from the rest of the world for 6 months in the winters and the food supplies have to be stored in the summers to brace for the harsh winters.

No trip to Ladakh can be complete without a visit to one of the most beautiful place in the world in my view. Around 200 kms from Leh surrounded by huge mountains on all sides, the Pangong Tso Lake sits on the border of India and China. The first view of the lake takes your breath away. The water is ice cold and the rapids touch your feet, as if angels welcoming you to heaven. Even after hours and hours I did not want to go away from this heaven on earth .

Though the beauty of Pangong cannot be compared, the spectacle of Nubra is not far behind. It is one of the very few cold deserts on earth. The two humped camels roam in these cold deserts .The tributaries of Indus flow through the deserts and their muddy waters give you an illusion where you can’t differentiate between the river and the desert. The snow capped mountains add to the wonder of the place. The desert, river, mountains in the same place !!!! I will leave the rest to your imagination

Driving in our bikes we felt like flying on the mountains. We saw small children near the monasteries preparing to become monks, old ladies trying to sell vegetables and earn their livelihood in this harsh terrain, army trucks going towards the border posts of Kargil and Drass and farmers trying to grow something in the harsh terrain

On more than one occasion the beauty of the place overwhelmed me. I used to just sit for hours and tried to soak in the beauty of that place. Words lost relevance. I used to be speechless!!!

I was on the top of the world both figuratively and literally!!!!