Out of Leh
With the correct permits in place, our next activity was 3 nights in the Nubra Valley, an area that played a critical part in the rich history of the Silk Route. There are more rough challenging roads through the Ladakh Range including our highest pass of the trip - Khardung Pass (5,602m). You are supposed to limit your time here because of the altitude, but there was a bit of a traffic jam so we walked the short distance past the lookout while the car caught up! There were other passes to be encountered, but also plenty of visual rewards in the stark, high altitude cold desert environment. Again, there are road workers toiling in terrible conditions - smoke, dust and altitude in mainly manual construction. There are sections of road that have a brick surface as that has shown to be most resilient - more back breaking work. Plenty of Yaks were free roaming as we share the roads with a lot of domestic travellers, motorbike adventure tours, and convoys of military vehicles. The lookout points & significant altitude makers are chaotic but it is somewhat more relaxed at the tea/coffee/ snack spots. We start to see mentions of the Siachen Warriors and that intrigue will be answered in later days. It was noted that from the 19th Century until 1994 tourists were barred from the valley, with military personnel being the only ones mingling with the people of Tibetan descent.
The Nubra & Shyok rivers zigzag through the valley with patches of green where the villages exist.
The popularity of the Nubra Valley has spawned roadside advertising of some attractions with many claiming to be “the World’s Highest” - a 3km long zipline ride, go karting, trekking, Bactrian camel riding, rafting quad biking, camping and bike riding (would be very brave & we didn’t see anyone participating). The Valley promotes sustainability & the area was certainly spotless & a marked contrast to many areas of India.
First rise out of Leh & road surface is good
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Our first lookout stop
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