Exploring Hunder and Deskit – Nubra Valley | Ladakh – 2012

The Journey so far…

Day 7 | Hunder – Deskit – North Pullu (Nubra Valley)

6 AM and my eyes woke up to see a lovely sunshine outside the big window of our room, I decided to get out of bed and get ready for some morning walk in the lovely Hunder Village. It was pretty cold out and I did need a woollen cap as I did not want any headache accompany me later in the day when we have to explore the Snow Ocean at Khardung La pass 😀 … The feeling walking alone in the village was something can never be felt in this civilized modern world we live today, it was magical as you feel so close to nature, so small, so grounded, so pure… After having such nature therapy for about half an hour, I took out the camera to capture some pictures but dark clouds were on the way to Nubra Valley in the background. It was time when Camel Safari guys bring their camels from their homes to the sand dunes to start the safari and I got a chance to see so many of them. I got a very nice local person who tried to explain a bit of history about Nubra Valley and how the king their built the fort at the top of a cliff in Hunder Village, thanks to him.

When I was back to room both Himanshu and Tejas were ready as well and so was our breakfast. I decided to further take some pictures of lovely Apricot flowers blooming in the garden of Snow Leopard Guest House. Some pictures came out decent at least for a rookie like me with hand held camera and I was pretty happy with them. The breakfast served was bread, butter, jam and omelette which was way way better than last night’s dinner and was priced at Rs 100 per person, still doing justice to the quality. We had breakfast and decided to move for the day towards Leh via Snow Covered Khardung La. But, before we do that part we had to have the camel safari at Hunder sand dunes and we also wanted to check out the lovely Deskit Monasteries along with 106 feet tall Lord Buddha statue.

I loved to capture that bridge as I shot in 2010 being one of my favourite pictures ever but as usually pictures cannot be replicated as first light was not favourable and same as it was in 2010 plus there was a cemented room built there, not sure for what purpose ruining that charm of it. Soon there was a herd of tourist behind us to take a similar shot but with their families over the bridge, some even stopped their cabs taking them back to shoot that angle 😀 … Not sure what they liked about it but I knew that it was a fussy place now, so decided to go in towards sand dunes. We reached Hunder sand dunes and booked camels for both Himanshu and Tejas as I opted out being not interested after a long body breaking camel safari in Rajasthan 😉 … But, I decided to walk along with them capturing some pictures of them and rest of the scenic beauty of Hunder. 15 minutes, 150 bucks was the price for the safari and for me it was fun walking in the sand dunes along with rest of the caravan but camels out performed my pace plus stamina on the way back 😉

It was time to move towards Deskit Monastery now. This time we took the other route that was complete now to reach to the top of monastery, right up to Lord Buddha statue. Last time, parking was not up there and road was still under construction. We tried to capture some really lovely landscapes seen to our eyes and the aerial view of Deskit Village and after spending about an 20 minutes or so at the top decided to walk out skipping the old monastery as Tejas had enough of monasteries. Now started the heart pounding part of the day – The Ascent to Snow Filled Khardung La Pass…

The Journey ahead…