Dream road trip through central & north India to Ladakh.

Town is famous for its historical importance along with riverfronts Ghats & Forts. Later by the evening we reached Indore, as we did not have a proper lunch in daytime we were quite hungry & decided to stop at famous "56 Dukaan" where we had different varieties of snacks. To name the best coconut Malai & water crush stood out.

Place of stay: Company Guest House at Indore.

Expenses: Rs. 4100 (Petrol) + Rs. 400 (Room+ B. Fast) + Rs. 1500 (Food & Misc. Exp)

Later we had our lunch at Pizza Hut which was newly opened at the exit of the fort & we continued our journey via Jaipur till Neemrana to our company guest house. It was almost 1:00 AM by the time we reached. This day was quite long, joyous & hectic especially for me as I was the only person driving the car.

Place of stay: Company Guest House at Neemrana.

Expenses: Rs. 5300 (Petrol) + Rs. 500 (Room + B. fast) + Rs. 3000 (Food, Entry tickets & Misc exp)

We stopped by at one of the Dhabas & had breakfast. We reached around 2 PM at Manali, where I had to shop winter wears as the temperature was dropping as we started to gain the height towards our destination.

We left Manali & crossed the Atal Tunnel to Reach Keylong. Where we made a stop for night in a local guest house. The temperature was quite low & we had started to feel the headache & dizziness due to altitude change.

Place of stay: Local Guest House at Keylong

Expenses: Rs. 2100 (Petrol) + Rs. 1000 (Room) + Rs. 2000 (Food & Misc. Expenses)

One has to be more than just an ordinary city driver as your driving skills will be at test along the route. Blinding turns giving you very low margin of error also it will raise your heartbeats surely but you will have a sense of accomplishment by the end of day.

Although the automatic climate control was working well to our advantage maintaining oxygen levels well inside the car but as we were nearing pang I was feeling very dizzy with severe headache that maybe because I had to focus more on the roads which were curvy as I was the sole driver among the three of us.

We decided to stop at pang and rest a bit, as soon as I got out of car, in natural surrounding there the feeling of dizziness intensified & I had to lay down for almost half an hour to feel better. Our destination was Leh which was still far away, I wasn’t feeling 100% better & I had to drive too on top of that. We decided to move ahead after the break we reached Tanglangla Pass which was the second highest motorable road & finally to get rid of the vomiting feeling I had to make it come by putting fingers in my throat & once it was out I was much relieved & could focus & enjoy the rest of our journey. Our COVID-19 reports were checked at a checkpoint almost 20 kms before Leh. We reached our Hotel room at around nine at night. We ate & slept like a child as everyone was too tired & content with the journey to Leh.

Expenses: Rs. 2400 (Petrol) + Rs. 2000 (Room) + Rs. 1500 (Food & Misc. Expenses)

I was too tired with body ache from continuous driving so wanted to give a break to my body hence did not explore much there but two of my fellow friends explored these places as they were well rested during the journey too.

We went to Magnetic hill to see what’s was the hype all about, later while returning we gave a lift to a very friendly person from Manipur who had come to visit Ladakh. We took him to our last place which we wanted to explore & it was spituk monastery in Leh. Although the monastery was decent but let me tell you one thing if you want to get the best sunset view of Leh city it has to be this place.

Later we ate at local food joint, my stomach still wasn’t completely well so didn’t experiment on local cuisine but others did they tried Thupka & local sweet bread from bakery.

Expenses: Rs. 600 (Petrol) + Rs. 2000 (Room) + Rs. 1500 (Food & Misc. Expenses)

I just wanted to sit there & let the feeling of having achieved something unimaginable sunk in. Although we had our breakfast we wanted to eat something warm & hot as it was quite cold there so we had a traditional kawa and Maggie at the Dhaba located there. We continued our journey towards Diksit & to nubra valley. The roads were average in this inner circuit. The journey was downhill from here till we reached Diksit. We could see the famous Diksit Monastery as we were entering the village & let me tell you this has to be most scenic monastery in the Leh circuit. The view from the top looking towards the valley was mesmerizing.

We explored a part of the monastery also we went to the tall Buddhist statue which brought back my memories from Langza, Spiti. It was almost lunch time we were hungry but couldn’t find anything to eat since the restaurants & market was closed as the locals went to a nearby place to worship the deity. So, we had to buy some snacks from a shop which was also closed but we made a request & they obliged to give us.

Our plan was to stay overnight at Hunder but since everything was closed and also we couldn’t spot any camels in Hunder we had to come up with an alternate plan that was to Visit the northernmost village named Thang on the same route.

At a checkpoint in Thang our IDs were checked we went to the Viewpoint where we could the see the LOC with no man’s land.

We decided to stay overnight in the neighbouring village Turtuk there we hired a local Guest House for one-night stay. The village was very scenic, with greenery around amongst the barren mountains. People used chilled gushing waters coming down from the melted snow from mountains flowing through the local village drains for daily use, farming & other activities. We had local special bread a Buck-Wheat roti at one of the café along with rest of our meal. We ate and dozed off.

Expenses: Rs. 1400 (Petrol) + Rs. 2100 (Room) + Rs. 1500 (Food & Misc. Expenses)

Locals there suggested to hike to a monastery so I went ahead & hiked the monastery, there was a devotee chanting the holy mantras in a language which I didn’t understand, I sat there without disturbing her to see the beautiful view of the village. After spending around 30 mins there I decided to head back to my guest house where my friends were ready to grill me for not taking them along. We had breakfast & got ready for today’s journey. Earlier we had planned to visit Pangong Tso lake on this day but the roads were not good & I was too tired with continuous driving since past 7 days so I asked my friends whether they could skip Pangong Tso & head back to Leh where we could rest a bit before our return Journey & they agreed so we headed back to Leh.

On the way we had to stop at Hunder for around two hours since the roads were blocked by locals to protest against the new road construction through their sand dunes. Local administration were able to convince the villages to let the tourist vehicle pass & we then moved ahead. We reached Leh at around 6 PM checked in at a Hostel with bunk beds for our night stay in Leh. Went to local market for shopping Jackets, shawls, stickers, keychains etc. We also went to a local restaurant for our dinner had thupka, noodles & Pizza.

Expenses: Rs. 1400 (Petrol) + Rs. 1800 (Room) + Rs. 2000 (Food & Misc. Expenses)

When we visited the monastery, a prayer was being held there by locals as a part of their ongoing festival. This place has to be in your must visit list because of the ambiance & also because it is very less crowded. We then moved ahead with our plan to stop at Kargil. We reached kargil at around three in the afternoon, War Memorial there was yet other realization that how Indian Army plays a pivotal role for safety of Indians. Salute!

It was only 4 PM with ample amount of daylight for next 2 hours so we decided to move ahead & stay overnight at Srinagar. The route was new & road was bit rough near Zojila pass I once thought whether it’s good to travel till Srinagar, but since I was on wheels since past week so I was confident of taking my car anywhere anytime.

And with few breaks we finally reached Srinagar around 8:30PM where we booked a guest house near Dal Lake for our overnight stay.

Expenses: Rs. 2800 (Petrol) + Rs. 1200 (Room & Food) + Rs. 1000 (Misc.)

We had our lunch at a restaurant near the lake rested a bit & left for our today’s final destination to Jalandhar. Highways in J&K & Punjab were maintained quite well & we reached Jalandhar quite early than expected hence we covered an additional distance of around 70 kms & changed our night stay stop to Ludhiana.

Expenses: Rs. 3400 (Petrol) + Rs. 400 (Room) + Rs. 2000 (Food & Misc. Expenses)