Leh was probably the most awaited trip of my life and I am going to cherish this one forever..!!
Since Manali-Leh highway was not yet open we decided to go via Jammu and booked our train tickets in tatkal. This year the highway took more time than usual to open for public.
Day one, Our cab was waiting at Jammu station(from Delhi), we reached Sonamarg at 7pm and covered around 400kms and the roads were really good.
Day Two, we reached Leh around 4pm covering Kargil and other places on Srinagar-Leh highway. The temperature was around 20-22 degrees in Leh City and it used to drop at night. The mountains were still covered under snow and made the view more beautiful. We had not booked our hotel in advance so spent an hour and checked multiple hotels on the spot. We finally booked Hotel Shynam for 1500 per night/per room. Since we were group of 5, we booked two rooms for 5days.
Day four, we had rented bikes for Pangong lake and decided to come back same day. It was not a good decision it was snowing in Changla Pass and 150kms in one way way too much. We started at 6:30am and reached Pangong at 2pm and left from Pangong at 3pm. There are no fuel stations on the way, this was another learning for us. We bought 2ltrs of Petrol from Pangong at Rs.150 per ltr. There are places before Pangong(near security check) where you can get petrol for Rs.80 per ltr. However, its best to carry fuel from Leh. On our return as well, it was snowing in Changla. It was one hell of a ride and we reached Leh at 8pm. We couldn't feel our legs and arms even after reaching our hotel. Old Monk came to our rescue. :P
Day five, we decided to rest and did some shopping in Leh.
Day Eight, we hired a cab back to Srinagar as our return flight was from Srinagar and the cab costed us Rs.10000 and we reached Srinagar on 8th Day morning. Spent entire day in Srinagar on Day 9, we decided to stay on boat house. Boat house can be skipped as the food is not good on boat house and travel back to city is difficult as Shikara is not always around. We paid 300 per person for Dal Lake sightseeing and 2 trips to and fro to the the lake shore.
Day 10, we flew back to Delhi at around 12pm.
The scenic beauty of Leh was mesmerizing, nothing that I have seen before. If you ever wish to visit Leh, road trip is recommended.
Cheers!!!
Day Six, we hired a cab for Rs.8400 to Nubra Valley and this was pretty cheap as the Hotel owner has some tie up with the owner of the cab. We left in the morning, had maggie and tea at Khardungla, it was a bright sunny day, went to Panamik(hot water spring) and spent some time there. Went to Hundur same day and back to our Hotel in Nubra. Hotel Sandune costed us Rs.700 per night/per room including breakfast, evening snacks and dinner. Next day, we visited Diskit Monastery and returned to Leh.
Day three, we covered local places in Leh. There are a lot of monasteries in and around Leh and all of them look more or less same. But the journey to those monasteries would be beautiful as Leh is all about scenic beauty so make the most of it. We hired a cab for entire day which covered 3-4 monasteries and other areas within Leh.