The one in the Zanskar river

Tripoto
12th Aug 2016
Photo of The one in the Zanskar river by pallavi addy

So there we were, three ladies on a trip to Leh-Ladakh…little concerned about whether Mom’s health would permit her to travel through the landscapes of this rightfully place. But I guess when she insisted on clicking a picture at the “World’s Highest Motor-able Road”, I realised "all izz well". And thus we were done with our Leh-Ladakh journey. The only thing left was our Kargil visit and Srinagar transfer via Sonmarg (thanks to the curfew) and we had one day in hand, you know for shopping, etc. But one dear friend of Bhai’s had suggested not to miss the Rafting experience when you are in Leh. So we checked with the hotel and they did arrange an operator who is basically someway related to the Hotel owner. Nevertheless we (of-course not my mom) two sisters had also managed the company of two other girls in our first time rafting experience and sooner than we realised, we were off on our journey towards the start point.

Fast forward through the events of changing out of nowhere on the middle of the mountains into bodysuits and fighting for the best head gear with the captain himself we set our foot on the rafting boat and the rafting boat in turn set its foot on the chilly waters. The best whirlpool was right at the beginning and we managed our way through it somehow but the captain decided that one of us was faking with the oars and decided to change our positions (remember those times in school when the talkative boy was made to sit with the girls!) Few more whirlpools later we were pros (or so we thought) and the view. It was as if God was handcrafting the landscapes with a cold coffee in hand (I do love cold coffees).

Now that very friend of Bhai’s had also mentioned about taking a dip in the water whenever you get an opportunity. So when we were done with the whirlpools and the Captain asked who’s up for a dip we made sure we are the first ones to raise our hands and whoosh, there was one huge hoo-man in the water (btw, did I mention my sister lost approximately 8KGs, thanks to yoga, yes NAMASTE!). Following the footsteps of my sister, of-course I was the next one to jump and the chilly waters of the Zanskar river, the landscape all added to my adrenaline rush as I was mentally crossing out one of the To-Do list’s of mine. Should I embarrass my sister a wee bit more and mention the event of our Captain almost falling off the boat when he tried to pick my sister up or may be not, nothing of that sort happened guys! All the events mentioned here are just a work of creativity and nothing else. Then soon enough we were done with the rafting and let’s not go into details about the later on wait of close to 1 hour for our operator to arrive and pick us up and the huge Fight. Nevertheless, all throughout our Leh trip it was (just the way our captain said),

Girl Power,

Day 5

24 Hour! \m/

FYI: Don't go for Ghatsal Tours, they are pretty unprofessional about the pick and drop timings and almost forget to pick you up after you have made the payment. We had to wait for 1.5 hours for them to send someone so that we can go back to the hotel