Ladakh Trip: Summary and Retrospect

Geologist call it 'Desert in the Skies', Meteorologist call 'Rain Shadow area', Photographers call it 'Picture perfect' I just call it Ladakh !

I was at this heavenly place in June 2011 in a group of six people - Myself, Jatin, Ravi, Naveen(Ande), Murali and Vignesh. It was one of my dream trips and with a company of like minded people dreams always come true ! The planning phase started as early as 6 months before the trip. Most of the ground work was done by Jatin, Ravi and I took up the responsibility of fixing a deal with our jeep driver Rigzin.

To start my series of blog-posts on this trip here's a brief summary and retrospect:

• With this trip I added two Indian States into my 'visited list'.
• We went to Leh directly by flight and returned by road via Manali. Usually, people do onward journey via Manali and return by flight. We wanted to be risk averse w.r.t opening of Rohtang pass and any delays in onward journey would have screwed up entire trip.
• The soul of the trip was our driver Rigzin and his Scorpio. He took the responsibility of entire traveling - right from pick up from Leh Airport till Manali that too at affordable rates. Plus he helped us in planning itinerary, accommodation and being ex-army man he gave us lot of local masala information about various places.
• Personally, acclimatization process was tough and it was not a cakewalk as expected. I had giddiness, headache throughout the trip and by the time I got adjusted to high altitude the trip was almost over.
• Weather was pleasant throughout the trip and it used to cold during nighttime. We were able to manage with only one layer of warm clothing. There were traces of drizzle here and there so carrying an umbrella will be handy.
• Inner line permits are mandatory for all tourist locations close to China and PoK. Regzin helped us in this department too. 
• We saved a day by traveling directly from Pangong to Tso Moriri instead of returning back to Leh from Pangong.
• In this trip, I used my two new gadgets extensively. One was GoPro Sports camera and other was Holux GPS Logger. Will share the results in subsequent posts.
• The stay in Manali while returning was a pathetic experience especially after heavenly experience of Ladakh. Rubbing salt to the wounds was the fact that the place was hopelessly crowded with people who were there for a weekend outing. Just to exaggerate it was like half the population of Chandigarh was in so-called hill station.
• In overall expenses, the major component was flight tickets and it was followed by food expenses !

Expense Summary (All figures in INR):

Per Head Expenses:

• Flight: Bangalore-Delhi-Bangalore: 7000 
• Flight: Delhi-Leh: 5000 
• Bus: Manali-Delhi: 1140 

Group Expenses(for 6 people):

• Permits: 990
• Jeep Transportation: 
• Ladakh sightseeing: 40,700 [ Pickup from airport, all traveling in Ladakh and drop back to Manali]
• Manali sightseeing: 2500
• Accommodation
• Leh ( 3 Nights): 5800 [ Including 3 times breakfast and 1 time lunch]
• Diskit, Nubra Valley(1 Night): 1500 [ Including Dinner]
• Merak, Pangong Lake(1 Night): 1500 [ Including dinner and breakfast]
• Korzok, Tso Moriri Lake(1 Night): 1200 [ Including dinner and tea]
• Sarchu (1 Night): 2010 [ Tent Stay, including dinner and breakfast]
• Manali ( 2 Nights): 4000 [ Excluding food]

Also read: Ladakh Trip - Itinerary in brief