11 Places We Explored In Ladakh, Summing Up Our Magnificent Experience

Ladakh is one of the most beautiful locations in India, you definitely must have heard about it. One more thing you must have heard about is that the roads to this place are super awesome and one must take a road trip to Ladakh especially if you can drive on the roads of Manali to Ladakh or Delhi to Ladakh. There are actually 2 routes that you can take you there easily if you are traveling from Delhi. One of the most recently built routes from Delhi is through Manali. They say it’s safe and you can have the best road trip experience. However, I prefer experiencing the beauty more than exhausting myself so I would better shut up on that part. If you wish to you must, but I would still say bike rides are tiring as hell and when you travel that way, you don’t have much energy left that you can put to use for exploring. So, we decided to go by air and take a bike to travel internally which too was skipped and we ended up hiring a cab for going here and there. It did go out of our budget but that’s okay because after looking at the roads and talking to locals, I found bike riding a bit risky.

So here are some extremely beautiful places we explored in Ladakh:

1. Leh city and the it’s somewhat overpriced market

We landed in Leh and decided to spend the night there. While we have almost half a day, we explored the Leh city market which I found costlier for obvious reasons that it’s a tourist location; it is supposed to be overpriced. Still I could pick some cheap socks, scarves, woolen caps etc. I wanted a Pashmina too but with my absolutely no knowledge about the quality, I decided not to.

2. Leh to Khardungla pass – Highest motorable road in the world

Next morning we started our drive to Nubra valley crossing Khardungla pass which is the highest motorable road in the world. You can just imagine the chill of this place. With our kind of woolens, you can just imagine to survive for seconds there. We stopped for few minutes, clicked a few pictures and had 2-3 cups of tea and then ran back to our car to get cozy. But the beauty can’t be described in words. We reached Nubra during the evening time. I guess it took around 4-5 hours journey.

3. Driving to the Nubra valley & spending 2 nights

Having heard before, nubra valley is not so much secluded now. It does get a lot of frequent travelers now, though there wasn’t any network at all. All you could get was wifi at your hotel and make the best use of the Whatsapp & Facebook for communicating to your loved ones. Trust me, I usually don’t appreciate social network much during the holidays (despite being an online marketer), but I just loved it then. We spent 2 nights at Nubra exploring the white sand dessert, riding the 2 humped camels and the Buddha temple with a giant Buddha statue. Simply amazing!

4. Turtuk – The last village of India

We also visited Turtuk, the last village of India during our stay in Nubra. It’s located in the Nubra tehsil which is around 200kms from Leh (as per Wikipedia, as I don’t know the distance). Turtuk was in Pakistan’s side up till 2071 and thus we were excited to the place and talk to people to know how they felt after becoming a part of India. They had their own good stories too. Know more about Turtuk
It was about 2-3 hours drive from Nubra to Turtuk, so we came back by evening.

After spending 2 nights in Nubra, we drove towards the Pangong Lake.

5. 2 Nights at Pangong Lake

We had gone during October, which is almost like the end of season for Ladakhi’s. They said that the entire place will turn into snow in few days and here we had booked tents by the lake side. So you can imagine, how it would have been, esp. the nights. They were just so cold. Thankfully, the camps we were in had wooden walls which saved us, despite of 3 layers of woolens and 3 quilts. The next morning was just unimaginable. The Pangong Lake had hundreds and thousands of shades of blue. It’s so beautiful and untouched that you want to spend your entire day just looking at it. Also, we did see the famous 3 idiots shooting site where Kareen kissed Amir at the end of the movie. However, there are 2 spots. Maximum people don’t reach to the original spot. You would have to ask for the main spot from the locals, they should be able to help. Our drive knew, so we could reach the main one.
We stayed there for 2 nights and then drove back to the Leh city.

6. Pangong Lake to Leh city via Changla pass

Unlike Khardungla, the cold at Changla pass was a bit more bearable or maybe we were wearing warmer clothes and it was sunny that day. Changla pass had a temple which we saw from outside and simply spent few minutes to get some pictures clicked. Right after that, we drove back to the Leh city to board our flight the next morning. Since we started around 9 in the morning, we had half a day to explore some places around the city of Leh.

Here are the places we explore around the Leh city in few hours (Half a days time):

7. Magnetic Hill near Leh

You’ve got to watch the magical feeling of this hill. The cars drive on their own and since it wasn’t easy to explain, I had just recorded it here. It was simply terrific.

8. Confluence of 2 rivers – Indus and Zanskar 

The sangam of these 2 rivers is one the rarest sights you could ever imagine. It’s visible clearly and we got to know that a lot of treks are planned in here during the snow days like chaddar trek etc. Many people go especially for these treks only.

9. Spituk Gompa- Monastery At The Hill Top & Shanti Stupa

Both of us, me and Karan are not so much of monastery kind of people but since the places sounded beautiful, we decided to explore them too. Both of them were at a small distance from the city and the confluence place and can be visited in one go.

10. Gurdwara Pathar Sahib – Guru Nanak dev ji ( Founder of Sikh religion) vanquished a demon

Maximum people don’t know about this beautiful Gurdwara but it’s quite a known one around the Leh city. It’s around 25kms from the city. It has a big huge mountain rock which is believed to have been used by Gurnanak dev ji for destroying the demon. It’s open all days from 6:00 am to 07:00 pm.

11. Amir’s science school from 3 idiots 

We happen to see this school too while wandering around the places around Leh. There are 2 special spots inside the school which you can go and check without disturbing the school’s discipline.

Our travel month & time: 7 days during the first week of October

If you have time, there’s a lot more explore in Ladakh.
No words can describe the beauty of Ladakh. It was so serene, untouched and beautiful that it’s difficult to explain. I remember Karan kept saying, even the worst cameras in the world couldn’t click a bad picture in Ladakh. It’s just so beautiful.

Planning your trip to Ladakh? Here are some Quick Tips To Keep In Mind While Traveling To Leh – Ladakh