vi. 21 May 2022 & 22 May 2022 - Acclimatisation at Leh..........

 

 

Having left Mumbai on 18 May 2022, we spent the next couple of days enjoying a lazy vacation, visiting Dal lake, Shivji's temple, Kargil war memorial and some other places of tourist attraction across Srinagar & Kargil. We spent quite some time on the road traveling from one place to another, proceeding towards Leh, where we had to report for our trek. The email from the trek organisers Trek The Himalayas, TTH, required us to report at Hotel Palaceview near Leh polo ground on 21st May.

Effectively what we were doing was - slowly gaining altitude, allowing our body to get used to a colder climate, higher altitude and lower oxygen levels in the atmosphere.

As per TTH's schedule we were to report in the hotel on 21 May, attend a team meeting / orientation at 7 PM, overnight stay on 21 May, acclimatisation and sight seeing on 22 May, overnight stay on 22 May and start the trek on 23 May.

Accordingly on 21 May we had break fast at Poplar Eco Resort. We met Dr Swamy & his family. On the next day the family would be going their way separately & Swamy would be joining the trek group at Hotel Palaceview.

Around 12 noon we checked into Palaceview, did some local sightseeing and shopping at the Leh market.

View of Leh palace from our room in the Hotel Palaceview

 

At the orientation meeting at 7 PM we met the trek leader Mayank and other (would be) fellow trekkers - Dr Rushali Saxena from Delhi, John Geary a Danish national settled in Germany, Akhil Munjampalli Indian national settled in New zealand & Anil Thakur from Bir Billing in Himachal Pradesh. Rushali had completed her MD, John was into academics pursuing a PhD and a long distance runner, Akhil was into adventure sports and Anil the youngest in the group (18 yrs) was a paragliding pilot. The actual trek group would consist of 9 trekkers plus trek lead Mayank plus a local trek veteran plus assistance group - helpers, kitchen staff, mule staff, etc.

For dinner we visited Neha's a small but popular eatery located in the famous Leh square. One of the trek member's trek shoes seemed to have developed a crack; not sure whether it would withstand the next 6 days' rigorous trekking he decided to get a new pair of shoes from an army shop. A couple of us had not got along our trek poles, and purchased the same from the local market. Needless to say, the local market had a very wide variety of shops selling practically all trek gear including shoes, socks, backpacks, thermals, gloves, woollen items, inners, track pants, water bottles, etc.

When roaming around the market I saw a board "The Blue Lotus Restaurant", this reminded me of a Tintin comic which I had read long back.............

On 22 morning after breakfast, we decided to spend the day in the hotel rearranging and repacking our trek bags, segregating what can be left behind and double checking what has  to be taken along. Readers would remember a mention about our dietary peculiarities in an earlier chapter and that we would be carrying along supplementary items. We tried vethal kozhambu one of the supplementary items for lunch on 22 May. Mixed to plain rice this gave us delicious vettal kozhambu rice.

After tea we decided to visit Kargil war museum and Shanti stupa. 

Group foto of Trekk(iy)ers - Kargil War Musuem

Shanti Stupa is a Buddhist monastery situated at a height of around 11800 feet. 

 

The location from atop the hill offers panoramic view of the surrounding landscape.

 

After Shanti Stupa we took a cab to Leh market and had our dinner at Hotel Lamayuru which had Jain food in their menu!

After dinner we reached Palaceview & hit the bed, keeping in mind our reporting time of 850 AM next morning, when the bus would pick us up from the hotel and take us towards the Chilling from where the trek would commence.

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