Leg 1 – Kattan Chaya to Kahwa
(Southern most tip to the northern most state in India)
This was the craziest and most spontaneous trip I have ever taken. It was all about going with the flow and figuring things on the go. I did not have decent camera (iPhone battery you suck so bad!) to document things but I wanted to remember what I did each day and so the doodles began.
Day 1
This was the first time I was flying Air Costa, decent airlines with a superb landing between the Bangalore rains. Did not freak out with turbulence and met friends I hadn’t seen in years. It was like I flew back in time but was still in the future.
Day 2
How can you be in Bangalore and not eat Ghee Roast! So ‘Coast II Coast’ was suggested and we hogged on some gorgeous Magalorean food. Also, if in Bangalore please check out ‘The Entertainment Store’ for very cool collectibles.
Our real adventure begins from here, Ms. Iyer (a friend) and I get on to a train from Bangalore to Kanyakumari. At least 27,000 people have asked me “WHY KANYAKUMARI?”
Day 3
So, now why Kanyakumari? Well, there is this train I wanted to take that starts from Kanyakumari cuts across the length of the country all the way to Jammu. I think it’s a great train route, the second longest train route in the country in terms of distance and time.
Then, out of the 27,000 people 20,000 said to me “Oh Kanyakumari to Kashmir…Kashmir main tu Kanyakumari” (in a sing-song way) I actually went online and checked this song. I hadn’t heard of it before. Quite a sad song and no that was not what inspired us to take the train.
Day 4
We spent a day & a half in Kanyakumari and it was time for the journey I was most worried about – THE HIMSAGAR EXPRESS. I get bored easily, so my worry was how do I just stay in one place for so long? Next few questions those 27,000 people asked me why this damn train? What are you going to do for 3 days on a train? Why don’t you just do a road trip? Great questions but it was purely for the experience. Good, bad or ugly I was not sure what to expect but just went with flow.
Day 5
This was day 2 on the train. It was great till we reached Tirupati. Then, a mommy, a daddy, a 2-year-old hyper active girl and her baby sister enter and sit right opposite us. The next couple of hours the lil’ 2-year-old drove us mad. She was one of those kids who would go to someone eating pull their food and quickly eat it. If she saw a cellphone she would do anything to get it. Kept jumping from seat to seat, climbing on us and down, even pulled our hair. Father went to sleep, mother thought her bratty daughter was cute and was too busy handling the second child. The rest of us sat still with our eyes wide open and our cellphones inside our bags.
Day 6
Next morning I wake up with an agenda, find the TT and change our seats. We managed to get great side seats and no noise travel from here but were closer to the AC ducts so occasionally froze. The terrain change was extremely interesting Kerala obviously was the most beautiful down south, Andhra was dry & boring. I slept through Maharashtra. MP was foresty and dense. UP was unimpressive.Punjab was gorgeous, their fields had so much character, I kept waiting for the yellow flowers from the “sarson ke keth” that Yash Raj promoted so well in his films but then I was told that it is a winter thing. Every place up from Punjab just got better. Everything was a brilliant change on this train from the local food at every station, the dialect of Hindi slowly changing as people changed, clothes people wore, the kind of newspapers and local magazines they read, even the brand of toothpaste people use changed as we moved up north, we were probably the only constant on that train. I think FMCG market research guys should take this train purely for some great consumer insights.
Day 7
Our initial plan was to stay for a day in Jammu and then move ahead to Srinagar. Unfortunately, we hated Jammu. It had a stench of piss, was crowded with men who thought they could pee and spit anywhere. We checked into a hotel had a much-needed shower and booked our tickets to leave that very night to Srinagar. We did manage to catch an awesome Kashmiri meat heavy meal.
Day 8
The route to Srinagar was gorgeous. Roads were steep and scary but was an extremely scenic route. We did very touristic things in Srinagar ate at popular joints did the boat ride in Dal Lake while the sun was setting and did our last supermarket shopping for the next adventure ahead. If you are ever in Srinagar eat at Hotel Ahdoos (for meat lovers) and yum coconut biscuits at Jan Bakers, they just melt in your mouth.
Leg 2 – Ladakh
Day 9
So the next morning we caught a bus to Leh that would stop over at Kargil for the night. The state tourism buses don’t travel in the night, roads are too risky according to our driver. Also, a halt was great for the altitude acclimatization. This route is insanely pretty it changes from pretty green Sonmarg to some really rocky and dry patches as we head to Kargil. The road at some parts are too narrow and terrible, technically there are no roads and the control the drivers have over the vehicle is brilliant. Bikers would love this terrain. Our Kashmiri driver has been driving this route for the last 15 years and according to him these are great roads compared to when he started driving on this route. Once we crossed Sonmarg it started to get really cold, the wind was chilly and the sun was super harsh. We stopped at a few villages on the way and got to Kargil by around 6pm. From here the chow mein, thukpa and momos began. We also tried some weird white sausage looking thing being sold on the street. It was goat intestine! It tasted exactly like mashed potatoes inside a sausage with salt and pepper.
Day 10
We started at about 5:30am the next morning, it was freeeeeeeezing cold. The best option was to sit in front next to the driver pretty much on the engine. The engine warmth was awesome, the driver’s travel trivia was entertaining and the frontal view while you cut through the mountains is better than a window seat. By breakfast time we had entered Ladakh and the butter tea & namkeen chai started to flow. Not a big fan of it but was interesting to taste. We reached Leh just in time for lunch. We quickly found a place to stay and hogged at a German Bakery and rejoiced with working network and free wi-fi.
Day 11
Our first full day in Leh was all about going slow, getting used to the thin air and breathlessness. Breakfasts are fun in Leh, the options were great thanks to all the German, Israeli & British travellers. We discovered the old town of Leh and walked a lot. Don’t miss the bread galli in old town. It’s a narrow lane filled with tiny rooms with a variety of local breads being baked. The smell is awesome and the breads we crusty from the outside and soft and warm inside. Ladhaki bread (almost like a thick tandoori roti) is the most popular but try the Kulcha (looks like a donut) and the Khambir, these two were my favourite. In the evening while walking back through the market we met this super girl with musical powers playing this very cool UFO looking instrument. I didn’t know what the instrument was and had never seen one before, she was sitting on the street with a huge audience listening to her play this brilliant track and people kept donating money to her. Later, I googled and found that the instrument is called a Hang Drum.We chatted with her a little later, and discovered her brilliant story – she’s from Japan, travelled to India,running out of money, wants to see Europe. Plays every evening on the streets and collects money for her Ticket to Europe. We did contribute to that ticket.
Day 12
So the next day was our Monastery and Palace day. These are places that every traveller in Leh will go to. So we hired a car and went on our monastery expedition. These are all a couple of kilometres away from Leh. The drive to Stok Kangri was brilliant. Monasteries are great, their thanka paintings , the history behind each one, the variations of the Buddha but please try and visit their kitchens. The old kitchen in the Hemis Monastery was crazy. It had just one tiny source of natural light from the top, it lit the room in a very surreal way. The walls of the kitchen were black with years of cooking.This kitchen had a few low seated Ladakhi dinning tables and only the head priests are allowed to eat here, the rest of the monks and students have a separate mess. Try and see as many kitchens as you can in Ladakh they have an interesting vibe.
Day 13
Next day we head to the great Nubra Valley.This was a crazy mix of terrain and weather change. So from Leh to Khardung-la was crazy cold and it was snowing. We get off at Khardung-la for a bit to catch something hot to drink and my brain literally froze. People were going mad at this pass. The board that says ‘highest motorable pass in the world’ has to be the most photographed object in Ladakh.
We then started our descent to Diskit and in a matter of 25 minutes we were feeling all hot and sweaty. It was weird my body and brain have never been more confused. After a point we didn’t know whether to use a moisturizer or a sunscreen nothing really worked other than apricot oil. Finally, we reach the desert with these hyped double humped camel. We spent the night at Hundar at a homestay that wasn’t very homely but overall it was the drive to the place that blew my mind.
Day 14
For all these days we were high on travel and just being in the mountains so when we came back from Nubra to Leh we decided to chill with Godfather. Not one of the best beers in the world but good enough.
Day 15
The next day was postcard and restaurant hoping day. Postcards have become a new obsession also Ms. Iyer had this mammoth postcard project going on. She would wake up each morning think of a person and would hand draw a postcard for that person with something about the place she was in. Some kick-ass postcards were made. Check them here –
http://arbitart.tumblr.com/tagged/postcards
If you like one or want one tell her. She’s extra enthu.
Day 16
The next day we decided to split and do our own things. Ms. Iyer wanted to volunteer at a close by village called Phyang and I hopped from one café to another. Met a very interesting Thanka artist, shopped a little and ate a lot.
Day 17
Day 17 was for solo cycling. The roads were just too pretty to not want to cycle. I hadn’t ridden a bike in almost a year and what a restart to cycling it was. I did not realise the kind of energy you need on these mountain roads, the gears are great but my stamina and the thin air makes it way tougher.
Day 18
Next was Alchi, we decided to rent a non-geared motorbike. Neither of us knew how to ride a geared one so this was our only option. Alchi is about 59 kms from Leh but our bike just felt so slowwwwwwww. There we parts where I could have crawled faster. Later, we realised these were parts on the magnetic road that pull you back and the vehicle does get slow. But with 500cc motorbikes zipping past us we really felt like two idiots wearing big helmets. The route to Alchi is super and the roads are great. Yo! to BRO (Border Road Organisation). Alchi is a small village with an ancient monastery and it definitely is my favourite monastery so far. Rustic, raw and earthy. Unlike Thiksey or Hemis or any of the other bigger popular monasteries this was non-commercial and not brightly re-painted. It still felt like how it would have been ages ago.
Day 19
I had shopped quite a bit and realised that it was too much to carry around considering we had a lot of the trip left. So we decided to parcel the goodies off to family and friends but it was a Saturday and nobody in the post office in Leh wanted to help us. Leh has no decent courier service, its only cargo at the airport! In between all this Ms. Iyer was under the weather and if this continued lots of things on our trip ahead would have to shift but she’s an IYER. No IYER can be stopped! She got better over Thukpa, steamed food and trek conversations with a French Trekker who shared the dinner table with us. Interesting trek stories were shared but he had a problem with how Indians eat with their hands. I wanted to give him a few uncut, unpeeled oranges, take away his fork and knife and ask him to eat them without using his hands.
Then we had this desert called ‘Hello to the Queen’ that every menu in Leh had. It sounded like “the thing” you must eat and so we ordered it. Trust me kissing a toilet seat would have been better.
Day 20
Early next morning we head to Tso-Moriri. So, Tso-moriri is the largest high altitude lake in India, it is at an altitude of 14,836 ft. We knew it was up there and all that but were really not prepared for the cold. So we reach Tso-moriri and book a tent to stay near the lake and then head to the gigantic, calm, super blue piece of water. There were not too many tourists thanks to Pangong, everyone was probably there. I wanted to go there too but the dates didn’t work out. As the sun sets we get back to our tent, its freezing cold like 2 degrees and for two people who have lived in coastal cities this was brain freeze to another level. Luckily, the only other people there were 3 wildlife photographers filming birds in Ladakh and these guys were so well prepared. They had extra instant soup packets, liquor to keep you warm and also arranged for a bonfire. It was really really cold I can’t even explain how cold. I kept running to the camp kitchen to stay warm till the bonfire was lit. Rum is great to carry if you are ever here, the bonfire is just temporary once the fire is out you are cold again. The rum really helped our bodies to get used to the temperature. The only time I enjoyed RUM!
Day 21
Next morning we head back to Leh and back to the same lovely cozy room at our Guest House. This was on fort road in Leh run by this super sweet Ladhaki couple. Atisha became our base in Leh as we went in and around Ladakh and came back here, it really felt like home. This was our last day in Leh-Ladakh so we chilled and revisited some of our favourite cafes and restaurants.
Leg 3 – Himachal
Day 22
We left Leh super early next morning and headed towards Himachal. On the bus we meet Ming from China who is visiting India for the 3rd time and Ladakh for the 2nd. We had no clue what a fantastic fun person she would turn out to be. We reach Keylong and decided to take a room with three beds so Ming could stay with us.
Day 23
We wake up in the morning and Ming starts to get her tea making ingredients and gadgets out. I was quite shocked, she had so much stuff she could start a tea shop. Her tea obsession was something else, she had some really crazy variety of teas from around the world. She decided to makes us India Chai, something she learnt from a stall in Delhi and the special ingredient in it is “instant coffee powder”. So we had this huge tea session while she told us some of her super hilarious travel stories and left us laughing like mad. She then taught us some basic Chinese but it was just too tough for me. Post breakfast we trekked up to reach this Gompa that we could see very clearly but just could find our way to it.
Day 24
Next day Ming was heading to Manali and we were off to Spiti Valley so we had to get off at this place called Gramphu and catch another bus that heads to Spiti Valley. We get off at Gramphu and we realise that the bus to Spiti already left. Boom! We were stuck in pretty much the middle of nowhere. This was the only bus to Spiti. Luckily, this tempo traveller stops to get someone in and we beg the driver. It had a few locals and monks going to Spiti. The tempo guy tells us there is no space and that all seats are occupied, we make this really sad face and a little drama about how are we going to get Spiti if he doesn’t help us…blah blah blah….and he finally asks us if we are ok with sitting on Gunny bags that are inside the tempo traveller. We jump in put our sleeping bags on the gunny bag and away to Spiti Valley. We reach Kaza around 6:30 pm and within an hour its pitch dark everything is shut by 8pm with huge electricity problems. So we chill in our room with a candle and doodle.
Day 25
Next we head to Tabo which is about a 4 hour ride from Kaza. Tabo is this tiny old village popular for its ancient monastery and mud caves. The monastery was brilliant, architecture was all smooth mud hut style and the wall murals were detailed and beautiful. It has a similar rustic feel that Alchi had. We finish all our sightseeing and café hopping and get to the bus stand to catch a bus back to Kaza. We wait for almost 4 hours and no sign of the bus. Bus services are pretty bad in Himachal compared to J&K. Finally, we see a truck that stops to download some goods. We find out it’s heading to Kaza, we beg the driver and with our expert begging skills he couldn’t refuse. So we get on to this truck and safely reach Kaza. We then head to Sol café and discover great things to do the next day. Pleaseeeeeeee chill at Sol café if you are in Kaza. Great people and great peanut butter & sea buckthorn toasted sandwiches.
Day 26
Next day we had this huge list of things to do and see but had no patience or energy to waste on hitchhiking or travelling rough. So we just rented a car and went straight to Kye. The Kye monastery was small simple and peaceful, we were just in time for the morning prayer at the monastery, its was extremely peaceful and interesting to experience their morning routine of breakfast and prayers. I slowly slipped out of the main temple in search of the kitchen. I found it and in there I also found an interesting monk who was making butter tea and getting ready for his breakfast. He offered me some tea and when he learnt I don’t really like milk he called his assistant and made some really good black tea. These monks are quite cool like that.
Our next stop was Kibber, we got breakfast there and went around the village and moved to Komic. The ride to Komic is gorgeous. You pass through these crazy beautiful golden barley fields and then out of nowhere you’d see these Green peas farms. It was this super contrast of bright and yellow gold of the barley fields. We reach Komic which is the highest village in Spiti. Women are not allowed in the main temple so we go to the older temple where we were welcomed and of course had tea in their kitchen and bought some brilliant fossil stones. We are now looking for our driver and cannot find him. We learn that he and another monk have run down to the village to find me a Yak Horn. I had told the driver on the way how I lost a Yak horn that I had found in Hundar and really wanted to take one back home. 20 minutes later we see these two men coming with this huge Yak horn for me.
We then head to the next village Langza and in between stop at Hikkim (the highest post office in the world) and do our customary mailing of postcards. At Langza we took this really fun pottery workshop with this old potter who is the only potter now in that region. It was my first pottery class ever and was great fun. Highly recommended if you go to Langza.
Day 27
Next morning we decide to share a tempo traveller with a bunch of foreigners and locals and head to Manali. Our seats were comfortable but our driver was obsessed with local pahadi (hill) music. Every driver in Himachal played the 80′ & 90s Bollywood music which was fine but this pahadi music was crazy. It all sounds the same and every single person on the vehicle had their earphones on. After a couple of hours I ran out of battery and had no option but to listen this loud crazy music. By the time we reached Manali I wanted to puke. The music drove us mad and the speaker was right under my seat so it was just great! You can’t ask the driver to shut the music cause they need it to stay awake and not doze off and unfortunately this is what he likes.
Imagine listening to this on loop. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j39tol5hZ1c
Day 28
We stayed in New Manali and were too tired to look for anything to do, so we just slept. The next morning we head to Old Manali and pretty much did nothing. We did not have any major agenda and just lazed around went to Vashist which is a 20 min drive from Manali and back. And suddenly, out of nowhere we run into Ming walking to a tea shop.
Day 29
Next day, we meet a friend for Lunch and head out to Delhi. While in the mountains I somehow never felt tired even with all the constant moving around but on this bus ride I was so tired and sleet through pretty much all of it.
Day 30
This was the end of the epic adventure. Delhi was so hot after all the mountain cold. I kept dreaming of Galouti Kebabs from Alkauser several times during the trip and so all the food cravings were taken care of. Big Chill was another must visit every time in Delhi so the Belgian milkshake and greasy food it was.
the doodle adventure 