On 27th July, I had landed in Delhi flying from Milan to start off my journey towards the Himalayas. From Delhi, I took a flight to Srinagar and got a taxi for 100 Rs to the TRC. A lot of taxi drivers take you for a ride instead of showing you the bus stand which is opposite and the TRC (transport corporation) office is hidden due to road construction. I immediately got the bus tickets to Kargil but couldn’t avoid the stay that the taxi driver was proposing as I had to stay overnight and the light was going out.
I had to negotiate with one persistent taxi driver and he took me to a guest house (Nazreena stay). The room was quite spacious for one but the water was freezing cold.
Immediately after dropping the bags, I went for a walk to the dal lake. On my way, I found a small Punjabi Dhaba where I ate rice. Due to the long travel and a lot of food, I had to go back to the room to freshen up. After some rest, I met two people from Palani, Tamil Nadu who came back from Amarnath Yatra. They were down to earth and kind, asked about any nearby place to eat. We went to a place near the lake to grab some food. The next day, I had to take the bus to Kargil. The bus was an example of a multicultural and multi-ethnic people. Mostly everyone was heading to Leh. The road to Kargil was splendid.
There was a break near Sonamarg. I drank tea, got a local sim card and had lunch near Drass.
I reached Kargil in the afternoon, did a bit of shopping that included dry fruits, soup, chutney, and ate in a small hotel. I wanted to quickly enter Zanskar as Kargil was full of people and I wanted to enter the peaceful valley as soon as possible.
I started enquiring about the travel to Zanskar, apparently, there is no bus or taxi for that day. There was a tour van full of students, who were departing the next day. There was a taxi driver who proposed 1600 rs for shared among people to Padum. I had no choice since it was the only possible way to enter Padum and the taxi driver have to ride across Pensi La. I took the taxi, same day evening, and stopped at Sankoo for dinner. The driver was tired at Rangdum as the roads were basically dirt trails and there was no road.
The future plan was to put road till Padum, which will eventually create a lot of tourists and income for the government and the effect would be losing the pristine beauty of Zanskar. We all ate noodles for dinner and looked at the moon near Pensi La.
After 12 hours of ride, we reached Padum in the morning and I took a homestay in order to start my speed hiking journey for the forthcoming weeks. I was totally exhausted after non-stop 22-hour travel.
I slept till afternoon in Padum and ran towards Pibiting Gompa.
I felt the thin air already and I had to acclimatize a few days before I start.
Padum had developed so much that it didn’t look like a village, rather a town with a lot of facilities and stores. The places near Padum were listed in a board for tourists.
I had aloo paratha and soup for dinner and was planning my next day run to Karsha Gompa before catching up with my Belgian buddy, Peter to kick off the journey.
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