Sunday, November 4, 2012

Ladakh Diaries 7 - Himalayas from the Sky!

Our week long adventure in Ladakh was coming to an end. What started of as a round trip from Manali to Srinagar with stopover at Leh had to be curtailed at Leh due to security situation in Srinagar. We missed another fabulous drive from Leh to Srinagar via Kargil. We should do that during our next trip to Ladakh.

We had booked our flight to Delhi from Leh since we dropped the idea of driving to Srinagar. The flights from Leh to Delhi are all in the morning. Knowing the fickle weather conditions in mountains, we were keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for good weather and smooth take off.

Our departure was at 7 AM which meant getting up early and reaching the airport by 5.30 AM. We settled dues with Ladakh Safari, (http://www.ladakhsafari.com/) our tour operator on the previous day and bid good bye to Deleks Namgyal who had arranged everything for us flawlessly. Zigmet, the driver was ready with the car at 5 AM with the good news that weather was good and flight will take off in time.

It was still dark when we reached Leh airport. Located in Military area, it is a small airport which is used by both civilian and military aircraft. All flights to Leh are from Delhi and they arrive in the morning and return back. The airport shuts down for civilian aircraft after 10 AM unless there is a delay due to weather.

We sit there in the lounge reminiscing the good times we had in this fabulous mountain country. The landscape, the people, the culture, the drives, the food, shopping.........everything was fantastic. The memories of this trip will remain with us forever and we will definitely come back some time again.

We board the flight and settle down as the flight take off. Now the most surprising part or the grand finale of the trip was to happen as i look out of the window. We see fabulous scenes of Himalayas, Indus river as the plane slowly attain the height. We are lucky that we got the seats on the correct side to watch beautiful snow clad mountains in morning light.

Here are the pictures we shot from the plane............

View of Indus river and Leh cantonment as flight take off
The rigged terrain of Ladakh mountains

As plane gain height, we see first glimpse of snow clad peaks

We are now above cloud line and mountain peaks look like a silver line at a distance
This is one of my favourites......the peaks in all glory rising above cloud line
Mesmerising sight of rugged valleys, snow clad peaks and low hanging clouds






This is another favourite.......the cloud balls resemble parachutes hovering over the mountains!!
Mountains in full glory....



We reach Delhi after an hour's flight from Leh and reached Bangalore in the afternoon.

Do plan a trip to Ladakh. It is a fantastic experience you will always remember. If you are planning India Travel, do include Ladakh and Leh as part of your itinerary. If you are flying to Leh from Delhi, make sure you have a window seat with camera handy!

This is the Seventh post in "Ladakh Diaries" series in this blog. If you want to explore earlier posts - click on the link in this series, please click this link below. Clicking "older posts" at the end of the page will take you to previous posts in the series.


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Do you need help in planning a trip to Leh and Ladakh? You are welcome to write to me at poorna62@gmail.com.

Happy to help



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