First we stopped at the Internet café , where we did a quick browsing of the roads which we should take if we are going on the golden quadrilateral. We thanked the lady of the internet café for suggesting us Summer Harvest the restaurant we were going for the straight third time.
We called tashi to say that we would be starting back our journey a day early from leh as the manali road is not open. Tashi to our surprise agreed to join us during our dinner. Casually speaking we say that it would be little boring for us to take the same route. Tashi gave us a surprise saying that we could actually drive along Indus where multiple villages fall.
These Aryan villages are said to inhabited by descended of Alexander era and they would have sharp features. He said that people would have sharp nose and are blue eyed. We were exited because we not only got an alternate route but also an interesting thing to watch during our return journey.
We returned to our home stay and started a quick plan, We weren’t sure if we should continuously drive from leh to Chennai. We weren’t crazy we have already driven 4 continuous day and this would be a day extra. After much of a consideration for zojila we decided to have our first day break at drass, so as to cross zojila during the day.
We started our journey at a decent time in the morning, after neatly arranging the things in our darling we were on roads again. We again crossed the wonderful black roads and magnetic hills before taking the diversion into the Aryan village.
As the availability of food wouldn’t be there till we cross those villages we decided to have our lunch in Khalste. After having couple of roti’s and kadi we were at the check post. We finally used our permit which was got after much struggle here. After passing through the checkpoint we got the first view of mighty Indus.
We started driving on the lonely road gazing and admiring the Indus. The amount of flow of water just amazed us. Though one side was a gushing water stream other sides of the road were just rocks. These huge rocks were so seasoned from the water flow, they resembled lying hippopotamus.
We were so used to the lonely roads, not spotting a single vehicle even for hours didn’t bother us. Our first site of unique villages we felt from the green lands which were irrigated by this mighty river. These villages were one of the amazing this we have ever seen. Houses erected on the giant rocks beneath which the might river is flowing, between them are these green fertile land. We also spotted some occasional bridges connecting the houses from the water falls separating them.
We were by now just driving not seeing the roads but just admiring these villages. Soon we crossed a tiny waterfall which was falling exactly on middle of the roads. We were by then into a village, we were just drooling their eyes to check their color. We then say to each other no they weren’t blue we still have to go further.
We crossed many villages of equal beauty. We did see some beautiful kids whose eyes weren’t blue but they were really pretty. We crossed few more army checkpoints, where they treated us by giving apple juices.
We were suddenly halted by a flowing stream of water right in the middle of road. We could easily spot a 3 feet flow at the end of the road. We weren’t sure if the water would be strong enough to pull our darling. Rupesh goes ahead to measure the depth of the flow in the road and their force. We quickly apply our thought since it’s a cold water the density of the water would be more hence it might drag heavier. We tried to keep the car with maximum weight with just one person guiding and other still in the car. We slowly move in the stream crossing the same, we were really excited with another new experience.
We wouldn’t have driven much we again got a similar stream of water, but this time it is little stronger and the space between the falls and road is even lesser. But we were little used to these condition by now, we crossed the stream in similar manner.
By now we would have steered 100 bends on the hilly road we still haven’t reached our destination. Evening had started falling and we were driving on the hill which was just 10 km away from Pakistan. We finally crossed all the checkpost but we were steeply climbing now. We weren’t interested to cross a snow peaked mountain, but we didn’t have much of a choice.
Driving further high we spot again an amazing set of villages who are managing their agriculture in a wonderful way. Person who have slept would have though that we were driving somewhere in Peru in ruins of maachu pichu. After clicking few snaps we headed towards kargil.
While descending down we were passing through an incredible landscape. Its definitly difficult to find such an landscape. We also enjoyed the unique things, we saw , sun, moon, snow, mountain, river, barren lands, rocks, all the same time.
By the time we reached kargil, clock was showing 7.00 PM, our destination was Drass which was around 2 hours of drive from there. We wasted close to an hour hunting for a gas station. At a gas station we again meet a stranger who immediately recognized our effort of driving. We exchanged contacts and he promised to check if he can publish our trip details in the magazine
We didn’t have much of a progress as we were halted by a stuck traffic. One of the army trucks had derailed and their recovery work has halted the traffic. It took a considerable time in clearing the traffic and again we were admiring the heavy flowing river. By then the river was roaring as it was silent late evening. We occasionally opened our windows to hear the roaring river.
We were little skeptical if we would get a place to stay in the small town as it was close to mid night now. We manage to get accommodated at Jammu and Kashmir tourism bungalow. The care take was generous enough to give a Rs 400 room at Rs 300. We didn’t have much of an activity to do as we managed to grap few hand made sandwiches in car itself. We quickly fell into sound sleep not thinking of journey ahead.
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