Flight from Delhi landed at 10AM. Leh-Ladakh greeted me with thin air and clear skies. The airplane door opened and the air hit — thin, dry, clean in a way that Delhi air hasn't been in decades. Temperature: 22°C. Altitude: 3,500 meters. Blood oxygen: 83%.
The drive from the airport to my guesthouse in Old Town took 10 minutes. Leh is small — 36,000 people, one main bazaar, and a medieval palace on a hill. My room cost 1,500 INR ($18) per night. The walls were two feet thick — traditional Ladakhi mud brick construction that keeps cool in summer and warm in winter.
Tashi, the guesthouse owner, gave me butter tea and clear instructions: "No walking today. No stairs. Sit. Drink water. Sleep."
I sat on the terrace looking at mountains and drank three liters of water. The headache started around 4PM — a dull pressure behind my eyes. Diamox (acetazolamide) helps, but I'm stubborn and didn't take it. Ate thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup, 100 INR / $1.20) at the guesthouse and went to bed at 8PM.
Woke at 6AM to the sound of nothing. Actual nothing. No traffic, no construction, no roosters. Just wind.
Climbed to Leh Palace — 9 stories, 17th century, modeled after Potala Palace in Lhasa. Entry: 100 INR ($1.20). The climb took 35 minutes at altitude pace. At the top, the Indus Valley spread out below — brown mountains, green patches of irrigated barley, the white thread of the Indus River catching morning light.
Afternoon: walked the Main Bazaar. It's a 500-meter stretch of shops selling pashmina shawls (real ones from Changthang nomads start at 5,000 INR / $60 — the 500 INR ones are acrylic), Tibetan prayer beads, and apricot products (Ladakh's apricot oil and jam are genuinely excellent). Had momos at a tiny shop near the mosque — 60 INR ($0.72) for 8 steamed dumplings with chili sauce.
Sunset at Shanti Stupa. 500 steps. Took 25 minutes. At the top, the stupa's white dome turned pink in the last light. Prayer flags snapped. Mountains in every direction. The kind of view that makes you understand why monks chose these places.
Hired a shared taxi with three other travelers to Thiksey (19km) and Hemis (45km). 1,500 INR ($18) for the full day, split four ways — 375 INR ($4.50) each.
Thiksey Gompa at 6:30AM for morning prayers. The prayer hall smelled like butter lamps and old wood. Monks chanted in bass tones that seemed to come from the stone walls themselves. A boy monk, maybe nine years old, sat at the end of the row with his eyes closed, moving his lips. An older monk leaned over and gently adjusted the boy's prayer beads. Nobody noticed me in the corner.
After prayers, climbed to the rooftop. Thiksey is built vertically on a hilltop — the views of the Indus Valley from the top floor are the most photographed scene in Ladakh. Entry: 50 INR ($0.60).
Hemis Monastery, 45 minutes east, is larger and wealthier. The courtyard where the annual Hemis Festival takes place is impressive — high walls, faded murals of wrathful deities, and a sense of contained power. Entry: 50 INR ($0.60). The museum has a copper-gilt statue of Padmasambhava that's worth the trip alone.
Lunch at a dhaba (roadside restaurant) near Karu: rajma chawal (kidney bean curry with rice) for 100 INR ($1.20). Simple, filling, exactly right.
The day everything went vertical.
4:30AM start. The road to Khardung La (5,359 meters / 17,582 feet) climbs 1,800 meters in 40km of switchbacks. My driver, Dorje, played Ladakhi folk music and stopped at every curve where I turned green.
Khardung La at 7AM: cold. Genuinely, bitterly cold — maybe -5°C with wind chill. The signboard says "Highest Motorable Pass in the World" (debatable, but impressive regardless). Prayer flags everywhere. Tea stall selling chai for 30 INR ($0.36). My fingers were too numb to hold the cup properly.
Spent 10 minutes at the top. Altitude headache returned with enthusiasm. Descended the other side into Nubra Valley — 3,000 meters, noticeably more oxygen. The valley opened up: green strips along the Shyok River, sand dunes in the distance, and the impossible sight of double-humped Bactrian camels walking across a desert at 10,000 feet.
Hunder village: camel ride on the dunes (500 INR / $6 for 30 minutes). The camels are descendants of Silk Road caravans. They're massive, hairy, and completely indifferent to human existence.
Diskit Monastery: 32-meter Maitreya Buddha overlooking the valley. The statue faces the Siachen glacier — the world's highest battlefield. A peace-seeking Buddha staring toward a war zone. Ladakh doesn't do subtlety.
Overnight at a family guesthouse in Hunder: 1,200 INR ($14.40) with dinner and breakfast. Dinner was dal, rice, sabzi, and chapati cooked by the owner's wife. Simple. Perfect. I was in bed by 8:30PM.
Morning walk along the Nubra River. The air was clear enough to see individual rocks on mountain faces 20km away. Crossed Khardung La again in afternoon light — different character than dawn, warmer, the mountains showing colors (purple, rust, gold) that morning light conceals.
Back in Leh by 3PM. Shower (the first hot one in two days). Treated myself to a proper dinner at a restaurant near Fort Road — grilled trout from a Ladakhi fish farm, 350 INR ($4.20). Walked the bazaar as shops closed, prayer wheels spinning in the evening breeze.
Another 4:30AM start. The drive to Pangong Tso takes 5-6 hours via Chang La pass (5,360 meters — somehow feels worse than Khardung La, maybe because it's my fourth day at altitude).
The road after Chang La is the worst I've encountered anywhere. Not dangerous — just brutal. Rocks, potholes, river crossings. My kidneys filed a formal complaint.
And then — Pangong.
The lake appeared over a ridge and I asked Dorje to stop. I needed a minute.
The color is turquoise. Not blue, not green — turquoise. The kind of color that looks artificial in photos. It's not artificial. It's caused by the salt content (the lake is saline despite being landlocked) and the way sunlight interacts with the dissolved minerals at 4,350 meters.
The lake is 134km long and extends into China. The mountains around it are treeless — just brown rock, snow on the peaks, and the lake. The scale makes distance impossible to judge. A mountain that looks close is 15km away.
I walked to the shore and put my hand in. Cold enough to hurt. Salt crust on the gravel. No sound.
The silence at Pangong is different from other silences. It's not quiet — quiet implies the absence of normal sounds. This is the absence of any sound at all. No insects. No leaves. No machinery. Just the occasional lap of water on gravel, so faint you're not sure you heard it.
Tent camp on the lakeshore: 2,500 INR ($30). Basic — mattress, blankets, no running water, a generator for a few hours of electricity. Dinner was maggi noodles and dal. The tent walls didn't block the cold.
At 3AM, I woke up because my feet were frozen. Stepped outside to adjust blankets and looked up.
The Milky Way.
I'd seen "the Milky Way" before. What I thought was the Milky Way. But Pangong at 4,350 meters with zero light pollution for 50km in any direction — that's the actual Milky Way. A thick, luminous band across the entire sky. Individual nebulae visible. Shooting stars every few minutes.
I stood outside for 20 minutes in -3°C wearing everything I owned. My teeth chattered. I didn't care.
Drove back to Leh. Six hours. Checked into the same guesthouse. Tashi said I looked different. "The mountains change everyone," he said, bringing butter tea I hadn't asked for.
Final dinner at the bazaar: thukpa, momos, and a Kingfisher beer (250 INR / $3 — expensive for India, but everything is transported up the mountain road). Sat on the guesthouse terrace watching stars over Leh Palace.
I'm already planning it. The frozen Chadar Trek in winter. The Zanskar Valley. Tso Moriri — Pangong's lesser-known neighbor.
Ladakh isn't comfortable. The altitude is punishing. The roads are destructive. The cold is extreme. The food is limited. The toilets are character tests.
But standing at Pangong at 3AM, watching the Milky Way with nothing between you and the sky, you understand what all the discomfort was for.
Total budget for 7 days: approximately 22,000 INR ($264). For a different Rajasthani desert experience, consider Jaisalmer and its golden fort. Or head south to Kerala for tropical contrast. including accommodation, food, transport, and permits. That's $38 per day for one of the most extraordinary landscapes on the planet.
