We had early morning breakfast & left for Rangdum. We had a change of car & driver at this point. Mr. Ali & Mr. Mushtaq Ahmed were our driver cum tourist guides from here on. We covered Parkachik & Suru Valley on our way to Rangdum.
Suru Valley is characterised by beautiful lush green small towns surrounded by mountains on both sides & open blue skies. The beauty is something that only can be seen by being there.
We had a good time traveling. Our driver cum tourist guides were very friendly and nice people. They even halted the car to get fresh apricots for us straight from the apricot trees. They also offered us grapes. We loved having both. Suru Valley also is characterised by long stretch of road surrounded by breath taking mountains on both the sides – A few mountains even snow clad!
The people here are extremely nice & friendly. If you wave at them, they smile and wave at you! Kids here are so damn cute. They have such beautiful smiles & if you offer them sweets (which you must), you can see them jumping with joy.
We took a halt for refreshments at the Sangpu Village Marketplace. We crossed the Damsna Valley. We saw the Nun Kun Glacier (snow-clad). On our way, we could also see the Karpokhar Astana (Mosque). Many people pay a visit to this beautiful mosque for healing their illnesses.
On our way, we even saw a teacher teaching his students in the open. We halted our car, took a few candids & even spoke to the Guruji who was teaching the kids. He introduced himself as Mr. Prakash.
Then we thanked everyone & proceeded further.
You will mostly find yaks, goats & beavers on this route on your way to Rangdum. Beavers are extremely cute, fun loving animals but they fear humans & if any person tries to approach them, they run away. We found them very cute, loving & naughty & luckily managed to get a few photos of them.
It was 4.30pm and we were hungry. So before going to our place of stay for the night, we made a halt. Many of my friends ordered a thali, but I had Maggi Noodles. (Safe Bet!)
After filling up ourselves we left for our place of stay at Rangdum. We reached fairly quickly at our place of stay. Seeing the place, we got super happy & delighted. We were going to be staying in tents and there was a vast expanse of barren land all over surrounded by Mountain on all the sides.
The location was heavenly & we were excited about the fact that we were going to spend the night in a tent. As the night came, the cold became unbearable. Very soon our excitement got a bit dampened as the climate was really really very cold. We were in a place of minus 9 degrees centigrade!!!
The dinner was very good. We had mushroom soup & proper dinner. One thing to know is that this place served unbelievable quantity of food. We were a bit scared as to how much we were going to be charged for the food as the quantity was enough to serve at least 9!
After having dinner, we went to our tent & went straight to sleep but simply couldn’t. The temperature was freezing cold at -9 degrees and we were fully covered head to toe with snow weather clothing wear!
A must have at this place is a head torch, match box & candles. The lights in the tents go off soon in the early evening & you are left with candles & torches only if you have them.
We had a real bad time that night and we hardly slept because of the low temperatures. But nonetheless we would still like to say that it was something worth experiencing!
Here is a Slideshow version of the above pics.
Captures from Art Pixel Photography (Amit Desai)
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