Diskit

Sand Dunes of Nubra and Diskit Monastery

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Usually deserts occur in low altitude, such as the great Indian Thar Desert. But there is also one high altitude cold desert in India which occurs in the Hunder village of Nubra Valley…………..We arrived there. It was beyond our imaginations and dreams to see such a vast bed of silver sands with brown mountains at the backdrop…………The sand dune offers to its visitors the great Central Asian double-humped camel safari. While other visitors were busy in getting their turn first for the safari, I went close to the camels. They look the same normal camels except those two humps. For the first time I saw those camels.

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Road to Nubra Valley over Khardung La

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We were told that weather is very unpredictable and highly unstable and can change surprisingly fast at Khardung La.  It may leave travelers trapped for hours or even days, but nothing like that happened to us, except heavy downpour on our way back on the following day.

We started descending from Khardung La. By now ‘Rahman’, the driver of our car became familiar with me. As I pointed the camera, he stopped the car. I came out to click. A small lake surrounded by the mountains just below the Khardung La looked so beautiful.

We set off again. Soon we passed the village Khardung. It is a tiny green village surrounded by barren mountains.  A drive of another 40 minutes or so and we met the river Shyok, a tributary of river Indus. The water of river Shyok looked muddy. Our journey continued by the bank of river Shyok.

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