Day 3:2nd September 2017 : Kargil-Leh
The initial plan was to leave Kargil by 9 AM and reach Leh by evening. But the driver calls and informs that due to some bandh/festival we need leave for Leh by 6 AM. Originally the cab which was supposed to pick us for Leh was to meet us around 1 PM now he has to meet us around 10 AM, we notified this to the Leh driver. He tells us to take our sweet time and take as many stops as possible and he will be there by 11 AM . Works for us.We did as told, the car reaches the hotel at 6 AM and we start our journey towards Leh. We reached Mulbekh in an hour or so, tooks some pictures and proceeded. Stopped for breakfast and again stopped at Namik La. The best thing is the drivers were stopping at places for us to take pictures without us even asking. They wanted us to capture everything. Reached the place where we were supposed to change vehicles by 10 AM and the Leh car was there by 10:10 AM . The drivers shifted our luggages. Made payment to the Kargil Driver and bid him goodbye. Now we meet Tashi, our friend,philoshoper and guide for the next 7 days. A lovely chap, friendly but introvert. We had our formal introduction and asked him about our next plan. He told next would be Lamayuru>Alchi Monastery>Chiling(Zanshar confluence)>Magnetic hill> Gurdwara Pathar Sahib>hotel. We moved as planned and reach Leh by 03:30 PM and checked in to our prebooked hotel.
Tired after a long journey and having woke up at 4 AM we reached Leh by 04:00 PM and check in to our prebooked hotel. As stated earlier, it was a mistake I feel to prebook hotel. The driver was also confused as why did we book the hotel there. The hotel is almost a KM from Leh main bazaar and we thought it was fine, but the area was very lonely, no souls not even a single shop or restaurant nearby. To be very frank I booked this hotel as its name was Yangphel guest house thinking this to be a ladakhi owner's home stay and to experience their hospitality. But fate had other plans. We had 3 rooms booked 2 garden view and 1 mountain view. The garden view rooms were in ground floor and the mountain view room was in 1st floor. You could see the gardens and mountains from every room :) Any ways, asked the manager(referred as M,later found out he is the owner) if we can get rooms in the same floor. ok let me write our detailed conversation.
Me : Sir, can we get all the rooms on the same floor
M: No,you get what you booked
We check-in to our rooms
No power.
Me: Bhaiya when would the power come ( we needed to charge phones,cameras,use wifi)
Hotel boy : Sir , in next 1-2 hours
Me: Don't you switch on gensets
Hotel boy : It will be on for 2 hours during night and only for common areas
Me: Ok
Power comes after an hour or so. We try to get wifi, the boy gives us wifi password after asking him for almost 5-6 times and same as for Tv remote. No body was in a position to watch Tv, we only wanted the Tv just to watch news about Bangalore rains and the havoc it had created.
Me: Bhaiya, wifi password and Tv remote
Hotel Boy : gets both around 8 PM but none of them working
My friend: Kya bhaiya, power nahi rehta, wifi nahi hai Tv bhi nahi chal raha. Kuch to de do. It was kind of teasing him.
Hotel Boy : Sir, I will check regarding Wifi and Tv with owner. Will ask owner to recharge the TV.
Me : Done
After sometime manager/owner knocks at our door and we go to the lobby to talk
M: I heard you wanted to talk to me
Me: Yes,we wanted to check on the Wifi and TV issue, the boy told you will get it fixed
M: Wifi won't work and TV can't on as TV was not listed on our site as a part of room. How do you expect me to fix the Wifi when the entire region Wifi is down (it was a lie as we found out later)If you had a problem you should have approached me, why did you yell at my staff (it was a complete lie)
Me: We never yelled at anyone, we were just checking on things. Ok fine if TV wasn't a part of your package, Wifi was, get that to us. the boy would have told us the same that Wifi was down and TV wasn't part of the package, why did he make us wait for 3 hours for that. If there was an issue with we were fine, but someone should have told us.
M: We can't spoon feed you with all the info. You need to check with me and find out.
Me : I was like, wtf. ask him to tone down his voice and talk. he wasn't doing us a favour by giving room
then some more argument ...
and we left to our rooms. We had booking in the same hotel during last 2 days of our trip but cancelled those.
The guy nor his staffs were from Leh nor from Kashmir.
After some time, the taxi owner calls and asks us if he can meet us. We were fine and he comes to our hotel. He shares the plan for the following days and asks us to give us a photocopy of our govt ID proof to process the permits. We give him the originals and Rs.200 per head (don't remember the exact amount) for the permits. We ask him to take us to Leh market for dinner and he happily obiliges. Next day plan was to do a local sight seeing.
Leh :
Yangphel guest house
Location:2/5
Cleanliness/rooms/facilities : 3.5/5,4/5,2.5/5
Food: never ordered-found it to be very costly
Cost:3600 INR for 1 double room and 1 family room per night
Day 4:3rd September 2017 : Leh Local
Got ready by 9 AM and saw Tashi waiting for us. Boarded the cab and moved towards our destinations for the day.
Shanti Stupa > hall of fame > Leh palace> Thiksey Monastery > Leh market
3 idiots school was cancelled being it a Sunday and school being closed. Tashi told us he will take us there while returning from Pangong. Returned to hotel by 7 PM.