A trail report of an exploration leader from Markha Valley trek.

Kang Yetse base camp – Markha Valley Trek Diary

DAY 1

Leh City. Leh Palace is a former royal palace overlooking the Ladakhi Himalayan town of Leh. Modeled on the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.
The construction of the palace on the Tsemo Hill was initiated by Tsewang Namgyal, the founder of the Namgyal dynasty of Ladakh in 1553 and was completed by his nephew Sengge Namgyal.It is nine storied high; the upper floors accommodated the royal family, while the lower floors held stables and store rooms.
Panoramic views of city Leh floats into huge Indus valley guarded by the Zanskar mountain range to the south and the Ladakh mountain range rising behind the palace to the north.Also, Namgyal Tsemo Gompa sparks like the brightest stone into Ladakh range. This was founded in 1430 by King Tashi Namgyal. It has a three-storied high gold statue of Maitreya Buddha know as future Buddha, also as the laughing Buddha. Read more

Whatever I had heard of Hampi apparently was not enough to prepare me for what I saw. Me and my 8 friends went there one fateful day looking for the famed ruins; as for me I was looking for a piece of history and some of me. And there I was, looking down at a place that has a Goa feel in the air. I saw places and relics I have never seen before, I saw frames I had never seen before, I breathed in air I had never breathed before. Hampi is great to see from a set of wheels, slower the better, which in my case turned bicycle. Day starts eventful, as always is in my case. One of our friends while trying to test ride a moped went and rammed into a rickshaw, and that was the start of the exploration with a bang, literally. After some payment, some hurt ego and a bleeding leg, we took to cycles and rickshaws instead, and moved about to explore the place on our own.

Read more

The idea of a romance has always appealed to me in a way I have seldom managed to define. It holds a special fascination for me, fills me up with a strange longing that nothing else can. So when I dreamt of Ladakh, I did not envisage that it could hold something for me that would take me away to that faraway place that this wanderer’s heart had always imagined. But, to my sweet surprise, it did, and then a bit more. Read more

Gokarna, a small temple town on the western coast of India in the Kumta taluk of North Kannada district of the state of Karnataka, is changing. From well known, one of the seven important Hindu pilgrimage centers of south India is now counted for it’s unspoiled beaches near the estuary of the river Aghanashini. Many of western travelers  started preferring Gokarna as less crowded, peaceful and lost cost backpacking destination over Goa. The realm of   deeply rooted Hindu mythology  and culture make it distinct too from Portuguese influenced Goa. And the common factors between them might be the same laid-back life style and unique coastal Western Ghats landscape beside the peaceful Arabian Sea.

Read more

They say the journey is more beautiful than the destination. A good traveller knows this over-used proverb BUT always believes in the redemption at the end of the road. We walk this earth for some illusionary redemption that casts a shadow even when we walk this journey called ‘life’.

Read more