Leh

As we reached Leh, I was curious to find out if the city was like the way I imagined or was it even more exotic. Our stay was at Hotel Singge Palace, it is a beautiful comfortable place with good food and most importantly in the center of the market. We were greeted with white ladakhi silk stoles and there was a nice spread of breakfast waiting for us in the dining hall. We had rest of the day to ourselves but we also had an optional activity if we were interested ;) and hell I was ready for it.

We were heading towards our destination when the driver stopped and asked, "this is a famous photo spot, would like to take photos?"I jumped out of the car saying of course :) I had no idea about this place, it was the Indus- Zanskar confluence. I was amazed at how these two rivers came together with complete different properties and color maintaining the boundary. You can see a clear line of separation. A thought struck to my mind- People always look at this in amazement, talk about it, take pictures but not notice something that I had or probably overlook the fact that even these rivers merge together completely further down. Even nature understands this but people don't. We humans can likewise live together in harmony even after our differences in religion, culture, thinking or color.

I tried something which I never thought I would in my life. I went white water rafting into the Zanskar river located at a height of more than 12,000 feet above sea level, it was 17 km ride. It was an adventurous experience along with spectacular landscape views of mountains with snowcap. I got my gears, changed and was ready for some action, I was so scared that I kept quite until it was done. We were given training for initial 15 minutes and then it started, to be honest it was quite tiring. There were much rapids but whatever it was, was enough! We also stood on the raft with our feet on the edges, leaning on our paddles placed on the center vertically, I could last hardly five seconds on that moving raft :P Later, we were literally forced to jump into the water voluntarily or we would have been pushed. The water was ice cold! people started crying out to pull them in. One kid literally lost it, he was shivering like hell and could not paddle anymore. I was pulled in last, he was a mean guide :/ The adventure ended at the confluence of Indus and Zanskar river. 

Kargil Memorial Hall

I am a patriot, I should clear this before I say something. I really felt sad and uneasy when I saw victories of the war because whenever there has been a war, we have lost lives, our fellow humans. I am not taking side of anyone but humanity. I don't like the thought of killing anyone no matter who he/she is. Kargil was a big war and our army protected our land and I am very proud of them. I wish there was some other way, but we all know that can only be a dream. There were photos and description of how our army survived and fought in extreme weather on these mountains.  A salute!

By this time we were quite late for lunch, it was 15:30 already. Singge palace staff was so nice to save some food for us :) I had a shower freshened up and we again headed towards Shanti Stupa.

Shanti Stupa
This place was very serene and beautiful overlooking the leh city. This was built by Ladakh and Japanese Buddhist to promote world peace. There was a meditation hall as well, I wish I could have gone there alone to meditate for a while. This dome structure situated on a hilltop had two levels, the second level is quite interesting which has paintings depicting life of Buddha along with other small paintings. We stayed there until moon rise, and the structure light up with beautiful lights.