The Indian Adventure | FindPenguins

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Trip start
August 15, 2015
The Indian Adventure Traveler
Flight Adventures
August 15, 2015 in India ⋅ 🌫 31 °C
Our 1:20AM flight got turned back, after it already left the gate, because that night the airport closed between 1:20AM and 5AM. They did compensate us though with a free pizza from "the Pizza Hut restaurant", like the pilot called it.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Agra Adventures
August 16, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
We had one day to spend in the Delhi area before our flight north, so we decided to take a train to Agra and see the great Taj Mahal.
That day in Agra was so hot and humid, that I barely remember anything about it except how hot and humid it was. That day also happened to be the day when the Taj Mahal opened its own twitter account and posted its first tweet, of which we learned from the newspaper we got on the train, along with breakfast and some tea.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Agra Adventures - Continued
August 16, 2015 in India ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C
The Taj Mahal is nice to look at from afar, inside - not so much. The chaos on the roads of Agra, through which we traveled in our own personal rickshaw, was a great shock for such an Indian newbie as myself.
At the end of the day, our driver took us to his house to meet his family and all the other kids in the neighborhood. That was nice.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Leh Adventures
August 18, 2015 in India ⋅ 🌙 28 °C
At 3500m above sea level, Leh is the capital of the Ladakh region. We spent here two days acclimatizing to the altitude, before going trekking at some even higher altitudes.
All the restaurants in Leh are tourist-oriented, and each of then serves Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Italian and Israeli food. Surprisingly, all food in all restaurants was really good. Not as surprisingly, the food was really cheap, and it took us a while to learn how not to over-order.
At our guesthouse we would wake up to a thermos of hot tea waiting for us by the door every morning (which we ended up breaking...). At the guesthouse we also met Clark, who wanted to join us for the trek, and he had a water sterilizing device, so we let him ;)
On the second day we hiked up to Shanti Stupa, to see how the acclimatization is going. It turned out to be okay, but we didn't have our backpacks on for that hike...Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures I
August 19, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
On the first day of our trek we started walking around noon, after the drop off at the start point - Zingchen (3396m). We wanted to have a short day to allow ourselves to acclimatize properly. The trail was going uphill from the beginning. After about three hours of walking we stopped for a tea break, and then continued for an hour and a half more before getting to Yurutse (4150m), our final destination for that day, or so we hoped.
Yurutse turned out to be a lone house, surrounded by mountains. We arrived late in the afternoon, and all the beds in the house were already taken. It took a while before we managed to persuade the owners into letting us sleep on the floor in the living/dining room, because we really, really weren't going anywhere else that day. We were exhausted from the 800m climb.
We spent that whole afternoon and evening drinking tea in the dining room and talking to the other travelers who were staying there. It's not like we could go to sleep or anything - our "bedroom" was the dining room...
I didn't sleep very well that night, probably because of the altitude.
After breakfast, followed by a water-sterilizing session, we were ready to hit the road.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures II
August 20, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
Day 2 started with another 800m climb, this time to the Kanda La pass (4950m).
It was a very slow walk. The altitude was starting to get to us. At some point we could barely walk for even ten minutes without having to sit and rest.
After about four and a half hours of walking, we reached the pass. We were greeted by spectacular views and a couple of friendly yaks.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures III
August 20, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
At the pass we found a place to hide from the wind, and took a long lunch break (plus nap!). The packed lunch we got and Yurutse, and would get at every homestay for the rest of the trek was one boiled egg, one boiled potato, some type of Indian bread, a juice box (usually mango) and a chocolate bar. Sometimes there was also a piece of cheese. Sometimes the cheese was instead of one of the other things.
The walk down to Shingo (4150m), 800 vertical meters below the pass, was long and hot. Polina, Vitaly and I were feeling better, finally walking downhill, but Clark started to feel worse. The fact that there was no place to hide from the sun during the entire time didn't help.
We arrived to Shingo relatively early that day and had time for pre-dinner tea and a nap. Dinner was at 7, as always. We had rice with dhal and a salad (mostly cucumbers), as always. And tea. As always.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures IV
August 21, 2015 in India ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
From Shingo we continued downhill until Skiu (3430m) in a beautiful narrow canyon. In Skiu the trail turns to the South East and starts going gradually uphill. We were in a hurry because we were hoping to get to Markha village by the end of the day. And we were really close to making it, too - when we stopped for lunch at a deserted campsite and looked at the map, we realized that we were much closer to the destination than we thought we were.
After passing two more villages, the Markha river, which was running right below us all day long, left us no choice - we had to cross it. But we couldn't. There was no bridge, and after trying for an hour and a half, we finally realized that the water was too deep and the current was too strong. We decided to go back to the last village we passed (Sara, 3600m) and try again in the morning.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures V
August 22, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
After breakfast (all you can eat chapati, jam, honey and butter) one of the locals walked with us to the river crossing and showed us where to cross. We were supposed to have 3 more river crossings after that one. By the time we got to them, it started raining, which wouldn't be so bad on it's own, but the wind that started together with the rain made the whole thing just awful. After the first of the three crossings, two Israeli guys who decided to stay in the one house that was right there invited us for tea and we gladly accepted. We waited until it looked like the weather was getting better, and then continued.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures VI
August 22, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
After a few more river crossings, which became increasingly frustrating, we finally reached Markha (3800m). The village of Markha was hiding really well behind a hill. It's almost like it didn't want us to find it.
When we got to Markha it was still very early, but we decided to stay there because of the weather. The hostess brought us some tea and took some selfies with Clark. Her initiative, his camera. She spoke no English at all, but pretended to understand when we asked for no sugar in our tea next time. Sure enough, there was still plenty of sugar in our dinner and breakfast teas.
We had some time to walk around the village. There was a monastery, and the one monk of the Markha valley happened to be there at the time. The next day he walked to the same village we did to perform some religious ceremony. Also, I met some donkeys, who were really nice, but waking up in the morning to the sound of donkey screams is not one of my top five ways to wake up (and on my birthday, too!).Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
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Markha Valley Adventures VII
August 23, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C
The walk from Markha to Hangkar (4000m) was supposed to be a short walk, so we allowed ourselves a little detour - we took off our backpacks and hiked up 100m on a very steep trail to a Buddhist monastery that sits on a cliff. The monk from yesterday was there too, and he showed us around, but the best part were the views we saw from up there.Read more
Vitaly looks like he stole someone's shoes :-) you want your shoes? Come get'em! - anonymous manatee
9/22/15Reply
Vitaly looks like he stole someone's shoes :-) you want your shoes? Come get'em! - anonymous manatee
9/22/15Reply
Dmitry FaifmanVitaly looks like he stole someone's shoes
9/25/15Reply
Dmitry Faifman"You want your shoes? Come get them!"
9/25/15Reply
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures VIII
August 23, 2015 in India ⋅ 🌙 18 °C
We got to Hangkar, our final destination for the day, at around 2PM. We decided to stay at the first house of the village and spent a nice afternoon having birthday beers and playing cards. The rest of the people on the trail started coming in a bit later, some of whom required a little bit of medical assistance...Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures IX
August 24, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C
The fist part of the day is memorable for the one break that we took, to put on sunscreen, during which it started raining (+hail!).
The second part of the day consisted of a long climb up to Nimaling campsite. On the way we stopped at this little pond to have lunch, and Vitaly didn't let the cloudy weather stop him from going in.Read more
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The Indian Adventure Traveler
Markha Valley Adventures X
August 24, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C
Nimaling is a small campsite at 4800m, that consists of around 15 tents, which are the coziest tents you will ever sleep in. Even though it was really cold.
There were donkeys, cows, mountains... We had pre-dinner tea and soup in the kitchen/dining tent, Polina and Vitaly read their book (today's chapter was about this lady who marries five brothers, because their mother said so).
It was nice to sleep outside, for a change.Read more
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Trip end
August 24, 2015