Woke up at 4am in the morning. “It’s gonna be a long day today” I thought to myself. I just got 4 hrs of sleep that night but lack of sleep didn’t hinder my excitement for the road trip from Srinagar to Uley. 24 of us left the hotel at around 4:30am in 2 mini buses. Singing, dancing, playing games, listening to each other’s endless stories made the bus ride really fun. After 3 hours of journey we had to stop at a point in Sonamarg as the traffic was one way for the next 30-40 kms. We reached there at around 8:30 and they usually open the Srinagar traffic at 11. So we had 2-3 hrs to admire and explore the beauty of Sonamarg.

The Srinagar to Uley journey by road is a unique experience of seeing the transition of mind soothing greenery of Kashmir valley to rugged brown beauty of Ladakh region. I was absolutely mesmerised by the beauty of Sonamarg. As we were super hungry we had our breakfast at Hotel Sun flower. After our breakfast, we still had time to soak in the mind numbing beauty of Sonamarg. We sat by the Sindh river. I was left in awe by the beauty of the place. I could listen to the sound of the river flowing, of birds chirping, of wind moving for hours. It was so peaceful. After 2 hrs of slacking off by the river, we sat in our bus again to complete our journey to Uley.

During the bus ride, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the window. Everything was as pretty as a picture. After covering around 35 kms, we stopped at zero point. I was absolutely loving the chilly weather. After admiring the beauty for a bit, we again sat in the bus. The accumulated snow was visible on both sides of the road, with hills still covered with thick layer of snow. We stopped at Dras for lunch, the 2nd coldest inhabited land in the world. For our evening tea we stopped at Kargil.

After about 14 hrs of long road trip we finally reached our hotel, the Eco resort in Uley. Everything was absolutely beautiful including the cottages we stayed at. We were served some of the most delicious food. The sad bit was, we were there just for a night since we had to leave for Leh the next morning. Although it was a long and extremely tiring day, every bit of it was memorable and I couldn’t wait for what was next.
Stay tuned for the next part of my journey.

Until then,

Pooja